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The body of the snake was then taken and
carefully buried in a trench, dug close to the cattle-fold, where
its remains, like those of a chief, were henceforward kept perfectly
undisturbed. The period of penance, as in the case of mourning for
the dead, is now happily reduced to a few days." In Madras it is
considered a great sin to kill a cobra. When this has happened, the
people generally burn the body of the serpent, just as they burn the
bodies of human beings. The murderer deems himself polluted for
three days. On the second day milk is poured on the remains of the
cobra. On the third day the guilty wretch is free from pollution.
In these last cases the animal whose slaughter has to be atoned for
is sacred, that is, it is one whose life is commonly spared from
motives of superstition. Yet the treatment of the sacrilegious
slayer seems to resemble so closely the treatment of hunters and
fishermen who have killed animals for food in the ordinary course of
business, that the ideas on which both sets of customs are based may
be assumed to be substantially the same.


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