60/364 The god pointed to a tank and told him to eat the fish in it and the wild rice which grew near the banks. Mr.Crooke [429] says that they use fish largely except in the fortnight (Pitripaksh) sacred to the dead in the month of Kunwar, and Sir H.Risley notes that after the rice harvest the Binds wander about the country digging up the stores of rice accumulated by field rats in their burrows. From four to six pounds of grain are usually found, but even this quantity is sometimes exceeded. The Binds also feast on the rats, but they deny this, saying that to do so would be to their own injury, as a reduction of the next year's find of grain would thus be caused. |