The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume III Part 10

The religious practices of the Gonds present much variety. The tribal divisions into groups worshipping seven, six, five and four G.o.ds, already referred to, are generally held to refer to the number of G.o.ds which a man has in his house. But very few Gonds can name the G.o.ds of their sect, and the prescribed numbers are seldom adhered to. The worship of ancestors is an integral part of their religion and is described in the section on funeral customs. Bura Deo, their great G.o.d in most localities, was probably at first the saj tree, [69] but afterwards the whole collection of G.o.ds were sometimes called Bura Deo. He is further discussed subsequently. The other Gond G.o.ds proper appear to be princ.i.p.ally implements and weapons of the chase, one or two animals, and deified human beings. A number of Hindu deities have now also been admitted into the Gond pantheon. The following account of the G.o.ds is largely taken from a note written by Mr. J. A. Tawney. [70] The worship of the Gonds may be summarised as that of the G.o.ds presiding over the village destinies, the crops, and epidemic disease, the spirits of their forefathers and the weapons and creatures of the chase. The village G.o.ds are generally common to the Gonds and Hindus. They consist of stones, or mud platforms, placed at a convenient distance from the village under the shade of some appropriate tree, and often having a red or white flag, made of a piece of cloth, tied to the end of a pole to indicate their position. The princ.i.p.al village G.o.ds have been given in the article on Kurmi. Besides these in Gond villages there is especially Bhimsen, who is held to be Bhima, one of the five Pandava brothers, and is the G.o.d of strength. Ghor Deo [71] is the horse G.o.d, and Holera, who is represented by a wooden bullock's bell, is the G.o.d of cattle. Ghansiam Deo is a G.o.d much worshipped in Mandla. He is said to have been a prince who was killed by a tiger on his way to his wedding like Dulha Deo. In northern Bastar the Gonds worship the spirit of a Muhammadan doctor under the name of Doctor Deo. A Gond of the place where the doctor died is occasionally possessed by his spirit, and on such occasions he can talk fluent Urdu. This man's duty is to keep off cholera, and when the epidemic breaks out he is ordered by the Raja to drive it away. The local method of averting cholera is to make a small litter covered with cloth, and in it to place a bra.s.s or silver image of the cholera G.o.ddess, Marai Mata. When the G.o.ddess is thus sent from one village to another it is supposed that the epidemic is similarly transferred. The man possessed by Doctor Deo has the power of preventing the approach of this litter to villages in Bastar, and apparently also can drive away the epidemic, though his method of doing this is not explained. The dealings of the Gonds with the Government of India are mainly conducted through chupra.s.sies or peons, who come to collect their revenue, obtain supplies and so on. The peons have in the past been accustomed to abuse their authority and practise numerous petty extortions, which is a very easy business with the ignorant Gonds of the wilder tracts. Regarding the peons as the visible emblem of authority, the Gonds, like the Oraons, have similarly furnished the G.o.ds with a peon, who is worshipped under the name of Kalha Deo with offerings of liquor and fowls. Besides this if a tiger makes himself troublesome a stone is set up in his honour and he receives a small offering; and if a platform has been erected to the memory of the founder of the village he is included with the others. The cholera and smallpox deities are worshipped when an epidemic breaks out. The worship of the village G.o.ds is communal, and in Chhindwara is performed at the end of the hot weather before seed is sown, houses thatched, or the new mahua oil eaten by the Gonds. All the villagers subscribe, and the Bhumka or village priest conducts the rite. If in any year the community cannot afford a public worship they hang up a little gra.s.s over the G.o.d just to intimate that they have not forgotten him, but that he will have to wait till next year.

