HKB
the corpse when the spirit has passed away. The rite is as obscure in theory as in practice, and I have never heard or seen a satisfactory explanation of it.
The dog is more frequently eaten than we are apt to believe. In Hindu poetry, innocent low-caste folk are contemptuously spoken of as "dog-cookers." I am assured that there is some ground for the gibe at Sansis and other gypsy tribes,--"When the gypsies come in at one side of the town, the dogs file out at the other." There is a double reason for this retreat, for not only do the Sansis eat dogs, but being in their way sporting characters, they keep dogs of their own, and a dog with never so squalid a man for master is dreaded by the ownerless pariah. An ordinary Indian street dog weighs from twenty to thirty-six pounds, and if he were fed would probably be over forty pounds in weight. Carrion-eating tribes have no prejudices in the matter of food, and the lizard, the jackal, and the rat are favourite roasts. It is manifest that to stomachs of this hardihood a dog would furnish lordly dishes.
There is a nine-word saying among poor folk to express a dilemma, which indicates the possibility of dog's flesh being mistaken for that of the kid: "If I tell, my mother will be beaten, if I don't tell, my father will eat dog's flesh." The story is that a housewife cooked dog's flesh by mistake, and the small son of the house alone knew what manner of meat was in the pot--an awful weight on the mind of a Muhammadan child. It is by no means necessary, of course, for the currency or force of the saying, that it should be based on an actual incident, for a remote possibility or an impossibility serves just as well.
In some regions dogs are regularly eaten. The Nâgas on the Assam frontier have a partiality for a dog who has just been full fed with rice and milk. He is hastily killed and cooked whole,--"chien farci au naturel." It may be that out-caste folk have more toothsome food than we know. It is not proved that the lizard, the crocodile, and the snake are uneatable; indeed, it is probable they are very good. Jackal and fox must be dry and hard, but the stew-pot may reduce them to succulence. Darwin dined on puma in South America and found it like veal. I once accompanied a little company of silent Bhils in a search for field-rats, which were dug out and captured with great dexterity,--plump brown and white creatures, fed on the best of the crops and doubtless of fine flavour; but I did not wait to see how they were cooked over a fire, the kindling for which was carefully borne by a young woman of the party, who had much ado to screen it from the wind blowing over the high downs of the Deccan.