Folklore of the Santal Parganas Part 35

So the men all went home and told their wives to wash their clothes well against the fixed day, as they were going to Thakur to learn witchcraft. The women of course all began to discuss this new plan among themselves and the more they talked of it the less they liked it; it seemed to them that if the men were to get this new strange power it would make them more inclined to despise and bully women than ever; so they made a plot to get the better of their husbands. They arranged that each woman should brew some rice beer and offer it to her husband as he was starting to meet Marang Buru and beg him to drink some lest his return should be delayed. They foresaw that the men would not be able to resist the drink; and that having started they would go on till they were dead drunk: it would then be easy for the women to dress themselves like men and go off to Marang Buru and learn witchcraft in place of their husbands. So said, so done;--the women duly made their husbands drunk and then put on _pagris_ and _dhoties_ and stuck goats' beards on their faces and went off to Marang Buru to learn witchcraft. Marang Buru did not detect the imposition and according to his promise taught them all the incantations of witchcraft.

After the women had come home with their new knowledge their husbands gradually recovered their senses and bethought them of their appointment with Marang Buru. So they hurried off to the meeting place and asked him to teach them what he had promised. "Why, I taught it all to you this morning," answered Marang Buru, "what do you mean by coming to me again?" The men could not understand what he meant and protested that they had not been to him at all in the morning. "Then you must have told your wives what I was going to do!" This they could not deny: "I see," said Marang Buru "then they must have played a trick on you and learnt the _mantras_ in your place," At this the men began to lament and begged that they might be taught also: but Marang Buru said that this was impossible; he could only teach them a very little; their wives had reaped the crop and they could only have the gleanings; so saying, he taught them the art of the _ojha_ and in order that they might have the advantage of their wives in one respect and be able to overawe them he also taught them the craft of the _jan_ and with that they had to be content. This is why only women are witches.

CLXXVI. Initiation into Witchcraft.

When girls are initiated into witchcraft they are taken away by force and made to lead tigers about. This makes them fearless. They are then taken to all the most powerful _bongas_ in succession; and are taught to invoke them, as school boys are taught lessons, and to become possessed _(rum)_. They are also taught _mantras_ and songs and by degrees they cease to be afraid. The novice is made to come out of the house with a lamp in her hand and a broom tied round her waist; she is then conducted to the great _bongas_ one of whom approves of her and when all have agreed she is married to that _bonga_. The _bonga_ pays the usual brideprice and applies _sindur_ to her forehead. After this she can also marry a man in the usual way and he also pays the bride price. When a girl has learnt everything she is made to take her degree (_sid atang_) by taking out a man's liver and cooking it with rice in a new pot; then she and the young woman who is initiating her, eat the feast together; a woman who has once eaten such a stew is completely proficient and can never forget what she has learnt.

This is the way in which girls learn witchcraft; and if any girl refuses to take the final step and will not eat men she is caused to go mad or die. Those however who have once eaten men have a craving for it.

Generally it is only women who are witches; but there are men who have learnt witchcraft and there are others who without being initiated have kept company with witches. For instance in Simra village there is Chortha who was once a servant of the Parganna. He says that the Parganna's wife used to take him out with her at night. The women used to sacrifice fowls and goats and make him skin them and cut them up: he had then to roast cakes of the flesh and give them to the Parganna's wife who distributed them among the other women.

Sometimes also witches take a man with them to their meetings to beat the drum: and sometimes if a man is very much in love with a girl he is allowed to go with them and is taught witchcraft. For instance there was a man who had a family of daughters and no son and so he engaged a man servant by the year to work for him.

After being some years in service this man servant one night was for some reason unusually late in letting the buffaloes out to graze, and while doing so he saw all the women of the household a.s.sembled out of doors; they came up to him and told him not to be afraid and promised to do him no harm provided he told no one what he had seen. Two or three days later the young women of the house invited him to go to a witches' meeting. He went but felt rather frightened the whole time; however nothing happened to him, so he got over his fear and after that he used to go with them quite willingly and learnt all about witchcraft. At last they told him that he must _sid atang_ by "eating" a human being. He objected that he was an orphan and so there was no relation whom he could eat. This was a difficulty that seemed insurmountable; and he suggested that he should be excused the full course and taught only a little such as how to "eat" fowls. The women agreed but it was arranged that to deceive people he should go for two or three days and study with a _jan guru_ and be initiated by him. Thus it would be thought that he learnt his magic from the _guru_ but really he learnt it from the witches who taught him everything except how to "eat" human beings. He learnt how to make trees wither away and come to life again; and to make rain fall where he wished while any place he chose remained quite dry; he learnt to walk upon the surface of water without getting wet; he could exorcise hail so that none would touch his house though it fell all around. For a joke he could make stools stick fast to his friends when they sat on them; and anyone he scolded found himself unable to speak properly. All this we have seen him do; but it was no one's business to question him to find out how much he really knew.

