A CASE OF SATI OR SUTTEE IN INDIA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4456, 1 July 1875, Page 3

A CASE OF SATI OR SUTTEE IN INDIA.

The Buchnoio Times gives us an account of a case of sati which took place lately at the village of Kasulpur, in Tahsil Sandila, in Oudh. The victim of superstition was ono Bilasi, the widow of a Brahmin named Chotah. She was encouraged to commit the deed by her nephew and other relations, though the village authorities attempted to prevent it, and the solitary chaukidar went off to report the matter to the nearest thane, fourteen miles distant. “After bathing,” says our contemporary, “Bilasi arrayed herself in her best dress and bridal ornaments, and the funeral .procession set out for the moshan, or burning place. Xu addition to the relatives and friends of the deceased, a number of oilmen, chamars, aud even Mahonimedans, accompanied the victim, carrying the materials for constructing the sacrificial pyre. As a sufficient supply of wood could not be obtained quick enough, dry cow-dung was substituted. A large pile of this being heaped up, Bilasi who seated on it with the of her husband in her lap, she was then buried up to her neck among kanda, or dried cowdung. The whole was then covered with bundles of straw, and Maka, her nephew, handing a light to the sati, she herself set fire to the pile. The victim is stated to have sat calm and quiet amidst the roaring flames till she died, the pile being reduced to ashes in about three hours. The thtakdar reached the scene after all was over, though the chaukidfir had used his best dispatch in travelling the fourteen miles between the village and the thiiuii. The District Superintendent of Police and the Deputy Commissioner of the district also hurried to the spot, and all the relatives of the victim, together with the authorities of the village, thirty men in all, have been arrested and committed to the sessions. The other residents declare their profound ignorance of the deed, and either will not or cannot give evidence in the matter.”