Indian Antiquary Vol 27

SR No.: 032519
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 404
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 277

OCTOBER, 1898.]
SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
and play, and call on the spirit, until one or more of them begins to roll their eyes and twitch their muscles. Then one or two others, generally old women, are seized. The attack comes on like a fit of ague. It lasts for a quarter of an hour, during which the patient writhes and trembles and leaps from the ground as if shot. He is then unconscious. After a few minutes spasms set in the hands and knees, the hair falls loose, the body is convulsed, the head violently shaken, and there is a gurgling noise in the throat. Then the patient hops about with a stick, the head jerking sharply. No one in his senses could stand so much exertion for a minute. The baigá is asked to cast ont the spirit. If the spirit is the great Ganjam, it is asked politely to withdraw; if not, it is driven out with threats and promises. When all is over, the patient is rubbed with butter. On the north-east frontier of Bengal Baddhist priests exorcise in cases of sickness, or of devil or witch-possession.45 When the Santhals are troubled by a spirit, or bhat, they go to the medium. The medium fasts for a time. Then a drum is beaten before him, and his head presently shakes, and his body writhes in hair-tossing spasms. The spirit that was troubling them has passed into the medium. He shouts out some phrases, seizes some victims that are placed ready, cuts their heads off, and pours out the blood.48
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In the Central Provinces, the Pardhans and Gonds get possessed.47 Among the Naikad Gonds the gods Waghôbâ and Morâri, who are ancestral gods, enter into the ministrant, and say whether they are pleased. The Karens have a priest or vi, who goes into convulsions, and gives an oracle.49
The Panens of Malabar make their living by exorcism and charms. They speak with spirits, who enter them, and make them do awful things. When any leading man is ill they are generally called in numbers. They paint their bodies, put on crowns of paper and cloth, light lamps, and beat drums, and blow trumpets and horns. They dance sword in hand, jump on each other's backs, make bonfires, stick one another with knives, and push one another bare-foot in the fire. The women shout and sing. This goes on for two or three days. They make rings of earth and lines of red ochre and white clay, strew them with rice and flowers, and put lights round them until the devil enters into one of them, and tells what the patient is suffering from, and what must be done to cure him. They tell the patient, and he gives them presents, and gets well. The Buntars, a high class of South Kânara cultivators, have exorcists called Nucarus like the Kunians of Malabar. Buchanan mentions a class of men called Kanis or Walliars, - that is, low-caste men who drove out spirits. Some of them did so from the knowledge of the stars, and others rattled an iron instrument, and sang till their voice went, and they seemed drunk, and were considered inspired. They could tell whether the spirit belonged to the family, and, could be driven out. A family spirit, they said, was most difficult to dislodge; a strange spirit could be easily driven out. All held this belief, except Brahmans and Musalmâns. In Coorg, the great sorcerers are Tantri Brahmans from Malabar whose goddess is Bhagavati. Every year certain candidates present themselves for the service of the goddess, and the (chief) Bråhman chooses one who is likely to make a good medium, and he becomes possessed by the goddess. When he sees a suitable man the Brahman says a text, sprinkles holy ashes on his face, and immediately the person begins to shake and dance as one possessed. In Coorg, exorcists relieve ancestral spirits from the clutches of a demon-spirit. When an ancestral spirit is released, the man, whose ancestor's spirit it is, rushes home from the exorcist's lodging without looking back, or else the house spirit which rides on his back is scared.56 In Coorg, the Kaniyas are consulted when a man or a bullock sickens. They examine their books and shells, which they use as dice, and find out who sent the sickness.56 The Kois of Bastar slay fowls and smear the sick man's
4 Op. cit. p. 214.
44 Dalton's Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 283.
Op. cit. p. 114.
47 Hislop's Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Provinces, App. II. and VII.
48 Hislop's Aboriginal Tribes of the Contral Provinces, p. 25.
Dalton's Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 117; Tylor's Primitive Culture, Vol. II. p. 131. 50 Stanley's Barbosa, p. 142. 1 Buchanan's Mysore, Vol. III. p. 17. 53 Op. cit, Vol. II. p. 152. Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 152.
Op. cit. Vol. III. p. 261.
Rice's Mysore, Vol. III. p. 251, Op. cit. Vol. III. p. 212.