Indian Antiquary Vol 04

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 57

ARCHEOLOGICAL NOTES.
FEBRUARY, 1875.]
III.-Folklore,-Corpse-Candles and Will-o'
the-Wisps.
Some thirty miles north of the favourite and fashionable station of Bangalore rises the great hill-fort of Nandidurg. Its summit being 1500 feet above the elevated Maisur plateau, and commanding varied and far-stretching prospects, and the many buildings comprised in the fort affording ample accommodation, it is often resorted to by health and holiday seekers. From its top a remarkable exhibition is sometimes seen, known to many as "the Nandidurg lights." Not having ever witnessed them myself, I will borrow an account that appeared in a Madras newspaper of last year. The correspondent writes that being on a visit to the fort, and looking at night from his windows, which commanded a view over all the country around, he was amazed and frightened at seeing "the whole expanse for miles and miles one blaze of lights, the appearance being as of a vast city lighted by gas,-hundred of thousands of lights extending for miles and miles, dancing and glittering in all directions, a weird, horrible, yet beautiful sight." On hurriedly asking a peon what was the meaning of it, he was told "it was the bodies of all those who were killed in battle at Nandi; they all come up at this time with. lights in their hands." The opinion of the correspondent's host was that it was the people on the plains with lights collecting white ants after rain; and that though Sheikh Dáud declared the lights were corpse-candles, and every candle. borne by a body killed in action, yet he believed it was the white ants. This strange exhibition is occasionally seen from the fort, and it is characteristic of Englishmen that, like the correspondent's host, they so often rest satisfied with explanations of unusual phenomena so obviously inadequate as that advanced. A German savant travelling there would soon unravel the mystery; but, though large English communities have long lived in the neighbourhood, no explanation seems to have been offered. It is not unlikely that some luminous insects may be the cause of this wonderful display, which is commonly seen after heavy rains, when some species of insects appear in vast myriads, and amongst them a species of mole-cricket, which I mention because in England the ignis fatuus has been, with some apparent probability, ascribed to the English mole-cricket (Gryllotalpa
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vulgaris). But the more immediate concern of this note is with the peon's idea that the lights seen by the newspaper correspondent were borne by the bodies of the slain in battle, and its analogy with the Welsh belief in corpse-candles. In Wales the latter are called Canwyll gorf, and the popular belief is that a short time before the death of a person a light is seen issuing from the sick-bed, or sometimes from his nostrils, and taking its course to the churchyard. along the very track the funeral is afterwards to pursue. It is dangerous to stand in its way. Some who have been so foolhardy have been struck down, and been long in recovering, but none are hurt who do not stand in the way. Some who have been bold enough to lie down by the wayside when the corpse-candle passed and look carnestly, have seen the resemblance of a skull carrying the candle, or sometimes a dark shadow, in shape of the person that is to die, carrying the candle between its forefingers, holding the light before its face. In some parts of India when a man has been killed by a tiger, his ghost is believed to sit on the tiger's head holding a light, by which it guides the beast to its prey. The cunning of old man-caters, and the difficulty in killing them, are ascribed to this ghostly guidance. In a paper read before the Bengal Asiatic Society, Mr. W. Theobald relates that in Burmah it is believed that there is a class of wizards whose heads become dissociated from their bodies during the night, and wander about the jungle feeding on carrion, the bodies remaining at home; and the ignis futuus is supposed to proceed from the mouth of one of the wandering heads. If a head be seized whilst so wandering, it screams to be released, and if detained more than twelve hours both head and body perish. This in one or two points rather resembles the Welsh belief.
Mr. Theobald further says that the ignis futuus is very common in the flat alluvial country near the Rajmahâl Hills, and is called Bhutai, from Bhuta, a goblin; the prevailing belief is that it is borne by a ghost. The Rev. Mr. Caldwell, in his interesting account of the Tinnevelli Shânârs and their devil-worship, has a sentence echoing the folklore of many nations:"In the dark of the evening, devils have been observed in a burial or burning ground assuming various shapes one after another, as often as the eye of the observer is turned away, and have