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MAY, 1926 ]
BUDDERMOKAN
to allure travellers by calling them by their names. Sometimes he offers to become a guide to lonely travellers, and taking them into deep water drowns them, and thus makes them members of his clan. The Gird is supposed to get frightened at the sight of knives and scis. sors. It is said should any person happen to cut the shendi or top-knot of the Gird he would come to him at night to ask for the top-knot, and in return would do any work the person may require him to do. Hadal or Hedali is supposed to be the spectre of a married woman drowned in a well, tank or a river. She wears a yellow robe and bodice and green bangles, and lets her hair fall loose on her back. She is said to be plump in front and a skeleton behind. She generally attacks women. A woman who is attacked by a Hedalt lets her hair fall loose, shakes all over, and shrieks. The Hedali is said to be much afraid of the sacred thread of Brahmans."
To the above remarks Campbell adds the following: Compare--The Romans worshipped water nymphs. The Greeks believed the inspired men. The Swedish believe that drowned men, whose bodies are not found, have been drawn into the dwelling of the water spirits, Hafsfru (Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, II, 497). The Germans had water spirits called Nichus and Nix (op. cit. II, 489). Scott (Border Minstrelsy, 444) mentions a class of water spirits called Dracce who tempted women and children 'under water by showing them floating gold. The water spirit was greatly feared in Mexico (Bancroft, III, 422). The Nix or water-man was also greatly feared in Middle-Age Europe (Primitive Culture, I, 108, 109, 131 ; II, 209). Heywood quoted in Scott's Border Minstrelsy, 445, writes :
.... another sort Ready to cramp their joints who swim for sport. One kind of these the Italians Fatae named, Fée the French, we Sibyls and the game, Others white nymphs, and those that have them seen,
White ladies, some of which Habundia queen.' " It was also known as the Kelpi. It appeared in the form of a horse, a bull, or a man, and deceived people by sending dancing lights or will-o'-the-wisp (Eastern Races of Scot., II, 437; Scott's Border Minstrelsy, 540). Some of them lived in the sea, where they caused whirlpools and shipwrecks (Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 124 ; Scott's Border Minstrelsy, 507, 509).
"In Denmark the popular belief pictures the Ellekone as captivating to look at in front, but hollow at the back like a kneading trough " (Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, II, 449).”
It seems, therefore, quite clear that in the "Buddermokáns" we have a series of shrines on the Burmese Coast representing really a very ancient universal faith in the God of the Flood, introduced under Muhammadan influence from India, where it had become mixed up with indigenous Hindu and animistic beliefs. In Burma it has become further confused with Buddhist and Far Eastern animistic traditional superstitions.