Once at the shield and sword dance they cast a spell on a youth till his clothes fell off him in shreds and he was ashamed to dance. Then this servant had the pieces of cloth brought to him; and he covered them with his own cloth and mumbled some _mantras_ and blew on it and the pieces joined together and the cloth was as good as ever. This we have seen ourselves.

He lived a long time with his master who found him a wife; but because his first child died he left the place and went to live near Amrahat where he is now.

Another case is Tipu of Mohulpahari. They say that an old witch Dukkia taught him to be an _ojha_. No one has dared to ask him whether he also learnt witchcraft from her but he himself admits that she taught him to be an _ojha_.

Although it is true that there are witches and that they "eat" men you will never see them except when you are alone.

The son-in-law of Surai of Karmatane village, named Khade, died from meeting witches; he told us all about it as he lay dying. He was coming home with some other men: they had all had a little too much to drink and so they got separated. Khade was coming along alone and had nearly reached his house when he saw a crowd of witches under a tree. He went up and asked who they were. Thereupon they turned on him and seized him and dragged him away towards Maluncha. There they did something to him and let him go. Next morning he was seized with purging and by mistake some of the witches' vengeance fell also on the other men and they were taken ill too. They however recovered, but Khade died. If you meet witches you die, but not of course if they take you with them of their own will and teach you their craft.

CLXXVII. Witchcraft.

Girls are taught witchcraft when they are young and are married to a _bonga_ husband. Afterwards when they marry a man they still go away and visit the _bonga_ and when they do so they send in their place a _bonga_ woman exactly like them in appearance and voice; so that the husband cannot tell that it is not his real wife. There is however a way of discovering the subst.i.tution; for if the man takes a brand from the fire and burns the woman with it, then if it is really a _bonga_ and not his wife she will fly away in a flame of fire.

CLXXVIII. Witch Stories.

I will now tell you something I have seen with my own eyes. In the village of Dhubia next to mine the only son of the Paranik lay ill for a whole year. One day I went out to look at my _rahar_ crop which was nearly ripe and as I stood under a mowah tree I heard a voice whispering. I stooped down to try and see through the _rahar_ who was there but the crop was so thick that I could see nothing; so I climbed up the mowah tree to look. Glancing towards Dhubia village I saw the third daughter of the Paranik come out of her house and walk towards me. When about fifty yards from me she climbed a big rock and waited. Presently an old aunt of hers came out of the village and joined her. Then the old woman went back to her house and returned with a lota of water. Meanwhile the girl had come down from the rock and sat at its foot near a thicket of _dhela_ trees. The old woman caused the girl to become possessed (_rum_) and they had some conversation which I could not hear, Then they poured out the water from the lota and went home.

On my way home I met a young fellow of the village and found that he had also seen what the two women did. We went together to the place and found the mark of the water spilled on the ground and two leaves which had been used as wrappers and one of which was smeared with vermilion and _adwa_ rice had been scattered about. We decided to tell no one till we saw whether what had been done was meant to benefit or injure the sick boy. Fifteen days later the boy died: and when his parents consulted a _jan_ he named a young woman of the village as the cause of the boy's death and she was taken and punished severely by the villagers.

It is plain that the boy's sister and aunt in order to save themselves caused the _jan_ to see an innocent woman. I could not bring the boy back to life so it was useless for me to say anything, especially as the guilty women were of the Paranik's own family. This I saw myself in broad daylight.

Another thing that happened to me was this. I had been with the Headman to pay in the village rent. It was night when we returned and after leaving him I was going home alone. As I pa.s.sed in front of a house a bright light suddenly shone from the cowshed; I looked round and saw a great crowd of women-witches standing there. I ran away by the garden at the back of the house until I reached a high road; then I stopped and looked round and saw that the witches were coming after me; and looking towards the hamlet where my house was I saw that witches were coming with a bright light from that direction also. When I found myself thus hemmed in I felt that my last hour had come but I ran on till I came to some jungle.