41. Tribal G.o.ds, and their place of residence.

Besides the village G.o.ds worshipped in common with the Hindus, the Gonds have also their special tribal G.o.ds. These are sometimes kept at a Deo-khulla, which is said to mean literally the threshing-floor of the G.o.ds, and is perhaps so called because the place of meeting of the worshippers is cleaned and plastered like a threshing-floor in the fields. The G.o.ds most commonly found are Pharsi Pen, the battle-axe G.o.d; Matiya, the great G.o.d of mischief; Ghangra, the bell G.o.d; Chawar, the cow's tail, which is also used as a whisk; Palo, who consists of a piece of cloth used to cover spear-heads; and Sale, who may be the G.o.d who presides over cattle-pens (sala). The Deo-khulla of a six-G.o.d Gond should have six, and that of a seven-G.o.d Gond seven G.o.ds, but this rule is not regularly observed, and the Deo-khullas themselves now tend to disappear as the Gonds become Hinduised and attention is concentrated on the village and household G.o.ds. The collection of G.o.ds at a Deo-khulla, Mr. Tawney remarks, is called Bura Deo, and when a Gond swears by Bura Deo, he swears by all the G.o.ds of his sect. "The G.o.ds," Mr. Tawney writes, "are generally tied up in gra.s.s and fixed in the fork of the saj tree, or buried in some recess in the forest, except Palo, who is put in a bag to prevent his getting wet, and Chawar the cow's tail. The Bhumkas or priests are somewhat shy of showing the G.o.ds at the Deo-khulla, and they may have some reason for this, for not long since, a young scamp of a Muhammadan, having determined to put to a test the reputed powers of the Gond G.o.ds for evil, hid himself in a tree near the Deo-khulla during a meeting, and afterwards took the G.o.ds out and threw them bag and baggage down a well. However, when I went there, the Bhumka at Mujawar after some parley retired into the forest, and came out quite confidingly with an armful of G.o.ds. The Deo-khulla G.o.ds are generally all of iron, and those at Mujawar were all spear-shaped except Palo, who is a piece of cloth, and Ghangra, who is of bell-metal and in form like the bells ordinarily put round the necks of bullocks. When a spear-head has been lost, and another is not available, anything in the shape of a pike or spear will do, and it does not appear to make any difference so long as iron is the metal used. Women may not worship at the Deo-khulla. It seems clear that the original G.o.ds were, with the exception of Ghangra, hunting-weapons and representations of animals. Ghangra may be venerated because of his a.s.sociation with bullocks and also on account of the melodious sound made by bullock-bells. Of all the G.o.ds the most remarkable probably is Palo. He is made of cloth and acts as a covering for the spear-heads at the time of worship. The one I saw was a small cloth, about 30 by 18 inches, and in the form of a shield. He is a very expensive G.o.d and costs from Rs. 50 to Rs. 80, his outside value perhaps being Rs. 5. When a new one is required it has to be made by a Katia or Raj-Pardhan, who must live in a separate house and not go near his own till its completion. He must also be naked while he is working and may not eat, drink, smoke or perform natural functions till he has finished for the day. While engaged on the cloth he is well fed by the Gonds and supplied with fowls and spirits; it is not surprising, therefore, that the G.o.d is never finished in six months, though I would engage to make one in a week. The cloth is embroidered with figures in coloured silk, with a st.i.tch or two of red silk in each animal, which will subsequently represent blood. The animals I saw embroidered were a bullock, some sort of deer, a gouty-looking snake with a body as thick as the elephant's, and the latter animal barely distinguishable from it by having two legs and a trunk. When ready the cloth Palo is taken to the Deo-khulla and a great worship is held, during which blood is seen to flow from the figures on the cloth and they are supposed to be endowed with life." The animals embroidered on the cloth are probably those princ.i.p.ally revered by the Gonds, as the elephant, snake, deer and bullock, while the worship of the cloth itself and the embroidery on it indicates that they considered the arts of weaving and sewing as divinely revealed accomplishments. And the fact that the other G.o.ds were made of iron shows a similar reverence for this metal, which they perhaps first discovered in India. At any rate the quarrying and refining of indigenous iron-ore is at present carried out by the Agarias, a caste derived from the Gonds. The spear-head shape of most of the G.o.ds and that of Palo like a shield show their veneration for these weapons of war, which are themselves sacred.

