Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1882 — HINDOO WIDOWS. [ARTICLE]

HINDOO WIDOWS.

Th? HorribleSacrlflce Which They are Called Upon to Make.. , A mor? mistaken idea pt conjugal duty, or a more severe and ‘ painful test of conjugal affection, ca£ not be conceived than that of the Hindoo widow who disdained to live after her husband, voluntarily mounts the funeral pile on which his dead body is placed, au amiable victim to a bar? berous faith. Considerable pains had been taken by the British Government to stop these horrid rites, but without effect; indeed, it seems that so far from the custom having been diminished, it has increased. It appears from a return made to Parlinient on this subject, in 1821, that the number of Hindoo widows who were burnt or buried alive with theif husbands, in the same number of districts, was, in the 1815, 378: in 1819,442; in 1817, 709. and in 1818, 839. A Hindoo widow who resolves thus to devote herself, abstains from food as soon as her husband is dead, chewing betel, and invoking, without ceasing. the god of her husband’s sect, When the fatal hour arrives she addorns herself with her jewels, and puts on her most costly attire, as if she were going to a festival, She is accompanied by the music of drums and trumpets. The victim affectionately embraces her friends and relatives, among whom she distributes part if her jewels and ornaments; she comforts-them 4 while they bless her and entreat her prayers to God to grant then the fortitude she manifests in pimilar circumstances. The widows generally meet death with heroic firmness and constancy, convinced that in thus burning themselves from conjugal attachment they shall by the sacrifice, deliver their husbands from the torture of the next life, whatever crimes he may have committed in this. Mr. Holwell, well known as having been one of the wretched prisoners in the Black hole of Calcutta, gives an account of one Hindoo widow, who, being told of the pain she must suffer, with a view to dissuade her from her intention, put. her finger into the fire and held It there for a considerable time, after which she nut fire on the palm of her band, laid incense upon it and fumigated the Bramins who were present.

Bernier, who has an interesting article on this subject in Harleian Collection, speaking of the undaunted resolution which a widow at Surat exhibited says, “I cannot do justice to the scene of suffering; the confidence with w’hich she looked on us European spectators, and met the view of her little cabin, made up of dried millet straw and small wood, prepared for the catastrophe. The remembrance of the impressive manner in which she entered this receptacle, sat down upon the pile and took her husband’s hand into her lap, will never desert me; nor can time ever efface the recolleclion of my feelings when I calmly saw her take a torch, and with her own hands kindle the reeds within, while I know not how many Brami ns without were doing the same thing. I ean at present scarcely think the scene possible, though but a few days since I beheld it.” Mr. Forbes, in his “Oriental Memoirs,” mentions the case of a female whose husband had amply provided for her, aud, what is very unusual among Hindoos, made her totally independent of his family. All was of no avail, she persisted in her determination to accompany him into a better world, and suffered not the tears and supplications of an aged mother ahd three helpless infants to divert her from her purpose. The funeral pyre was erected, and an immense concourse of people of all ranks assembled and a band of music accompanied the Braining, who superintended the ceremony. The bower of death, enwreathed with sacred flowers, was erected ever a pile of sandal wood and spices, on which lay the body of the deceased. After various ceremonies the music ceased and the

the crowd, in t solemn silence, awaited the arrival of the heroine. She approached, attended by her mother and three children, arrayed in rich attire, and wearing hymenial crown, an ornament peculiar to an Hindoo bride at her marriage. After a few religous ceremonies the attendants took oft her jewels annointing her disheveled hair with consecrated ghee, as also the skirts of her flowing robe of yellow muslin, (the color of nuptial blis«), Two lisping infants clung around her knees to dissuade her from her fatal purpose; tha last pledge or conjugal love was taken from her bosom by an aged parent in speechless agony. Freed from these heart-piercing mourners, the lovely widow, with an air of solemn majesty, received a lighted torch from one of the Bramins, with which she walked seven times round the pyre. Stopping near the entrance of the bower for the last time, she addressed the fire and worshipped the other deities, as prescribed in the “Sutte-ved”; then setting fire to her hair and the skirts of her robe to render herself the only brand worthy of illuminating the sacred pile, she threw away the torch, rushed into the bower, and, embracing her busband, thus communicated the flames to the surrounding branches. The musicians immediately struck up theloudest strains to drown the cries of the victim, should her courage have forcaken her; but several of the specta tors dec'ared that the serenity of her countenance and the dignity of her behavior surpassed all the sacrifices of a similar nature they had ever witnessed. As polygamy is allowed among the Hindoos, it frequently happens that more than one widow immolates her- > self with the dead body of the husband. In 1807 a Koolin Bramin (the

