Folklore of the Santal Parganas Part 30

CHAPTER IV

Part IV

The following stories ill.u.s.trate the belief in Bongas, i.e. the spirits which the Santals believe to exist everywhere, and to take an active part in human affairs. Bongas frequently a.s.sume the form of young men and women and form connections with human beings of the opposite s.e.x.

At the bidding of witches they cause disease, or they hound on the tiger to catch men. But they are by no means always malevolent and are capable of grat.i.tude. The Kisar Bonga or Brownie who takes up his abode in a house steals food for the master of the house, and unless offended will cause him to grow rich.

CXLVIII. Marriage with Bongas.

There have been many cases of Santals marrying _bonga_ girls. Not of course with formal marriage ceremonies but the marriage which results from merely living together.

In Darbar village near Silingi there are two men who married _bonga_. One of them was very fond of playing on the flute and his playing attracted a _bonga_ girl who came to him looking like a human girl, while he was tending buffaloes. After the intimacy had lasted some time she invited him to visit her parents, so he went with her and she presented him to her father and mother as her husband. But he was very frightened at what he saw; for the seats in the house were great coiled up snakes and on one side a number of tigers and leopards were crouching. Directly he could get a word alone with his wife he begged her to come away but she insisted on his staying to dinner; so they had a meal of dried rice and curds and _gur_ and afterwards he smoked a pipe with his _bonga_ father-in-law and then he set off home with his _bonga_ wife. They were given a quant.i.ty of dried rice and cakes to take with them when they left.

After seeing him home his wife left him; so he thought that he would share the provisions which he had brought with a friend of his; he fetched his friend but when they came to open the bundle in which the rice and cakes had been tied, they found nothing but _meral_ leaves and cow dung cakes such as are used for fuel. This friend saw that the food must have been given by _bongas_ and it was through the friend that the story became known.

In spite of this the young man never gave up his _bonga_ wife until his family married him properly. She used to visit his house secretly, but would never eat food there; and during his connection with her all his affairs prospered, his flocks and herds increased and he became rich, but after he married he saw the _bonga_ girl no more.

The adventures of the other young man of the same village were much the same. He made the acquaintance of a _bonga_ girl thinking that she was some girl of the village, but she really inhabited a spring, on the margin of which grew many _ahar_ flowers. One day she asked him to pick her some of the _ahar_ flowers and while he was doing so she cast some sort of spell upon him and spirited him away into the pool. Under the water he found dry land and many habitations; they went on till they came to the _bonga_ girl's house and there he too saw the snake seats and tigers and leopards.

He was hospitably entertained and stayed there about six months; one of his wife's brothers was a.s.signed to him as his particular companion and they used to go out hunting together. They used tigers for hunting-dogs and their prey was men and women, whom the tigers killed, while the _bonga_ took their flesh home and cooked it. One day when they were hunting the _bonga_ pointed out to the young man a wood cutter in the jungle and told him to set the tiger on to "yonder peac.o.c.k"; but he could not bring himself to commit murder; so he first shouted to attract the wood cutter's attention and then let the tiger loose; the wood cutter saw the animal coming and killed it with his axe as it sprang upon him.

His _bonga_ father-in-law was so angry with him for having caused the death of the tiger, that he made his daughter take her husband back to the upper world again.

In spite of all he had seen the young man did not give up his _bonga_ wife and every two or three months she used to spirit him away under the water: and now that man is a _jan guru_.

CXLIX. The Bonga Headman.

Sarjomghutu is a village about four miles from Barhait Bazar on the banks of the Badi river. On the river bank grows a large banyan tree. This village has no headman or _paranic_; any headman who is appointed invariably dies; so they have made a _bonga_ who lives in the banyan tree their headman.

When any matter has to be decided, the villagers all meet at the banyan tree, where they have made their _manjhi than_; they take out a stool to the tree and invite the invisible headman to sit on it. Then they discuss the matter and themselves speak the answers which the headman is supposed to give. This goes on to the present day and there is no doubt that these same villagers sometimes offer human sacrifices, but they will never admit it, for it would bring them bad luck to speak about it.

The villagers get on very well with the _bonga_. If any of them has a wedding or a number of visitors at his house, and has not enough plates and dishes, he goes to the banyan tree and asks the headman to lend him some. Then he goes back to his house, and returning in a little while finds the plates and dishes waiting for him under the tree; and when he has finished with them he cleans them well and takes them back to the tree.

CL. Lakhan and the Bongas.

Once a young man named Lakhan was on a hunting party and he pursued a deer by himself and it led him a long chase until he was far from his companions; and when he was close behind it they came to a pool all overgrown with weeds and the deer jumped into the pool and Lakhan after it; and under the weeds he found himself on a dry high road and he followed the deer along this until it entered a house and he also entered. The people of the house asked him to sit down but the stool which was offered him was a coiled up snake, so he would not go near it; and he saw that they were _bongas_ and was too frightened to speak. And in the cattle pen attached to the house he saw a great herd of deer.

Then a boy came running in and asked the mistress of the house who Lakhan was; she said that he had brought their kid home for them. Lakhan wanted to run away but he could not remember the road by which he had come. Two daughters of the house were there and they wanted their father to keep Lakhan as a son-in-law; but their father told them to catch him a kid and let him go; so they brought him a fawn and the two girls led him back and took him through the pool to the upper world: but on the way they put some enchantment on him, for two or three weeks later he went mad and in his madness he ran about from one place to another and one day he ran into the pool and was seen no more, and no one knows where he went or whether the two bonga maidens took him away.