42. Household G.o.ds.

"In almost every house," Mr. Tawney states, "there is also a set of G.o.ds for everyday use. They are often the same as the village G.o.ds or those of the Deo-khulla and also include deified ancestors. These household G.o.ds have a tendency to increase, as special occasions necessitate the creation of a new G.o.d, and once he is enthroned in the house he never seems to leave it of his own accord. Thus if a man is killed by a cobra; he or the cobra becomes a household G.o.d and is worshipped for many generations. If a set of G.o.ds does not work satisfactorily, they are also, some or all of them, discarded and a new lot introduced. The form of the G.o.ds varies considerably, the only constant thing about them being the vermilion with which they are all daubed. They are sometimes all earthen cones and vary from that to miniature wooden tables. I may mention that it is somewhat difficult to get a Gond either to confess that he has any household G.o.ds or to show them. The best way is to send off the father of the family on some errand, and then to ask his unsuspecting wife to bring out the G.o.ds. You generally get them on a tray and some of the villagers will help her to name them." In Mandla in every Gond's house there is a Deothana or G.o.d's place, where all the G.o.ds are kept. Those who have children include Jhulan Devi, or the cradle G.o.ddess, among their household deities. In the Deothana there is always a vessel full of water and a stick, and when a man comes in from outside he goes to this and sprinkles a little water over his body to free himself from any impurity he may have contracted abroad.

43. Nag Deo.

On one of the posts of the house the image of Nag Deo, the cobra G.o.d, is made in mud. In Asarh (June) the first month of the rains, which the Gonds consider the beginning of the year, snakes frequently appear. In this month they try to kill a cobra, and will then cut off the head and tail, and offer them to Nag Deo, inside the house, while they cook and eat the body. They think that the eating of the snake's body will protect them from the effects of eating any poisonous substance throughout the year.

44. Narayan Deo.

Narayan Deo or the sun is also a household deity. He has a little platform inside the threshold of the house. He may be worshipped every two or three years, but if a snake appears in the house or any one falls ill they think that Narayan Deo is impatient and perform his worship. A young pig is offered to him and is sometimes fattened up beforehand by feeding it on rice. The pig is laid on its back over the threshold of the door and a number of men press a heavy beam of wood on its body till it is crushed to death. They cut off the tail and t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and bury them near the threshold. The body of the pig is washed in a hole dug in the yard, and it is then cooked and eaten. They sing to the G.o.d, "Eat, Narayan Deo, eat this rice and meat, and protect us from all tigers, snakes and bears in our houses; protect us from all illnesses and troubles." Next day the bones and any other remains of the pig are buried in the hole in the compound and the earth is well stamped down over it.

45. Bura Deo.

Bura Deo, the great G.o.d of the Gonds, is sometimes, as seen, a name for all the G.o.ds in the Deo-khulla. But he is usually considered as a single G.o.d, and often consists of a number of bra.s.s or iron b.a.l.l.s suspended to a ring and hung on a saj tree. Again, he may be represented by a few links of a roughly forged iron chain also hung on the tree, and the divine power of the chain is shown by the fact that it can move of itself, and occasionally descends to rest on a stone under the tree or migrates to a neighbouring nullah (stream). Nowadays in Mandla Bura Deo is found as an iron doll made by a neighbouring blacksmith instead of a chain. It would appear, however, that he was originally the saj tree (Boswellia serrata), an important forest tree growing to a considerable height, which is much revered by the Gonds. They do not cut this tree, nor its branches, except for ceremonial purposes, and their most sacred form of oath is to swear by the name of Bura Deo, holding a branch of the saj tree above the head. If Bura Deo was first the saj tree, then we may surmise that when the Gonds discovered iron they held it more sacred than the tree because it was more important, as the material from which their axes and spears were made. And therefore Bura Deo became an iron chain hanging on the saj tree. The axe is a Gond's most valuable implement, as with it he cut down the forest to clear a s.p.a.ce for his shifting cultivation, and also provided himself with wood for hutting, fuel and other purposes. The axe and spear were also his weapons of war. Hence the discovery of iron was an enormous step forward in civilisation, and this may account for the reverence in which it is held by the Gonds. The metamorphosis of Bura Deo from an iron chain to an iron doll may perhaps be considered to mark the arrival of the Gonds at the stage of religion when anthropomorphic G.o.ds are worshipped. Bura Deo is sometimes represented with Mahadeo or Siva and Parvati, two of the greatest Hindu deities, in attendance on him on each side. Communal sacrifices of pigs and also of goats are made to him at intervals of one or two years; the animals are stretched out on their backs and killed by driving a stake of saj or tendu [72] wood through the belly. Sometimes a goat is dedicated to him a year beforehand, and allowed to wander loose in the village in the name of Bura Deo, and given good food, and even called by the name of the G.o.d. It would appear that the original sacrificial animal was the pig, and the goat was afterwards added or subst.i.tuted. Bura Deo is also worshipped on special occasions, as when a man has got vermin in a wound, or, as the people of the country say, when G.o.d has remembered him. In this case the sufferer must pay all the expenses of the ceremony which is necessary for his purification. The dead are also mingled in Bura Deo, as described in the section on funeral rites. Bura Deo is believed to protect the Gonds from wild animals; and if members of a family meet a tiger, snake or other dangerous animal several times within a fairly short period, they think that Bura Deo is displeased with them and have a special sacrifice in his honour. Ordinarily when the Panda or priest sacrifices an animal he severs its head with an axe and holds the head over the image or symbol of the G.o.d to allow the blood to drop on it. Before sacrificing a chicken he places some grain before it and says, 'If I have committed no fault, eat,' and if the chicken does not eat of itself he usually forces it to pick a grain. Then he says that the sacrifice is acceptable to the G.o.d.

