ABSTRACT
In Malabar, the most primitive part of South India, the rite is forbidden. In Malabar a matriarchal system prevailed, which accounted for the absence of the rite. The main homes of the rite were the Ganges Valley, the Panjab, Rajasthan, and, in South India, Madura and Vijayanagar. Many were just upstanding stones marked with a woman's hand, often a vermilioned hand. Many suttee-stones have been photographed by the Indian Archaeological Department, though undoubtedly objects of historical and antiquarian interest, strewn throughout an enormous tract of country. It is not worth while reproducing them indefinitely. Portuguese missionaries once brought the report of eleven thousand women sacrificed on the death of a South Indian Raja. The hope and believe was exaggerated; but at Vijayanagar it was customary to burn two or even three thousand. It was usual to burn slaves and concubines on a separate pyre from their lord's, unless the slaves were a queen's personal attendants.
