Indian Antiquary Vol 12

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 98

86
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MARCH, 1883.
fire with a knife, to take meat out of a caul. or the Lama, if he be present, taking a piece of dron with a knife or to trim a fire with an axe. the fat of the size of a fist from the tail of a It was deemed that by these acts the fire might sheep, putting it on the end of an arrow, waivbe decapitated. Similarly it was forbidden to ing it to and fro, and having invoked good luck, support oneself against the whip with which a putting it at his request into the mouth of the horse was beaten the Mongols, adds Carpini, master of the house, who must eat it without used no spurs), also to touch arrows with a whip, touching it with his hands." to take or kill young birds, to hit a horse with Hyacinthe tells us that the Shamans are intorits bridle, to strike a bone with another bone, red by other Shamans, who conjure the evil to spill milk or other drink or food on the spirits not to disturb the soul of the deceased. ground or to micturate in the house. Anyone The bodies of the Shamans are generally committing such an offence wilfully was put to buried, according to a desire expressed before death, if involuntarily a large fine had to be their decease, in elevated places, or in the cross paid, and the tent and its contents had to be ways, that they may be more easily able to do carefully purified, before which nothing was to mischief to those who pass by. The Shamans pass in or out of it. Again, if anyone took a sometimes predict, especially to those with whom bite of some food, and it choked him so that he they have not been on good terms, that their spat it out again, a hole was dug under the ghost will come and require of them sacrifices tent, and he was dragged through it, and was which it will be difficult to perform. The put to death without mercy; and in the same Mongols believe that the soul of the Shaman way if any one stepped on the threshold of the cannot go to God, but remains on earth in the house. Carpini remarks that the Mongols had form of an evil spirit, doing mischief to manmany such customs, but to kill men, to invade kind; and the Shamans avail themselves of the territory of others, to take the property of this belief to demand marks of respect and another, to fornicate, etc, etc., were not deemed sacrifices. Therefore, if a person is attacked by sins among them." Gomboyef, in commenting some unknown disorder, the Mongols instantly on some of these prohibitions says they are for run to the Shaman to consult him on the cause the most part still in force. It is still held to of the disease; the wizard never fails to attribe a sin to take anything from a fire or a kettle bute it to some evil spirit who demands & with a sharp instrument, to cut anything near sacrifice; he conjures the malignant spirit to a fire, to strike a horse with a whip or a bridle, be appeased by an offering, and to leave the or to hit one bone with another, to spill patient, and he receives some recompense for milk on the ground, or to micturate in the yurt, his trouble." These notices about Shamans or towards the sun or moon. It is no longer might have been greatly extended if we had the custom, however, to put a choking person collected the materials available from among who spits out what he has in his mouth to the Tunguses, Yakuts, &c., but we have deemed death, but he is struck on the back with the it better to limit our extracts to those relating fist, whence the proverb, Khakhaksan degere to Shamanism as actually subsisting, until comnidurakhu, i.e. "To strike with the fist outside paratively recently, among the Mongols. It has the choker." According to the Buriats this strik- been long decaying among them, and Hyacinthe ing of the back is not meant to ease the person says that it received a great blow in 1819 and coughing, but to ward off ill-luck, and it is very 1820 from an energetic and distinguished Lama probable, as Gomboyef says, that in old days it who lived in the Kochun of Merghen-vang, who was only choking in the tent of the Khân that succeeded in expelling the Shamans from the was deemed a mortal offence. Among the country of the Khalkhas. This example was Mongols another method is now employed for imitated by the Buriats of Selenghinsk, and warding off this ill-luck, namely, the ceremony partly by those of Khorin, and their utensils called Dalalgha, which consists in the Shaman and apparel were burnt."
* Op. cit. pp. 624-626. " Melange Asiatiques, vol. II, PP. 653-654.
" Timkofski's Travels, vol. II, pp. 312-313. * Timkofski's Travels, vol. II, pp. 313-314.