age are believed to draw other's evil eye and envy and to lead to diminution in all these. It is said of Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander, that one after another, he heard three good news about himself. He thought that if these three good tidings will be talked about much, that will draw some evil eye or envy upon him. So, he prayed to God to be saved from this envy.

The evil eye, the belief in which leads to concealment, need not necessarily be present, i.e., there need Evil eye. not always be present a person or persons to cast an evil eye. The evil eye is present, as it were, in the air. It exerts its influence, not only in the case of the concealment of age or wealth, but in various ways. The evil eye may be of malignant spirits hovering in the air. I remember, that in my days of childhood, when I went out with my mother or aunts on a picnic and we sat in the open air for our meals, my mother and aunts, before commencing eating, threw small pieces of bread round about, to avert the influence of evil eyes. They would not like a poor passer by stopping on his way and looking at our meals. They would immediately give him a pice or so or a piece of bread and ask him to go away. For further safety, whether any poor person may be passing by or not, they threw pieces of bread, etc., round about for the satisfaction of evil eyes hovering about. If they were to drink, say toddy or say whisky and soda they would dip their fingers in their glasses and sprinkle the drops adhering to the fingers round about. The idea is, that you are in a position to have good meals, but there are others round about who are not in a position to have these for themselves. So, they would cast an evil eye or an eye envy upon your good fortune. Do what you can, therefore, to avert that evil eye. In the case of age, especially old age, the concealment of the correct age is one of the means to avert the evil eye from you. The influence of the evil eye is spoken among the Gujarati speaking people and, among them, among

of

the Parsees as q, i.e., to be struck with an (evil ) eye. The Mahomedans speak of it as chashm-i-bad (a: pûą). In the Bible, in St. Mark (VII, 20-22), where there is a mention of things that enter a man from without and defile him, and of things, "which cometh out of the man that defileth the man," an evil eye is mentioned as belonging to the latter class. We find that from the above idea of an "evil eye" in the sense of "envy," even the word "eye" without the word "evil" is used for envy. We read in I Samuel, XVIII, 9 "And Saul eyed David from that day and forward." What is meant is, that he had an evil eye of envy. In the Proverbs (XXIII,6) it is said: "Eat not the bread of him that has an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats."

vanity.

A number of people, both male and female, understate their age through a kind of vanity. It is especi(b) Concealment through ally the case with females of all classes and creeds. Women generally desire to be considered younger than they are. Unmarried women have, in addition to this feminine weakness, the cause of self-interest, viz, that of a better demand in marriage. They wish to avoid being put in the class of old maids. It is generally considered uncourteous or unmannerly to ask a lady her age. The above seems to be the cause. She wishes to be considered younger, and so, by asking her, her age, you put her to the inconvenience of stating an untruth. In English law, it is enjoined that one giving an incorrect age in the census forms may be fined up to £5. It is said of a lady, that, when yielding to the above feminine weakness, she gave incorrect age, she, as a penance or penalty for acting against her conscience, sent, through a public newspaper, of course anonymously, the fine of £5 and spent an additional sum of half a crown for an advertisement in the paper announcing the payment. It is said, that in England, in the Census of 1881, a certain number of women were enumerated as having the age of 25. In 1891, at the next census, one may naturally expect at least,

But no,

the return of the same number for the age of 25. the number had much fallen showing that the fashion or weakness of deliberately concealing the age among women had grown. Many worden like to be considered of an age of or under 25, that being generally considered as the marriageable age.

Besides concealment for vanity, there is, at times, concealment for self-interest and that occurs in various directions. Firstly, as we have just spoken of marriage, I will speak of concealment in the case of marriages by widowers.

(c) Concealment of age for selfinterest. Case of widowers.

In India, where there is a restriction of widow marriages among some classes the tendency on the part of parents of young girls of a tender age, is at times, to over-state instead of understate the age of their daughters. Widowers, being prohibited to marry widows, have to resort to young brides. In such cases, the tendency on both sides is to mis-state their ages. The widower has in order to tempt the consent of the bride or her parent, to understate his age, and the bride's parents, in order to save themselves the stigma of givin or rather selling, their young tender daughters to rich widowers have to overstate her age. The earlier the widowers re-marry, the better is held to be their reputation as good husbands. I remember a late Mehtaji of my office asking for leave of absence to attend to his sick wife in a mofussil town. The wife died and he extended his leave on her death for a few days more. Again, a few days after, he asked for a further extension in order to be married before he returned to duty. It is said, that at times, of course very rare, arrangements of another marriage are made at the very Masin kântha, i.e., the burning grounds. In such a state of affairs, it is no wonder if there be some cases of hasty marriages after the death of one's wife, and, consequently, there be a tendency from the above causes to overstate or understate age on both the sides. My own Parsee community has not

been free from some cases of this kind. Such cases, though few and far between, were more heard about 40 or 50 years ago than now.

Marriages were arranged by match-makers and love marriages were few. So, widowers, in order to secure younger women for their second marriages concealed their age. I have even heard of stray cases having occured in the last century, not only of concealment of age, but of a kind of concealment of persons. The match-makers, when they brought about the matches, showed to the widowers and to the widows, their prospective wives or husbands from a distance. There were no regular occasions for the parties to meet, much less to converse. So, it is said, that intriguing match-makers, at times, showed wrong persons to the parties. They showed younger widowers to the widows intending second marriages, and older widows to the intending widowers.

Where such wordly motives led to a concealment of age, it is no wonder if such concealment occured in our Indian Censuses. I will not dwell at length on other cases of concealment resorted to for self-interest. This concealment is practised for various reasons. Again, the concealment is in both directions. Some understate their age. Some overstate their age. One and the same persons do both the things. At times, they overstate their age and at times they understate their age. It is to the interest of a person to conceal his true age and understate it when he has to insure his life. It is to the interest of a student to overstate his age if there is a restriction of a certain age before which he cannot go in for his examination, or to understate it if there is a restriction of age after which he cannot be employed in some office or for some work, wherein he seeks some kind of employment. A lady thinks it good for her general interest to conceal her age and understate it to appear as young, but the same lady, when seeking employment will like to overstate her age if there is a restriction of age under which no employment can be given.

386

THE JOURNAL

OF THE

ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

PROCEEDINGS OF MEETINGS.

Meeting of 27th July 1921, 6 p.m., Vice-President Rao Bahadur P. B. Joshi in the Chair. Papers read :

(1) The Province of Folklore in Religion, Law and Science. By Mr. J. A. Saldanha, B.A., LL.B.

(2) An Iranian Legend of the use of plant Sidab (rue). By Dr. Jivanji Jamshedji Modi, B.A., Ph. D., C.I.E.

Meeting of 31st August 1921, 6 p.m., President Mr. Otto Rothfeld in the Chair. Dr. Samuel Enok Hedberg and Mr. Aga Hyder Hosain were duly elected a Life-Member and an Ordinary member respectively. Paper read :

The Indian Custom of a Husband or Wife not naming his Wife or her Husband. By Dr. Jivanji Jamshedji Modi, B.A., Ph. D., C.I.E.

Meeting of 28th September 1921, 6 p.m.,. Vice President Rao Bahadur P. B. Joshi in the Chair. Paper read:

Some Curious Folklore about Precious Stones. By
Mr. S. S. Mehta, B.A.

Meeting of 26th October 1921, 6 p.m., Mr. G. E. L. Carter, I.C.S. in the Chair. Mr. H. Dow, I.C.S. and Dr. O. Pertold, Ph.D., were duly elected members. Papers read:

(1) The Means and Methods of collecting Folklore. By Mr. J.A. Saldanha, B.A., LL.B.