In the eastern districts of the North-Western Provinces there is a regular rite common to all the inferior…
- Date of account
- Second edition published 1896
- Source
- The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 1 (of 2)
- Reference
- The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 1 (of 2) · selected passage 5
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
In the eastern districts of the North-Western Provinces there is a regular rite common to all the inferior castes that a few days before a wedding the women go in procession to the village clay-pit and fetch from there the sacred earth (matmangara), which is used in making the marriage altar and the fireplace on which …
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyIn the eastern districts of the North-Western Provinces there is a regular rite common to all the inferior castes that a few days before a wedding the women go in procession to the village clay-pit and fetch from there the sacred earth (matmangara), which is used in making the marriage altar and the fireplace on which the wedding feast is cooked. There are various elements in the ritual which point to a very primitive origin. Thus, one part of the proceedings is that a Chamâr, one of the non-Aryan castes, leads the procession, beating his drum the whole time to scare demons. When the earth has been collected the drum is worshipped and smeared with red lead. There can be little doubt that the drum was one of the very primitive fetishes of the aboriginal races. One, and perhaps about the most primitive, form of it is the Damaru or drum shaped like an hour-glass which accompanies Siva, and next to this comes the Mândar, the sides of which are formed out of earthenware, and which is the first stage in the development of a musical instrument from a vessel covered with some substance which resounds when beaten. This latter form of drum is the national musical instrument of the Central Indian Gonds and their brethren.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.