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The work presents a systematic ethnographic survey of northern Indian popular religion and folk-lore, recording beliefs, rituals, and everyday preventative practices. It examines the evil eye and its remedies, tree and serpent cults, totemic and fetish practices, animal worship, witchcraft and black art, and seasonal rural festivals, drawing on local testimony and observed customs. The account describes naming taboos, protective marks and charms, sacrificial and ceremonial forms, and the social logic that underpins ritual responses to misfortune. Chapters conclude with bibliographic references and an index to aid further study.
Some fetishes, like the Bombay Devaks, are special to particular families. Such is the case with the Thârus, a non-Aryan tribe in the sub-Himâlayan Tarâî. Each member of the tribe constructs a hollow mound in front of his door, and thereon erects a stake of Palâsa wood (Butea frondosa), which is regarded as the family fetish and periodically worshipped.