CLI. The House Bonga.

Once upon a time there was a house _bonga_ who lived in the house of the headman of a certain village; and it was a shocking thief; it used to steal every kind of grain and food, cooked and uncooked; out of the houses of the villagers. The villagers knew what was going on but could never catch it.

One evening however the _bonga_ was coming along with a pot of boiled rice which it had stolen, when one of the villagers suddenly came upon it face to face; the _bonga_ slunk into the hedge but the villager saw it clearly and flung his stick at it, whereupon the _bonga_ got frightened and dropped the pot of rice on the ground so that it was smashed to pieces and fled. The villager pursued the _bonga_ till he saw it enter the headman's house. Then he went home, intending the next morning to show the neighbours the spilt rice lying on the path; but when the morning came he found that the rice had been removed, so he kept quiet.

At midday he heard the headman's servants complaining that the rice which had been given them for breakfast was so dirty and muddy that some of them had not been able to eat it at all; then he asked how they were usually fed "Capitally," they answered "we get most varied meals, often with turmeric and pulse or vegetables added to the rice; but that is only for the morning meal; for supper we get only plain rice." "Now, I can tell you the reason of that" said the villager, "there is a greedy _bonga_ in your house who goes stealing food at night and puts some of what he gets into your pots for your morning meal." "That's a fine story" said the servants: "No, it's true" said the villager, and told them how the evening before he had made the _bonga_ drop the rice and how afterwards it had been sc.r.a.ped up off the ground; and when they heard this they believed him because they had found the mud in their food.

Some time afterwards the same man saw the _bonga_ again at night making off with some heads of Indian corn; so he woke up a friend and they both took sticks and headed off the _bonga_, who threw down the Indian corn and ran away to the headman's house. Then they woke up the headman and told him that a thief had run into his house. So he lit a lamp and went in to look, and they could hear the _bonga_ running about all over the house making a great clatter and trying to hide itself; but they could not see it. Then they took the headman to see the Indian corn which the _bonga_ had dropped in its flight. The next day the villagers met and fined the headman for having the _bonga_ in his house; and from that time the _bonga_ did not steal in that village, and whenever the two men who had chased it visited the headman's house the _bonga_ was heard making a great clatter as it rushed about trying to hide.

CLII. The Sarsagun Maiden.

There was once a Sarsagun girl who was going to be married; and a large party of her girl friends went to the jungle to pick leaves for the wedding. The Sarsagun girl persisted in going with them as usual though they begged her not to do so. As they picked the leaves they sang songs and choruses; so they worked and sang till they came to a tree covered with beautiful flowers; they all longed to adorn their hair with the flowers but the difficulty was that they had no comb or looking gla.s.s; at last one girl said that a _bonga Kora_ lived close by who could supply them; thereupon there was a great dispute as to who should go to the _bonga Kora_ and ask for a mirror and comb; each wanted the other to go; and in the end they made the Sarsagun girl go. She went to the _bonga Kora_ and called "Bonga Kora give a me mirror and comb that we may adorn our hair with _Mirjin_ flowers." The Bonga Kora pointed them out to her lying on a shelf and she took them away.

Then they had a gay time adorning their hair; but when they had finished not one of the girls would consent to take back the mirror and comb. The Sarsagun maiden urged that as she had brought them it was only fair that someone else should take them back; but they would not listen, so in the end she had to take them. The Bonga Kora pointed to a shelf for her to place them on but when she went to do so and was well inside his house he closed the door and shut her in. Her companions waited for her return till they were tired and then went home and told her mother what had happened. Then her father and brother went in search of her and coming to the Bonga Kora's home they sang:

"Daughter, you combed yourself with a one row comb Daughter, you put _mirjin_ flowers in your hair Daughter, come hither to us."

But she only answered from within--

"He has shut me in with a stone, father He has closed the door upon me, father Do you and my mother go home again."

Then her eldest brother came and sang the same song and received the same answer; her mothers's brother and father's sister then came and sang, also in vain; so they all went home.

Just then the intended bridegroom with his party arrived at the village and were welcomed with refreshments and invited to camp under a tree; but while the bridegroom's party were taking their ease, the bride's relations were in a great to-do because the bride was missing; and when the matchmaker came and asked them to get the marriage ceremony over at once that the bridegroom might return, they had to take him into the house and tell him what had happened. The matchmaker went and told the bridegroom, who at once called his men to him and mounted his horse and rode off in a rage. Now it happened that the drummers attached to the procession had stopped just in front of the home of the _Bonga Kora_ and were drumming away there; so when the bridegroom rode up to them his horse pa.s.sed over the door of the Bonga Kora's home and stamped on it so hard that it flew open; standing just inside was the Sarsagun girl; at once the bridegroom pulled her out, placed her on his horse and rode off with her to his home.

CLIII. The Schoolboy and the Bonga.

There was once a boy who went every day to school and on his way home he used always to bathe in a certain tank. Every day he left his books and slate on the bank while he bathed and no one ever touched them. But one day while he was in the water a _bonga_ maiden came out of the tank and took his books and slate with her under the water. When the boy had finished bathing he searched for them a long time in vain and then went home crying. When the midday meal was served he refused to eat anything unless his books were found: his father and mother promised to find them for him and so he ate a very little. When the meal was finished his father and mother went to the bonga maiden and besought her--singing

"Give daughter-in-law, give Give our boy his pen, give up his pen."