A respectable landholder of this place, a Sombunsie, tells me, that the custom of destroying their female infants has prevailed from the time of the first founder of their race; that a rich man has to give food to many Brahmins, to get rid of the stain, on the twelfth or thirteenth day, but that a poor man can get rid of it by presenting a little food in due form to the village priest; that they cannot give their daughters in marriage to any Rajpoot families, save the Rhathores and Chouhans; that the family of their clan who gave a daughter to any other class of Rajpoots, would be excluded from caste immediately and for ever; that those who have property have to give all they have with their daughters to the Chouhans and Rhathores, and reduce themselves to nothing; and can take nothing from them in return, as it is a great stain to take “kuneea dan,” or virgin price; from any one; that a Sombunsie may, however, when reduced to great poverty, take the “kuneea dan” from the Chouhans and Rhathores for a virgin daughter without being excommunicated from the clan, but even he could not give a daughter to any other clan of Rajpoots without being excluded for ever from caste; that it was a misfortune no doubt, but it was one that had descended among them from the remotest antiquity, and could not be got rid of; that mothers wept and screamed a good deal when their first female infants were torn from them, but after two or three times giving birth to female infants, they become quiet and reconciled to the usage, and said, “do as you like;” that some poor parents of their clan did certainly give their daughters for large sums to wealthy people of lower Clans, but lost their caste for ever by so doing; that it was the dread of sinking, in substance from the loss of property, and in grade from the loss of caste, that alone led to the murder of female infants; that the dread prevailed more or less in every Rajpoot clan, and led to the same thing, but most in the clan that restricted the giving of daughters in marriage to the smallest number of clans.

The infant is destroyed in the room where it is born, and there buried.  The floor is then plastered over with cow-dung, and on the thirteenth day the village or family priest must cook and eat his food in that room.  He is provided with wood, ghee, barley, rice, and tillee (sesamum).  He boils the rice, barley, and sesamum in a brass vessel, throws the ghee over them when they are dressed, and eats the whole.  This is considered as a hom, or burnt-offering, and by eating it in that place the priest is supposed to take the whole hutteea or sin upon himself, and to cleanse the family from it.  I am told that they put the milk of the mudar shrub “asclepias gigantea,” into the mouth of the infant to destroy it, and cover the mouth with the faeces that first pass from, the infant’s bowels.  It soon dies; and after the expiation the parents again occupy the room, and there receive the visits of their family and friends, and gossip as usual!