With the
majority of its devotees it is probably more sympathetic than
practical, and ranks with the periodical ablutions in the Ganges and
Jumna, and the traditional worship of the local gods and ghosts,
which really impress the rustic. He is enclosed on all sides by a
ring of precepts, which attribute luck or ill-luck to certain things
or actions. These and the bonds of caste, with its obligations for
the performance of marriage, death, and other ceremonies, make up the
religions life of the peasant. Nearly every village and hamlet has
its local ghost, usually the shrine of a childless man, or one whose
funeral rites remained for some reason unperformed. In the expressive
popular phrase, he is 'deprived of water' (_aud_). The pious make
oblations to his cenotaph twice a year, and propitiate his ghost with
offerings of water to allay his thirst in the lower world. The
primaeval serpent-worship is perpetuated in the reverence paid to
traditional village-snakes. Of the local ghosts some are beneficent.
Sometimes they are only mischievous, like Robin Goodfellow, and will
milk the cows, and sour the milk, or pull your hair, if you wander
about at night in certain well-known uncanny places.
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