Looking back from there I saw that the two bands had joined together and were coming after me. I did not feel safe there for I knew that there were _bongas_ in the jungle who might tell the witches where I was. So I ran on to the _tola_ where an uncle and aunt of mine lived. As I ran down the street I saw two witches at the back of one of the houses. They were sitting down; one was in a state of possession _(rum)_ and the other was opposite her holding a lamp. So I left the street and made my way through the fields till I Came to my uncle's house. I knocked and was admitted panting and breathless; my uncle and aunt went outside to see what it was that had scared me and they saw the witches with the two lights flashing and made haste to bolt the door. None of us slept for the rest of the night and in the morning I told them all that had happened.

Since that night I have been very frightened of witches and do not like to go out at night. It was lucky that the witches did not recognise me; otherwise I should not have lived. Ever since I have never stayed at home for long together; I go there for two or three months at a time and then go away and work elsewhere. I am too frightened to stay in my own village. Now all the old women who taught witchcraft are dead except one: when she goes I shall not be frightened any more. I shall be able to go home when I like. I have never told any one but my uncle and aunt what I saw until now that I have written it down.

So from my own experience I have no doubt about the existence of witches; I cannot say how they "eat" men, whether by magic or whether they order _"bongas"_ to cause a certain man to die on a certain day. Some people say that when a witch is first initiated she is married to a _bonga_ and if she wants to "eat" a man she orders her _bonga_ husband to kill him and if he refuses she heaps abuse on him until he does.

CLXXIX. Witch Stories.

Young girls are taught witchcraft against their wills and if they refuse to "eat" their father or brother they die or go mad. There was a girl in my own village and she went out gathering herbs with another girl who was a witch. As usual they sang at their work and the witch girl sang songs the tune of which the other thought so pretty that she learnt them by heart. When she had learnt them the witch girl told her that they were witch songs and explained to her their meaning. The girl was very angry at having been taught them unawares but the witch girl a.s.sured her that she would never be able to forget the songs or their interpretation; then she a.s.signed her to a _bonga_ bridegroom and then told her to _sid atang_ and all would be well with her otherwise she would have trouble.

When the girl learnt that she must _sid atang_ by "eating" her father or brother or mother she began to make excuses; she could not kill her father for he was the support of the family; nor her only brother for he was wanted too at the _Baha_ and _Sohrai_ nor her mother who had reared her in childhood. The witch girl said that if she refused she would die; and she said that she would rather die than do what was required of her. Then the witch did something and the girl began to rave and talk gibberish and from that time was quite out of her senses. _Ojhas_ tried to cure her in vain until at last one suggested that she should be taken to another village as the madness must be the work of witches living in her own village. So they took her away and the remedies then cured her. She stayed in her new home and was married there. A long time afterwards she went back to pay a visit to her father's house: but the day after she arrived her head began to ache and she fell ill and though her husband came and took her away she died the day after she reached her home.

There was another girl; her friends noticed that when she came home with them in the evening after planting rice she was very careful not to fall behind or be left alone and they used to laugh at her for being a coward. But one day she was gathering Indian corn with a friend and as they talked she said "You will all have lovely dancing at the Sohrai." "You!" said her friend: "won't you be there? Are you going away?" Then the girl began to cry and sobbed out that her mother had taught her witchcraft and married her to a _bonga_; and it was for fear of the _bonga_ that she did not like to be alone in the dark; and because she had refused to "eat" anyone her mother intended to "eat" her and so she had no hope of living to see the Sohrai. Three days later the girl fell ill and died, and after her death her friend told how she had foreseen it.

CLx.x.x. Witch Stories.

In the village of Mohulpahari there was a youth named Jerba. He was servant to Bepin Teli of Tempa and often had to come home in the dark after his day's work. One night he was coming back very late and, before he saw where he was, suddenly came upon a crowd of witches standing under a hollow mowah tree at the foot of the field that the dhobie has taken. Just as he caught sight of them they seized hold of him and flung him down and did something which he could not remember--for he lost his senses when they threw him down. When he came to himself he managed to struggle free and run off. The witches pursued but failed to overtake him and he reached his home in a state of terror. The witches however had not finished with him for two or three days after they caused him to fall from a tree and break his arm. Ojhas were called in but their medicines did him no good. The arm mortified and maggots formed and in a few days Jerba himself told them that he would not recover; he told them how the witches chased him and that he had recognised them as women of his own village and shortly afterwards he became speechless and died.

