Worship of Mother Earth.
The worship of Mother Earth assumes many varied forms. The pious Hindu does reverence to her as he rises from his bed in the morning; and even the indifferent follows his example when he begins to plough and sow. In the Panjâb,57 “when a cow or buffalo is first bought, or when she first gives milk after calving, the first five streams of milk drawn from her are allowed to fall on the ground in honour of the goddess, and every time of milking the first stream is so treated. So, when medicine is taken, a little is sprinkled in her honour.” On the same principle the great Kublai Khân used to sprinkle the milk of his mares on the ground. “This is done,” says Marco Polo,58 “on the injunction of the idolaters and idol priests, who say that it is an excellent thing to sprinkle milk on the ground every 28th of August, so that the earth and the air and the false gods shall have their share of it, and the spirits likewise that inhabit the air and the earth, and those beings will protect and bless the Kaan and his children, and his wives, and his folk and his gear, and his cattle and his horses, and all that is his.”
The same feeling is also shown in the primitive taboo, which forbids that any holy thing, such as the blood of a tribesman, should fall upon the ground. Thus we are told that Kublai Khân ordered his captive Nayan “to be wrapped in a carpet and tossed to and fro so mercilessly that he died, and the Kaan caused him to be put to death in this way, because he would not have the blood of his Line Imperial spilt upon the ground, and exposed to the eye of heaven and before the sun.” Even some savages when they are obliged to shed the blood of a member of the tribe, as at the rite of circumcision, receive it upon their own bodies. The soul, in fact, is supposed to be in the blood, and any ground on which the blood falls becomes taboo or accursed.59
Throughout Northern India the belief in the sanctity of the earth is universal. The dying man is laid on the earth at the moment of dissolution, and so is the mother at the time of parturition. In the case of the dying there is perhaps another influence at work in this precaution, the idea that the soul must not be barred by roof or wall, and allowed to wing its course unimpeded to the place reserved for it.
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 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. The Chamâr, again, digs the earth with an affectation of secrecy, which, as we shall see, is indispensable in rites of this class. The mother of the bride or bridegroom veils herself with her sheet, and the digger passes the earth over his left shoulder to a virgin who stands behind him and receives it in a corner of her robe.
Dust, again, which has been trodden on has mystic powers. In the villages you may see little children after an elephant has passed patting the marks of his feet in the dust and singing a song. Among the Kunbis of Kolâba, when the women neighbours come to inspect a newly-born child, they touch the soles of the mother’s feet, as if picking some dust off them, wave it over the child, and blow the dust particularly into the air and partly over the baby.60 In Thâna, when a mother goes out with a young child on her hip, if she cannot get lamp-black to rub between its eyes, she takes dust off her left foot and rubs it on the child’s forehead.61 So we read of the Isle of Man—“If a person endowed with the Evil Eye has just passed by a farmer’s herd of cattle, and a calf has suddenly been seized with a serious illness, the farmer hurries after the man with the Evil Eye to get the dust from under his feet. If he objects, he may, as has sometimes been very unceremoniously done, throw him down by force, take off his shoes and scrape off the dust adhering to their soles, and carry it back to throw over the calf. Even that is not always necessary, as it appears to be quite enough if he takes up dust where he of the Evil Eye has just trod.”62
Earth, again, is regarded as a remedy for disease. I have seen people in Ireland take a pinch of earth from the grave of a priest noted for his piety, and drink it dissolved in water. People suffering from a certain class of disease come to the tomb of the Saint Kadri at Yemnur in Dharwâr and smear their bodies with mud that they may be cured of the disease.63 There are numerous instances of the use of earth as a poultice and an application for the cure of wounds and sores among the savage tribes of Africa and elsewhere.
It is on much the same principle that among some tribes in India Mother Earth is worshipped as a Kuladevatâ or household goddess and appealed to in times of danger. The Hindu troopers at the battle of Kâmpti, at the crisis of the engagement, took dust from their grooms and threw it over their heads. At Sûrat in 1640, in fear of drought, Brâhmans went about carrying a board with earth on it on their heads.64 So wrestlers, when they are about to engage in a contest, rub earth on their arms and legs and roll on the ground. As in the classical legend of Antaeus, they believe that they derive strength from the touch of Mother Earth.
The same principle, also, appears to be at the bottom of many similar practices. Thus the Hindu always uses earth to purify his cooking vessels, which he regards with peculiar respect. Mourners of the Jaina creed on going home after a funeral rub their hands with earth and water to remove the death impurity. In his daily bath the pious Hindu rubs a little Ganges mud on his body. The Pârsis cover the parings of their hair and nails with a little earth so that demons may not enter into them. The Muhammadan uses earth for the purpose of purification when water is not procurable. For the same reason the ascetic rubs his body with dust and ashes, which, as we shall see, is a potent scarer of demons. Though here there is possibly another theory at work at the same time. The practice was common to the Greek as well as to the barbarian mysteries, and according to Mr. Lang, “the idea clearly was that by cleaning away the filth plastered over the body was symbolized the pure and free condition of the initiate.”