46. Charms and magic.

When they think a child has been overlooked they fetch a strip of leather from the Chamar's house, make it into a little bag, fill it with sc.r.a.pings from a clean bit of leather, and hang it round the child's neck. If a child is ill they sometimes fetch from the Chamar's house water which has been used for tanning and give it him to drink. If a man is possessed by an evil spirit, they will take some coins, silver for preference, and wave them round his head with a lamp, and take them out and bury them in a waste place. They throw one or two more rupees on the surface of the soil in which they have buried the coins. Then they think the spirit will leave the sufferer, and if any one picks up the coins on the surface of the ground the spirit will possess him. Hindus who find such buried coins frequently refuse to take them, even though they may be valuable, from fear of being possessed by the spirit. Occasionally a man of a treacherous disposition may transfer an evil spirit, which is haunting him, with a daughter in marriage. The husband's family suspect this if a spirit begins to trouble them. A Vaddai or magician is called, and he tries to transfer the spirit to a fowl or goat by giving the latter some rice to eat. If the spirit then ceases troubling they conclude that it was transferred by the bride's father, and go to him and reproach him. If he admits that he had a spirit in his family which has given no trouble lately, they ask him to take it back, even though he may not have intended its transfer. The goat or fowl to which the spirit was transferred is then sacrificed in its name and the meat is eaten only by the father-in-law's family, to whom the spirit thus returns. A miniature hut is built for the spirit in his yard, and a pot, a lamp and a knife are placed in the hut for its use, and an offering of a goat is made to the spirit occasionally at festivals.

In order to injure an enemy they will make an image of him in clay, preferably taken from underneath his footprint, and carry it to the cemetery. Here they offer red lead, red thread, bangles, and various kinds of grain and pulse to the ghosts and say to them, "Male and female deities, old and newly buried, maimed and lame, spirits of the wind, I p.r.o.nounce this charm with your help." Then they pierce the figure with arrows in the chest and cut it with a knife in the region of the liver and think that their enemy will die. Another method is to draw the likeness of an enemy on cloth with lime or charcoal, and bury it in a pot in front of his house on a Sunday or Tuesday night so that he may walk on it in the morning, when they hope that the same result will be achieved.

In order to breed a quarrel in an enemy's house they get the feathers of a crow, or the seeds of the amaltas, [73] or porcupine needles, and after smoking them over a fire in which some nails have been placed, tie them to the eaves of his house, repeating some charm. The seeds of the amaltas rattle in their pods in the wind, and hence it is supposed that they will produce a noise of quarrelling. Porcupine's quills are sharp and p.r.i.c.kly, and crow's feathers are perhaps efficacious because the crow is supposed to be a talkative and quarrelsome bird. The nails in the fire, being sharp-pointed, may be meant to add potency to the charm. One who wishes to transfer sickness to another person obtains a cloth belonging to the latter and draws two human figures on it, one right side up and the other upside down, in lamp-black. After saying charms over the cloth he puts it back surrept.i.tiously in the owner's house. When people are ill they make a vow to some G.o.d that if they recover they will sacrifice a certain number of animals proportionate to the severity of the illness. If the patient then recovers, and the vow is for a larger number of animals than he can afford, he sets fire to a piece of forest so that a number of animals may be burnt as an offering to the G.o.d, and his vow may thus be fulfilled. This practice has no doubt gone out owing to the conservation of forests.