purest of all the Bramins, and who are privileged "to marry as many wives as they please) died at the advanced age of 92. He had tyelve Wives, three of wham were burned alive witn his dead body. Obe of these was an aged and venerable female, wha,.being udable to walk, was carried in a palanquin to the funeral pile. In the year 1799 twenty-two females were -turned alive with the remains ofUnuntu, a Koolin Brarnin, ofßagruiparu, who had more than 100 wives. At the first kindling of the fire only three of these wives had arrived. The fire was kept kindled three days. When one or more arrived the ceremonies were gone through, and they threw tbemsejves on the blazing pile. On the first day three were burned, and on the second and third nineteen more. Among these women some are 40 years old, and others as young as 16. In 1812 another Koolin Brarnin died at Chunakuli. near Calcutta, who had married twenty-five women, thirteen ofwhomdiedin his lifetime. The remaining twelve perished with him on the funeral pile, leaving thirty children to deplore the effects of this horrid system.

Some years previous to this eight een women, the only survivors of.the forty wives of another Koolin Brarnin, who died at Soukachura, three miles east of Seram pore, sacrificed themselves in the usual way. On this occasion a fire extended ten or twtelve yards in length was prepared, into which the remainihg eighteen threw themselves, leaving more than forty children. It is however, an indisputable article in Hindoo laws "that the mother of an infant child may not relinquish the care of her infant to ascend the funeral pile.” In some cases widows sacrifice themselves several years after the death of their husbands, after being earlier prevented; or if voluntarily avoiding it, they afterward entertain a superstitious ‘ apprehension that they have not done their duty. In the parlimentary report to which we have alluded, it is stated that in November, 1817 Massuiuaut Rammoesa, aged 80, whose husband had been absent from his home fifteen years, being assured of his death, resolved to sacrifice herself, but in such Cases the body of the husband is wanting, the widow generally takes some article that belonged to him, with which she mounts the funeral pile. ’•here are not a few cases in which, when children have been bethrothed, and the males died before any consummation of the marriage, the female waits until she has reached womanhood, and then sacrifices herself. An instance of this sort occurred in 1819, when a young woman in her 15 th year resolved to perform the ceremony, the person to whom she had been betrothed bavidg died when she was only 6 years of age; she requested a fiddle which had belonged to her husband to be given to her, and notwithstanding the remonstrances of her friends immolated herself to his manes. In the same year, another Brarnin, who had been married at 7 years of age, and whose husband had died the year after, determined to become a suttee. She was ndw 19 years of age, and it was 11 years since her husband’s death yet nothing could dissuade her from the horrid ceremony. When remonstrated with on the subject, she said: “My husband’s death was not occasioned by old age, and be had not attained eternal bliss; I have lived until now, in order to procure this blessing from him. Give me no advice; I am determined to become a suttee; my future happiness depends upon my becoming one.” For four days previous to her burn ing herself on the funeral pile, she refused every kind of sustenance.

Canibalism in Fiji. It was only people who had been killed that were considered good for food. Those who died a natural death were never eaten—invariably buried But it certainly is a wonder that the isles were not altogether depopulated, owing to the number who were killed. Thus, in Namena, in the year 1851, fifty bodies were cooked for one feast. And when the men of Bau were at war with Verata they carried off 260 bodies, seventeen of which were piled on a conoe and sent toßewa, where they were received with wild joy, dragged about the town, and -objected to every species of indignity ere they finally reached the ovens.

Then, too, Just think of the number of lives sacrificed in a country where infantcide.was a recognized institution, and where widows were strangled as a matter of Course! Why, on one occasion when there had been a horrible massacre of Namena people at Viwa, and upward of one hundred people had been murdered, and their bodies carried as bokola to the ovens at Bau’ nojess than eig ty women were strangled to do honor to the dead, and corpses lay in every direction of the mission station It is just thirty years since the Rev. John Watsford, writing from here, described how twenty-eight-- victims had been seized in one day while fishing. They were brought here alive, and only stunned when put into the ovens. Some of the miserable creatures attempted to escape .from the scorching bed of red ho f stones, but only to be driven back and buried in that living tomb, whence they were taken a few hours later to feast their barbarous captors. He adds that more human beings were eaten .on this little isle of Bau than any where else in Fiji. It is very bard', indeed, to realize that the peaceful village on which lam now looking has really been the scene of such horrors as these, and that many of the gentle, kindly people around me have actually taken part in them.]—At home in