INDIAN CUSTOMS.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 2775, 17 October 1923, Page 4

INDIAN CUSTOMS.

WORK OP ZENANA MISSION. AMONG THE CHILD-WIDOWS. It was upon the life and scones of India that Miss Elsie Lilly, organising secretary in New Zealand of the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission, lectured last evening in St. Andrew's Hall, speaking first—hand on the beliefs of the people, and the terrible, customs that still survive in a country where religion enters positively into every part of the lives of the people,' After giving some statistics in regard to India and its, population, which was one-fifth of that of the. world's and the different types of-the people, their varying ideas about sociability, body ornamentation and soap—and—water; of the type that mixed freely among themselves, and of the Hi n< * u women, who were forced to walk five yards behind their husbands when in the street, Miss Lilly went on to speak of The Tomb of Silence, where the Parsees buried their dead. The speaker's lantern slides, with which she illustrated her lecture, showed this circular, roofless structure of stone. Across the open space surrounding this tomb the living carried their dead,, and climbing to the top of the walls, threw the bodies over into the enclosure. Around tnese walls, waiting in bloated and loathsome patience to execute the work expected of them, perched scores of vultures, watching the Indian dead fall awkwardly among the bones of former citizens, picked clean and dry of flesh by those silent scavengers.

"Although the degradation 'in India is greater than in any other part of the world," said the lecturer, "the greatest building in the country, tha Taj Mahal, was erected to the memory of a woman.

CHILD BRIDES AND WIDOWS. "This picture," continued Miss Lilly, "is of an Indian girl of 6 years, dressed for her wedding day. Her husband she -may not have seen, and he may be forty or fifty years old. I did not realise what it meant until a little girl associate of mine there one day became a bride, and I watched her go out into the darkness of child wifehood. And then cornea child widowr hood. It is the greatest curse known in Ind,ia. The people used to burn the child with the dead husband, but that was stopped by the British Government." And yet there were girls who offered to die with their dead husbands rather than be widows. If they became such, their hair was shaved off and they became outcasts. If the shadow of a child-widow fell across a man on his way to business, he would feel himself under a curse all day. "These little girls were brought up to believe that they were soulless, and ranked but with rats and monkeys, but the Mission is teaching them that they have souls, and is showing them the true God. And the teaching of the Mission gives them immeasurable joy, and they are becoming nurses, teachers for the Mission and married to Christian men." A hearty vote of thanks was accorded the speaker, and a collection taken up for the Mission. Miss Lilly will lecture again tonight, at St. David's Terrace End.