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A widow bird sat mourning for her loveUpon a wintry bough;The frozen wind crept on above,The freezing stream below.
There was no leaf upon the forest bare,No flower upon the groundAnd little motion in the airExcept the mill-wheel's sound.
Take a mixture of irrational terror, the ambivalence and cruelty to which human beings are so eminently inclined, and the capacity for self-interest and exploitation of others that play a prominent part in human interaction. Add ignorance, isolation, and fervent religiosity. Pour it liberally into a rigid caste system, in which women are egregiously implicated, that maintains order by grossly favoring over-classes at the expense of under-classes. You now have the wherewithal to produce the barbaric practice of widows hurling themselves upon the funeral pyres of their husbands, with their family members and neighbors urging and cheering them on.
It is generally believed that about 2000 B.C.E., what is now India was invaded through the northwestern passes—which most conquerors