47. Omens.

If a Gond, when starting on a journey in the morning, should meet a tiger, cat, hare, or a four-horned deer, he will return and postpone his journey; but if he meets one of these animals when he is well on the way it is considered to be lucky. Rain falling at a wedding or some other festival is believed to be unlucky, as it is as if somebody were crying. In Mandla, if a c.o.c.k crows in the night, a man will get up at once, catch it and twist its neck, and throw it over the house as far away as he can. Apparently the c.o.c.k is supposed to be calling to evil spirits. If a hen cackles, or lays eggs at night, it is also considered inauspicious, and the bird is often killed or given away. They think they can acquire strength by carrying the shoulder-bones of a tiger on their shoulders or drinking a little of the bone-dust pounded in water. If there is disease in the village, the Bhumka or village priest performs the ceremony of Gaon bandhna or tying up the village. Accompanied by a party of men he drives a pig all round the village boundary, scattering grains of urad pulse and mustard seed on the way. The pig is then sacrificed, its blood is sprinkled on all the village G.o.ds, and it is eaten by the party. No man or animal may go outside the village on the day of this ceremony, which should be performed on a Sunday or Wednesday. When cattle disease breaks out the Bhumka makes an arch of three poles, to which is hung a string of mango leaves, and all the cattle of the village are driven under it to avert the disease.

48. Agricultural superst.i.tions.

When there is drought two boys put a pestle across their shoulders, tie a living frog to it with a rag, and go from house to house accompanied by other boys and girls singing:

Mendak Bhai pani de, Dhan, kodon pakne de, Mere byah hone de,

or 'Brother Frog give rain; let the rice and kodon ripen; let my marriage be held.' The frog is considered to be able to produce rain because it lives in water and therefore has control over its element. The boy's point in asking the frog to let his marriage be held is that if the rains failed and the crops withered, his parents would be unable to afford the expense. Another method of obtaining rain is for two naked women to go and harness themselves to a plough at night, while a third naked woman drives the plough and p.r.i.c.ks them with a goad. This does not appear capable of explanation on any magical basis, so far as I know, and the idea may possibly be to force the clemency of the G.o.ds by showing their extraordinary sufferings, or to show that the world is topsy-turvy for want of rain. A leather rope is sometimes tied to a plough and harrow, and the boys and girls pull against one another on the rope in a tug-of-war. If the girls win they think that rain will soon come, but if the boys win that it will not. In order to stop excessive rain, a naked bachelor collects water from the eaves in a new earthen pot, covers the pot with a lid or with mud, and buries it beneath the earth; or the pot may be filled with salt. Here it may perhaps be supposed that, as the water dries up in the pot or the salt gets dry, so the rain will stop and the world generally become dry. The reason for employing women to produce rain, and men to stop it, may be that women, as they give milk, will be more potent in obtaining the other liquid, water. Nakedness is a common element in magic, perhaps because clothes are considered a civilised appanage, and unsuitable for a contest with the powers of nature; a certain idea of impurity may also attach to them. If a crow in carrying a straw to build its nest holds it in the middle, they think that the rains will be normal and adequate; but if the straw is held towards one end, that the rains will be excessive or deficient. If the t.i.tahri or sandpiper lays four eggs properly arranged, they think that sufficient rain will fall in all the four monsoon months. If only one, two or three eggs are laid, or only this number properly placed in the nest and the others at the side, then the rains will be good only in an equivalent number of months.

At the beginning of the harvest they pluck an ear of corn and say, 'Whatever G.o.d is the guardian of this place, this is your share, take it, and do not interfere.' The last plants in the field are cut and sent home by a little girl and put at the bottom of the grain-bin of the house. Chitkuar Devi is the G.o.ddess of the threshing-floor, and before beginning to winnow the grain they sacrifice a pig and a chicken to her, cutting the throats of the animals and letting their blood drop on to the central post of the threshing-floor. When they are about to take the kodon home, they set aside a basketful and give it to the sister's son or sister's husband of the owner, placing a bottle of liquor on the top, and he takes it home to the house, and there they drink one or two bottles of liquor, and then begin eating the new grain.

