File:The north-western provinces of India - their history, ethnology, and administration (1897) (14747617336).jpg

Identifier: northwesternpro00croo (find matches)
Title: The north-western provinces of India : their history, ethnology, and administration
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Crooke, William, 1848-1923
Subjects:
Publisher: London, Methuen
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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vation. Every village has its own local shrine,where the deities, in the main destructive, have been pro-pitiated and controlled by the constant service of theirvotaries. Once the wanderer leaves the hamlet where hewas born, he enters the domains of new and unknown deities,who, being strangers, are of necessity hostile to him, andmay resent his intrusion by sending famine, disease, or deathupon the luckless stranger. The emigrant, again, to adistant land, finds extreme difficulty in selecting suitablehusbands for his daughters. He must choose his sons-in-lawwithin a narrow circle, and if he allows his daughter toreach womanhood unwed, he commits a grievous sin. Shouldhe die in exile, he may fail to win the heaven of the gods,because no successor will make the due funeral oblations,and no trusted family priest be there to arrange the lastjourney of his spirit. So he may wander through the agesa starving, suffering, malignant ghost, because his obsequieshave not been duly performed. 326
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THE PEASANT AND THE LAND All this will to some extent explain why there is so littlemovement among the people. We may first consider theinternal migration. Some of this is due to economic orclimatic causes. Thus, during harvest time in Bundelkhandthere is some movement of labour from tracts where the cropis late in ripening to others where it is early; in the sameway Irishmen from Connaught cross the Channel to northernEngland. The same is the case in the northern hilly tract,where peasants move into the lowlands of the Bhabar andTarai when the stress of malaria is reduced, or others aredriven by the pressure of the snow from the higher levels tothe more sheltered valleys. There is, again, another form of migration based on religiousor industrial considerations. Besides the great bathing fairsand the constant stream of pilgrims to the holy places, manyof the wealthier classes in their old age move to the neigh-bourhood of shrines like those of Benares or Mathura, deathwithin these sac

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