really dead; he has thrown off his body like a husk, yet still
retains his old appearance, and often shows himself to his old
friends, especially after nightfall. He is no doubt possessed
of more extensive powers than before his transformation,[72]
and may very likely have a share in regulating the weather,
granting or withholding rain. Therefore, argues the
uncivilized mind, he is to be cajoled and propitiated more
sedulously now than before his strange transformation.

[72] Thus is explained. the singular conduct of the Hindu, who
slays himself before his enemy's door, in order to acquire
greater power of injuring him. "A certain Brahman, on whose
lands a Kshatriya raja had built a house, ripped himself up in
revenge, and became a demon of the kind called Brahmadasyu,
who has been ever since the terror of the whole country, and
is the most common village-deity in Kharakpur. Toward the
close of the last century there were two Brahmans, out of
whose house a man had wrongfully, as they thought, taken forty
rupees; whereupon one of the Brahmans proceeded to cut off his
own mother's head, with the professed view, entertained by
both mother and son, that her spirit, excited by the beating
of a large drum during forty days might haunt, torment, and
pursue to death the taker of their money and those concerned
with him." Tylor, Primitive Culture, Vol. II. p. 103.

This kind of worship still maintains a languid existence as
the state religion of China, and it still exists as a portion
of Brahmanism; but in the Vedic religion it is to be seen in
all its vigour and in all its naive simplicity. According to
the ancient Aryan, the pitris, or "Fathers" (Lat. patres),