49. Magical or religious observances in fishing and hunting.

In Mandla the Gonds still perform, or did till recently, various magical or religious rites to obtain success in fishing and hunting. The men of a village were accustomed to go out fishing as a communal act. They arrived at the river before sunrise, and at midday their women brought them pej or gruel. On returning the women made a mound or platform before the house of the princ.i.p.al man of the party. All the fish caught were afterwards laid on this platform and the leader then divided them, leaving one piece on the platform. Next morning this piece was taken away and placed on the grave of the leader's ancestor. If no fish were caught on the first day, then on the next day the women took the men no food. And if they caught no fish for two or three days running, they went and dug up the platform erected in front of the leader's house and levelled it with the ground. Then the next morning early all the people of the village went to another village and danced the Sela dance before the tombs of the ancestors of that village. Sometimes they went on to a third village and did the same. The headman of the village visited levied a contribution from his people, and gave them food and drink and a present of Rs. 1-4. With this they bought liquor, and coming back to their own village, offered it in front of the platform which they had levelled, and drank it. Next morning they went fishing again, but said that they did not care whether they caught anything or not, as they had pleased their G.o.d. Next year all the people of the village they had visited would come and dance the Sela dance at their village the whole day, and the hosts had to give the visitors food and drink. This was said to be from grat.i.tude to the headman of the other village for placating their G.o.d with an offering of Rs. 1-4. And the visit might even be repeated annually so long as the headman of the other village was alive. Apparently in this elaborate ritual the platform especially represented the forefathers of the village, whose spirits were supposed to give success in fishing. If the fishers were unsuccessful, they demolished the platform to show their displeasure to the spirits, and went and danced before the ancestors of another village to intimate the transfer of their allegiance from their own ancestors to these latter. The ancestors would thus feel themselves properly snubbed and discarded for their ill-nature in not giving success to the fishing party. But when they had been in this condition for a day or so the headman of the other village sent them an offering of liquor, and it was thus intimated to them that, though their own descendants had temporarily transferred their devotion, they were not entirely abandoned. It would be hoped that the ancestors would lay the lesson to heart, and, placated by the liquor, be more careful in future of the welfare of their descendants. The season for fishing was in Kunwar and Kartik, and it sometimes extended into Aghan (September to November). During these months, from the time the new kodon was cut at the beginning of the period, they danced the Sela, and they did not dance this dance at any other time of the year. [74]

At other seasons they would dance the Karma. The Sela dance is danced by men alone; they have sticks and form two circles, and walk in and out in opposite directions, beating their sticks together as they pa.s.s. Sometimes other men sit on the shoulders of the dancers and beat their sticks. Sela is said to be the name of the stick. In the Sela dance the singing is in the form of Dadaria, that is, one party recites a line and the other party replies; this is not done in the Karma dance, for which they have regular songs. It seems possible that the Sela dance was originally a mimic combat, danced before they went out to fight in order to give them success in the battle. Subsequently it might be danced before they went out hunting and fishing with the same object. If there was no stream to which they could go fishing they would buy some fish and offer it to the G.o.d, and have a holiday and eat it, or if they could not go fishing they might go hunting in a party instead. When a single Gond intends to go out hunting in the forest he first lights a lamp before his household G.o.d in the house, or if he has no oil he will kindle a fire, and the lamp or fire must be kept burning all the time he is out. If he returns successful he offers a chicken to the G.o.d and extinguishes the lamp. But if he is unsuccessful he keeps the lamp burning all night, and goes out again early next morning. If he gets more game this time he will offer the chicken, but if not he will extinguish the lamp, put his gun outside and not touch it again for eight days. A Gond never takes food in the morning before going out hunting, but goes out in a fasting condition perhaps in order that the G.o.d, seeing his hunger, may send him some game to eat. Nor will a Gond visit his wife the night before he goes out hunting. When a Baiga goes out hunting he bangs his liquor-gourd on the ground before his household G.o.d and vows that, if successful, he will offer to the G.o.d the gourd full of liquor and a chicken. But if he returns empty-handed, instead of doing this he fills the gourd with earth and throws it over the G.o.d to show his wrath. Then if he is successful on the next day, he will sc.r.a.pe off the earth and offer the liquor and chicken as promised. A Baiga should worship his G.o.d and go out hunting at the new moon, and then he will hunt the whole month. But if he has not worshipped his G.o.d at the new moon, and still goes out hunting and is unsuccessful, he will hunt no more that month. Some Gonds before they go hunting draw an image of Mahabir or Hanuman, the monkey G.o.d and the G.o.d of strength, on their guns, and rub it out when they get home again.

