ng man, stout but of small stature,
was usually selected and secured by violence or by intoxicating him
with _yaala_. "They then lead him into the fields, and sacrifice him in
the fields, according to their own expression, _for seed_. His blood,
after having been coagulated by the rays of the sun, is burned along
with the frontal bone, the flesh attached to it and the brain. The
ashes are then scattered over the fields to fertilise them and the
remainder of the body is eaten." In other cases quoted by the same
author an image only was made of flour and eaten instead of a human
being: [214] "In Mexico at a certain period of the year the priest of
Quetzalcoatl made an image of the Deity, of meal mixed with infants'
blood, and then, after many impressive ceremonies, killed the image
by shooting it with an arrow, and tore out the heart, which was eaten
by the king, while the rest of the body was distributed among the
people, every one of whom was anxious to procure a piece to eat,
however small." Here the communal sacrificial meal, the remaining
link necessary to connect the sacrifice of the corn-spirit with that
of the domestic animal and clan totem, is present. Among cases of
animals sacrificed as the corn-spirit in India that of the buffalo
at the Dasahra festival is the most important. The rite extends
over most of India, and a full and interesting account of it has
recently been published by Mr. W. Crooke. [215] The buffalo is
probably considered as the corn-spirit because it was the animal
which mainly damaged the crops in past times. Where the sacrifice
still survives the proprietor of the village usually makes the first
cut in the buffalo and it is then killed and eaten by the inferior
castes, as Hindus cannot now touch the flesh. In the Deccan after
the buffalo is killed the Mahars rush on the carcase and each one
secures a piece of the flesh. This done they go in procession round
the walls, calling on the spirits and demons, and asking them to
accept the pieces of meat as offerings, which are then thrown to them
backwards over the wall. [216] The buffalo is now looked upon in the
light of a scape-goat, but the procedure described above cannot be
satisfactorily explained on the scape-goat theory, and would appear
clearly to have been substituted for the former eating of the flesh. In
the Maratha Districts the lower castes have a periodical sacrifice of
a pig to the sun; they eat the flesh of the pig together, and ev