My own brother-in-law lived at Mubundi. One night he and several other men were sitting up on the threshing-floor watching their rice. In the middle of the night they saw lights shining and flickering in the courtyard of my brother-in-law's house and he went to see what was the matter. When he got near, the lights went into the house: he went up quietly and as he looked in found the house full of women who extinguished the light directly they saw him and rushed out of the house. Then he asked my sister what the light was; but she could only stammer out "What light? I saw no light," so he struck her a blow and went back to the threshing-floor and told the others what he had seen. That night he would not tell them the names of the women he had seen; and before morning his right arm swelled and became very painful; the swelling quickly increased and by noon he lost consciousness and a few hours later he died.

CLx.x.xI. The Two Witches.

There were once a woman and her daughter-in-law who were both witches. One night during the annual Sohrai festival the men of the village were going from house to house singing and getting rice beer to drink; and one young man named Chandrai got so drunk that when they came to the house where the two witch-women lived he rolled himself under the shelf on which rice was stored and fell asleep. Next morning he came to his senses but he did not like to come out and show himself for fear of ridicule so he made up his mind to wait till a party came round singing again and then to slip out with them unperceived.

He lay waiting and presently all the men of the house went away to join in the _danka_ dance; leaving the mistress of the house and her daughter-in-law alone. Presently, the two began to talk and the elder woman said "Well what with the pigs and the goats that have been sacrificed during this Sohrai we have had plenty of meat to eat lately and yet I don't feel as if I had had any." "That is so," answered her daughter-in-law; "fowls' and pig's flesh is very unsatisfying." "Then what are we to do?" rejoined the old woman, "I don't know unless you do for the father of your grandchild." When he heard this Chandrai shivered with fright and hid himself further under the rice shelf, for he saw that the two women must be witches.

That day was the day on which a bullock is tied to a post outside each house and at noon the husband of the younger witch began to dig a hole outside the house to receive the post. While he was working Chandrai heard the two women begin to talk again. "Now is your opportunity,"

said the younger woman, "while he is digging the hole." "But perhaps the _ojha_ will be able to discover us," objected the other. "Oh we can prevent that by making the _ojha_ see in the oiled leaf the faces of Rupi and Bindi--naming two girls of the village--and we can say that my husband had seduced them and then declined to marry them and that that was why they killed him." The old woman seemed to be satisfied, for she took up a hatchet and went out to where her son was digging the hole. She waited till he bent down to throw out the earth with his hands and then cut open his back and pulled out his liver and heart and brought them into the house. Her unfortunate son felt a spasm of pain when his mother struck him but he did not know what had hurt him and there was no visible wound. The two women then chopped up the liver and heart and cooked and ate them.

That night when the village youths came round to the house, singing, Chandrai slipped out with them unperceived and hastened home. Two or three days later the bewitched man became seriously ill; medicines and sacrifices did him no good; the _ojhas_ were called in but could make nothing of the illness. The villagers were very angry with them for the failure and the headman told them that they must ascertain by means of the oiled leaf who had caused the illness, or it would be the worse for them. So the _ojhas_ went through their ceremonies and after a time declared that the oiled leaf showed the faces of the two girls Rupi and Bindi; and that it was they who were eating up the sick man. So the two girls were sent for and questioned but they solemnly swore that they knew nothing about the matter. No one believed their protestations and the headman ordered that filth should be put into their mouths and that they should be well beaten to make them confess. However before any harm was done them Chandrai sprang up and called out to the headman: "You have proof that these girls are witches, but I will not let you beat them here. Let us take them to yonder open field; the token of their oath is there and we will make them first remove it. If we beat them first they will probably refuse to remove the oath." "How do you know about their oath?" asked the headman. "Never mind, I do know." The villagers were convinced by his confident manner and all went with the two girls to the open field.

Chandrai's object was to get away from the witches' house for he was afraid to speak there; but when they were out in the open he stood up and told the villagers all that he had seen and heard the two witches do; they remembered that he had been missing for a whole day during the Sohrai festival and believed him. So the sick man's wife and mother were fetched and well beaten to make them restore the sick man to health; but his liver and heart had been eaten so that the case was hopeless and in a few days he was dead. His relations in revenge soon killed the two witches.

Rupi and Bindi whose lives had been saved by Chandrai went and established themselves in his house, for they declared that as they owed their lives to him it was plain that he must marry them.

CLx.x.xII. The Sister-in-Law Who Was a Witch.