In these Khond sacrifices the Meriahs are represented by our
authorities as victims offered to propitiate the Earth Goddess. But
from the treatment of the victims both before and after death it
appears that the custom cannot be explained as merely a propitiatory
sacrifice. A part of the flesh certainly was offered to the Earth
Goddess, but the rest was buried by each householder in his fields,
and the ashes of the other parts of the body were scattered over the
fields, laid as paste on the granaries, or mixed with the new corn.
These latter customs imply that to the body of the Meriah there was
ascribed a direct or intrinsic power of making the crops to grow,
quite independent of the indirect efficacy which it might have as an
offering to secure the good-will of the deity. In other words, the
flesh and ashes of the victim were believed to be endowed with a
magical or physical power of fertilising the land. The same
intrinsic power was ascribed to the blood and tears of the Meriah,
his blood causing the redness of the turmeric and his tears
producing rain; for it can hardly be doubted that, originally at
least, the tears were supposed to bring down the rain, not merely to
prognosticate it.
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