50. Witchcraft.

The belief in witchcraft has been till recently in full force and vigour among the Gonds, and is only now showing symptoms of decline. In 1871 Sir C. Grant wrote: [75] "The wild hill country from Mandla to the eastern coast is believed to be so infested by witches that at one time no prudent father would let his daughter marry into a family which did not include among its members at least one of the dangerous sisterhood. The non-Aryan belief in the power of evil here strikes a ready chord in the minds of their conquerors, attuned to dread by the inhospitable appearance of the country and the terrible effect of its malicious influences upon human life. In the wilds of Mandla there are many deep hillside caves which not even the most intrepid Baiga hunter would approach for fear of attracting upon himself the wrath of their demoniac inhabitants; and where these hillmen, who are regarded both by themselves and by others as ministers between men and spirits, are afraid, the sleek cultivator of the plains must feel absolute repulsion. Then the suddenness of the epidemics to which, whether from deficient water-supply or other causes, Central India seems so subject, is another fruitful source of terror among an ignorant people. When cholera breaks out in a wild part of the country it creates a perfect stampede--villages, roads, and all works in progress are deserted; even the sick are abandoned by their nearest relations to die, and crowds fly to the jungles, there to starve on fruits and berries till the panic has pa.s.sed off. The only consideration for which their minds have room at such times is the punishment of the offenders, for the ravages caused by the disease are unhesitatingly set down to human malice. The police records of the Central Provinces unfortunately contain too many sad instances of life thus sacrificed to a mad unreasoning terror." The detection of a witch by the agency of the corpse, when the death is believed to have been caused by witchcraft, has been described in the section on funeral rites. In other cases a lamp was lighted and the names of the suspected persons repeated; the flicker of the lamp at any name was held to indicate the witch. Two leaves were thrown on the outstretched hand of a suspected person, and if the leaf representing her or him fell above the other suspicion was deepened. In Bastar the leaf ordeal was followed by sewing the person accused into a sack and letting her down into shallow water; if she managed in her struggles for life to raise her head above water she was finally adjudged to be guilty. A witch was beaten with rods of the tamarind or castor-oil plants, which were supposed to be of peculiar efficacy in such cases; her head was shaved cross-wise from one ear to the other over the head and down to the neck; her teeth were sometimes knocked out, perhaps to prevent her from doing mischief if she should a.s.sume the form of a tiger or other wild animal; she was usually obliged to leave the village, and often murdered. Murder for witchcraft is now comparatively rare as it is too often followed by detection and proper punishment. But the belief in the causation of epidemic disease by personal agency is only slowly declining. Such measures as the disinfection of wells by permanganate of potash during a visitation of cholera, or inoculation against plague, are sometimes considered as attempts on the part of the Government to reduce the population. When the first epidemic of plague broke out in Mandla in 1911 it caused a panic among the Gonds, who threatened to attack with their axes any Government officer who should come to their village, in the belief that all of them must be plague-inoculators. In the course of six months, however, the feeling of panic died down under a system of instruction by schoolmasters and other local officials and by circulars; and by the end of the period the Gonds began to offer themselves voluntarily for inoculation, and would probably have come to do so in fairly large numbers if the epidemic had not subsided.

