Nepal's Living Goddesses
• Asian
What to look for in a living Goddess:
Criteria for selection are that the child must have the body of a banyan tree, the chest of a lion and the voice of a duck, besides 29 other "bodily perfections". In practice, these qualities are attributed on the basis of a horoscope.
Prepubescent deity's lifestyle:
She receives a trickle of worshippers. Sometimes she presides at festivals but she does not go to school and is not allowed out to play. Officially, friends are allowed to visit, but no one does.
On hitting puberty she's tossed back to ordinary life, uneducated and unsocialized.