The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-06-30

| cakes to lay away and dry for fuel. Sucn
fuel is the wood and coal of India, and the
women have the making of it. They fol
low the carts along the streets and gather
the droppings with their hands into bas-
kets. Such mixture of gorgeousness and
dirtiness l have never seen.
SPEAKING OF JEwELRY,
there are no women in the world so fond OF
| jewelry as those of India. In the museum
of the raiah of Jeypore l was shown a col
lection of 1,500 different styles of Indian
| jewelry, and through every province
have Travelled l find the women dress diff
ferently. Among the hills of India and on
the slopes of the Himalayas a woman
sometimes wears as high as fifty pounds of
! iewelry. This is often of brass, but not
! infrequently of silver and gold. l saw one
woman in turban who had nose ring as
big around as the top of goblet fastened
! by gold chain to a hole in her ear. She
had gold earrings with gold chains at
tached to them, so made that they covered
the ear, and around her neck were strands
of corals, of silver beads and silver coins
A great silver chain hung from the bottom
of her rings down to her waist and she
had bracelets and anklets and rings on toes
and fingers. There are here in Bombay
5000 jewelers., and at Delhi the great bus
mess of the people is the making Of gold
and silver ornaments.
PUNDIrA RAMABIA,
the high caste Hindoo woman who has
been raising funds in America for the es-
tablishment Of college for the child widows
OF India, has Just returned home She is
now at Poona, delightful spot in the hills
about one hundred miles from Bombay,
and she will soon begin the construction of
her institution. The American women,
who have formed Ramabai's circles over
the United States, have wasted neither
their pity nor their money. The condition
of the child widows is even worse than she
has painted it, and these infant marriages
which | have seen, together with many
talks which l have had with both natives
and foreigners, have given me an insight
into the horrors of Hindoo marriages and
Hindoo widowhood. The Hindoo wife is
in paradise compared to the Hindoo widow.
The condition of the wife is bad enough.
As the slave of her husband she eats after
he is through, and she takes what is left
She has no education to speak of and her
only hope Of salvation is in him. She
stands while he sits in the household, and
she cannot, if she lives in the interior, go
to the Gauges and battle herself in the
sacred water. / am told that in many
cases she considers it privilege to battle |
her husbands feet after ne returns and |
thinks that she gets some absolution from
sin by drinking the water. Such women |
as do battle in the Ganges must battle by |
The Hindoo women worships |
her husband and the husband returns the !
worship by doing as little as possible for !
MS wife. When he dies he does not dare |
to pity his wife for fear that in the next
he may become woman.
and her only hope Of having any chance to
escape he'll after his death is by entering
into the torments Of hell on this earth as
pious Hindoo widow
THERE ARE SIX MILLION WIDOWS
in India and as the majority Of the mar
rlages take place under ten, the greater
part of these women became widows as
children. a Hindoo widow can never
marry again, even if her husband dies be-
fore the ceremony Of marriage. If she is
betrothed, she is condemned to widoWhood
for the rest Of her life. AS widow she
must give up all the pleasures Of this
world. She must never wear any jeWelry,
never sleep on a bed, and for the rest OF
her life she becomes the slave Of her mother
IN laws family. She eats by herself and
cooks her own food The moment her hus-
band dies her ornaments are torn from
her. She is clad in the poorest of clothing,
and at the funeral she is kept out of the
main body of the mourners, and she is
looked upon as though she had the plague.
a river, and it used to be the custom for
widows to throw themselves alive on the
funeral pyreS of their husbands and allow
themselves to be burned to death. This
was sure passport TO heaven. and it would
exist to day were it not that the English
have prohibited it. At Benares saw a
half dozen monuments, rude pieces of
stone eighteen inches high and foot square,
which had been put up in honor of women
who had killed tbaD1Ca1yraC
For year after the death of the hus.
band the
WIDOW HAS ESPECIAL RITES OF MOURNING
to perform. For thirteen DAYS after the |
funeral she must not change her clothes.
No one pays any attention to her or gives
her kind word. She must be content
With one meal a day and at the end of this
line her head is shaved. At certain inter
yals throughout her life she is expected to
asst and these intervals include two DAYS
u fasting during every month of her
During these DAYS she must
ouch nothing in the shape of liquid or
solid food, and whether she is sick or well
t makes no difference The Hindoos saw
hat the soul of man, after his death.
goes to heaven quickly and pleasantly in
proportion TO the sufferings of his wife
turing the month after his death Conse-
luently the mother-in-law and the rest of
me relatives try to make these sufferings
as great as possible. The widow can never
take part IN any festivity, and it would be
IN evil omen if she attended a marriage
She gets no words of pity from the women
If the household and she is lower than the
Even in death she has not the
-uneral of other women. Her body is not
burned in the clothes she has on and only
,oarSe, white cloth covers her as she lies on
he funeral pyre. Her husband, if he
would, could not help her condition. Women
annot inherit property among the Hindoos,
md II anything is left by the husband it
'oes to the children.
In the northwest provinces of India,
where
THE HoLIEsT OF THE HINDoos LIVE,
he treatment of the widows is even worse
hal that described in the above state
nents. Here the woman is often dragged
10 lg with her husbands corpse to the
re nation. She is pushed into the water
md made to stand there while the body is
burning. She comes home in her wet
clothes and she dare not change them. 1t I
matters not if she be sick or whether the
weather be warm or cold. She sleeps in
hese clothes for thirteen days and she is
Dersecuted by all. l found here at Bombay
| statement of one of the Hindoo widows
rom this part of India. 1t was translated
" an English lady and appeared in an