51. Human sacrifice. [76]

The Gonds were formerly accustomed to offer human sacrifices, especially to the G.o.ddess Kali and to the G.o.ddess Danteshwari, the tutelary deity of the Rajas of Bastar. Her shrine was at a place called Dantewara, and she was probably at first a local G.o.ddess and afterwards identified with the Hindu G.o.ddess Kali. An inscription recently found in Bastar records the grant of a village to a Medipota in order to secure the welfare of the people and their cattle. This man was the head of a community whose business it was, in return for the grants of land which they enjoyed, to supply victims for human sacrifice either from their own families or elsewhere. Tradition states that on one occasion as many as 101 persons were sacrificed to avert some great calamity which had befallen the country. And sacrifices also took place when the Raja visited the temple. During the period of the Bhonsla rule early in the nineteenth century the Raja of Bastar was said to have immolated twenty-five men before he set out to visit the Raja of Nagpur at his capital. This would no doubt be as an offering for his safety, and the lives of the victims were given as a subst.i.tute for his own. A guard was afterwards placed on the temple by the Marathas, but reports show that human sacrifice was not finally stamped out until the Nagpur territories lapsed to the British in 1853. At Chanda and Lanji also, Mr. Hislop states, human sacrifices were offered until well into the nineteenth century [77] at the temples of Kali. The victim was taken to the temple after sunset and shut up within its dismal walls. In the morning, when the door was opened, he was found dead, much to the glory of the great G.o.ddess, who had shown her power by coming during the night and sucking his blood. No doubt there must have been some of her servants hid in the fane whose business it was to prepare the horrid banquet. It is said that an iron plate was afterwards put over the face of the G.o.ddess to prevent her from eating up the persons going before her. In Chanda the legend tells that the families of the town had each in turn to supply a victim to the G.o.ddess. One day a mother was weeping bitterly because her only son was to be taken as the victim, when an Ahir pa.s.sed by, and on learning the cause of her sorrow offered to go instead. He took with him the rope of hair with which the Ahirs tie the legs of their cows when milking them and made a noose out of it. When the G.o.ddess came up to him he threw the noose over her neck and drew it tight like a Thug. The G.o.ddess begged him to let her go, and he agreed to do so on condition that she asked for no more human victims. No doubt, if the legend has any foundation, the Ahir found a human neck within his noose. It has been suggested in the article on Thug that the G.o.ddess Kali is really the deified tiger, and if this were so her craving for human sacrifices is readily understood. All the three places mentioned, Dantewara, Lanji and Chanda, are in a territory where tigers are still numerous, and certain points in the above legends favour the idea of this animal origin of the G.o.ddess. Such are the shutting of the victim in the temple at night as an animal is tied up for a tiger-kill, and the closing of her mouth with an iron plate as the mouths of tigers are sometimes supposed to be closed by magic. Similarly it may perhaps be believed that the Raja of Bastar offered human sacrifices to protect himself and his party from the attacks of tigers, which would be the princ.i.p.al danger on a journey to Nagpur. In Mandla there is a tradition that a Brahman boy was formerly sacrificed at intervals to the G.o.d Bura Deo, and the forehead of the G.o.d was marked with his hair in place of sandalwood, and the G.o.d bathed in his blood and used his bones as sticks for playing at ball. Similarly in Bindranawagarh in Raipur the Gonds are said to have entrapped strangers and offered them to their G.o.ds, and if possible a Brahman was obtained as the most suitable offering. These legends indicate the traditional hostility of the Gonds to the Hindus, and especially to the Brahmans, by whom they were at one time much oppressed and ousted from their lands. According to tradition, a Gond Raja of Garha-Mandla, Madhkur Shah, had treacherously put his elder brother to death. Divine vengeance overtook him and he became afflicted with chronic pains in the head. No treatment was of avail, and he was finally advised that the only means of appeasing a justly incensed deity was to offer his own life. He determined to be burnt inside the trunk of the sacred pipal tree, and a hollow trunk sufficiently dry for the purpose having been found at Deogarh, twelve miles from Mandla, he shut himself up in it and was burnt to death. The story is interesting as showing how the neurotic or other pains, which are the result of remorse for a crime, are ascribed to the vengeance of a divine providence.

52. Cannibalism.

Mr. Wilson quotes [78] an account, written by Lieutenant Prendergast in 1820, in which he states that he had discovered a tribe of Gonds who were cannibals, but ate only their own relations. The account was as follows: "In May 1820 I visited the hills of Amarkantak, and having heard that a particular tribe of Gonds who lived in the hills were cannibals, I made the most particular inquiries a.s.sisted by my clerk Mohan Singh, an intelligent and well-informed Kayasth. We learned after much trouble that there was a tribe of Gonds who resided in the hills of Amarkantak and to the south-east in the Gondwana country, who held very little intercourse with the villagers and never went among them except to barter or purchase provisions. This race live in detached parties and seldom have more than eight or ten huts in one place. They are cannibals in the real sense of the word, but never eat the flesh of any person not belonging to their own family or tribe; nor do they do this except on particular occasions. It is the custom of this singular people to cut the throat of any person of their family who is attacked by severe illness and who they think has no chance of recovering, when they collect the whole of their relations and friends, and feast upon the body. In like manner when a person arrives at a great age and becomes feeble and weak, the Halalkhor operates upon him, when the different members of the family a.s.semble for the same purpose as above stated. In other respects this is a simple race of people, nor do they consider cutting the throats of their sick relations or aged parents any sin; but on the contrary an act acceptable to Kali, a blessing to their relatives, and a mercy to their whole race."