Human sacrifice has prevailed largely in India, and is not yet quite
extinct. In 1891 some Jats in the Muzaffarnagar District of the
United Provinces sacrificed a boy in a very painful manner for some
unascertained magical purpose. It was supposed that the object was to
induce the gods to grant offspring to a childless woman. Other
similar cases have occurred in recent years. One occurred close to
Calcutta in 1892. In the hill tracts of Orissa bordering on the
Central Provinces the rite of human sacrifice was practised by the
Khonds on an awful scale, and with horrid cruelty, It was suppressed
by the special efforts of Macpherson, Campbell, MacViccar, and other
officers, between the years 1837 and 1854. Daring that period the
British officers rescued 1,506 victims intended for sacrifice
(_Narrative of Major-General John Campbell, C.B., of his Operations
in the Hill Tracts of Orissa for the Suppression of Human Sacrifices
and Female Infanticide_. Printed for private circulation. London:
Hurst and Blackett, 1861). The rite, when practised by Hindoos, may
have been borrowed from some of the aboriginal races.
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