Travels in India (Tavernier) 8.4

8.4

All have in general a string, or tress, round the shoulders, from which hangs a small box of silver in the form of a reliquary, of the size of a good hazel nut, in which they keep a superstitious writing which their priests have enclosed in it. They place them also on their oxen, and on the other animals born in their herds, for which they entertain a special affection, loving them as dearly as they do their children, especially when they have none of the latter. The dress of the women is but a simple cloth, white or coloured, which makes five or six turns like a petticoat from the waist downwards, as if they had three or four one above the other. From the waist upwards they tatoo their skin with flowers, like as when one applies cupping glasses, and they paint these flowers divers colours with the juice of roots, in such a manner that it seems as though their skin was a flowered fabric. While the men load their animals in the morning and the women fold up their tents, the priests who follow them elevate, in the most beautiful parts of the plain where they are encamped, an idol in the form of a serpent, entwined about a staff of six or seven feet in height, and each one in file goes to make reverence to it, the girls turning round it three times. After all have passed, the priests take care to remove the idol and to load it on an ox allocated for that purpose. The caravans of waggons do not ordinarily consist of more than one hundred or two hundred at the most.