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in the Western Isles of Scotland, where they send a man very early on the morning of the first of May to prevent any woman from crossing, for that, they say, would prevent the salmon from coming into the river all the year round.'

1 Dyer, "Popular Customs," 270.

CHAPTER V.

THE BLACK ART.

Simulacraque cerea figit

Et miserum tenues in jecur urget acus.
Ovid, Heroides, vi. 91, 92.

FROM the Baiga or Ojha, who by means of his grain sieve fetish identifies the particular evil spirit by which his patient is afflicted, we come to the regular witch or wizard. He works in India by means and appliances which can be readily paralleled by the procedure of his brethren in Western countries.'

THE WITCH.

The position of the witch has been so clearly stated by Sir A. Lyall, that his remarks deserve quotation. "The peculiarity of the witch is that he does everything without the help of the gods. It begins when a savage stumbles on a few natural effects out of the common run of things, which he finds himself able to work by unvarying rule of thumb. He becomes a fetish to himself. Fetishism is the adoration of a visible object supposed to possess active A witch is one who professes to work marvels, not through the aid or counsel of the supernatural beings in whom he believes as much as the rest, but by certain occult faculties which he conceives himself to possess. There is a real distinction even in fetishism between the witch and the

For the European witch, consult among other authorities Scott, "Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft," passim; Chambers, "Book of Days," i. 356 sq.; Gregor, "Folk-lore of North-East Scotland," 69 sq.; Conway, "Demonology," ii. 317, 327; Lubbock, "Origin of Civilization," 245 sq.

brother practitioner on a fetish, or between the witch and the Shaman, who rolls about the ground and screams out his oracles; and this line, between adoration and inspiration, vows and oracles on the one side, and thaumaturgy by occult, incomprehensible arts on the other, divides the two professions from bottom to top. Hence, the witch, and not the man who works through the fetish, is proscribed. Hence any disappointment in the aid which the aboriginal tribes are entitled to expect from their gods to avoid averting disease or famine, throws the people on the scent of witchcraft."

1

Again, "The most primitive witchcraft looks very like medicine in the embryonic state; but as no one will give the aboriginal physician any credit for cures or chemical effects produced by simple human knowledge, he is soon forced back into occult and mystic devices, which belong neither to religion nor to destiny, but are a ridiculous mixture of both; whence the ordinary kind of witchcraft is generated."

And he goes on to show how "the great plagues, cholera and the small-pox, belong to the gods; but a man cannot expect a great incarnation of Vishnu to cure his cow, or find his lost purse; nor will public opinion tolerate his going to any respectable shrine with a petition that his neighbour's wife, his ox, or his ass may be smitten with some sore disease." This, however, must be taken with the correction that, as we have seen already, the deities which rule disease are of a much lower grade than the divine cabinet which rules the world. The main difference then between the hedge priest and the witch is, as Sir A. Lyall shows, that the former serves his god or devil, whereas the latter makes the familiar demon, if one is kept, serve him.

WITCHCRAFT: How Developed.

The belief in witchcraft is general among the lower and less advanced Indian races. Colonel Dalton's assertion that

1 "Asiatic Studies," 79 sqq., 89 sqq.

the Juângs, who were quite recently in the stage of wearing leaf aprons, do not believe in witchcraft or sorcery, must be accepted with great caution. It is quite certain that all the allied Dravidian races, even those at a somewhat higher state of culture than the Juângs, such as Kols, Kharwârs, and Cheros, firmly believe in witchcraft. But all these people observe the most extreme reticence on the subject. If you ask a Mirzapur Hill-man if there are any witches in his neighbourhood, he will look round furtively and suspiciously, and even if he admits that he has heard of such people, he will be very reluctant to give much information about them.

A belief in witchcraft is, then, primarily the heritage of the more isolated and least advanced races, like the Kols and Bhîls, Santâls and Thârus. In fact, whatever may be the ethnical origin of the theory, it is at present in Northern India almost specialized among the Drâvidian, or aboriginal peoples. It also widely prevails among those who lead a nomadic life and are thus brought more directly in contact with nature in her wilder and sterner moods, such as the Nat and the Kanjar, the Hâbûra and the Sânsiya. So, in Europe sorcery and fortune-telling, the charming of disease, the making of love philters, and so on are the function of the Romani; and Mr. Leland hazards the supposition that Herodias was a gipsy.1

The belief that a certain person is a witch is probably generated in various ways. Many a one becomes reputed as a witch from the realization of some unlucky prophecy, or the fulfilment of some casual, passionate curse or imprecation upon an enemy or rival. The old Scottish rhymes exactly express this feeling :

There dwelt a weaver in Moffat toun,
That said the minister would die sune;

The minister died, and the fouk o' the toun

They brant the weaver wi' the wadd o' the lume,
And ca'd it weel-waned on the warloch loon.2

1 "Etruscan Roman Remains," 155.
Chambers, "Popular Rhymes of Scotland," 23.

With this is intimately connected the belief in the Evil Eye, and that certain persons have the power of calling down on their enemies the influence of evil spirits; and, as in Western lands, such a power is often attributed to persons afflicted with ugliness, deformity, crankiness of temper, liability to sudden fits of passion, epilepsy, and the like. Disease or death, famine, accident, or any form of trouble, never, in popular belief, come naturally. There is always behind calamity some malignant power which selects the victim, and the attribution of this faculty to any one naturally regarded as uncanny, or who practises rites or worship strange to orthodox belief, is in the opinion of the rustic only reasonable.

THE JIGAR KHOR.

One particularly dreaded form of witch is the Jigar Khor or liver-eater, of whom Abul Fazl gives a description: "One of this class can steal away the liver of another by looks and incantations. Other accounts say that by looking at a person he deprives him of his senses, and then steals from him something resembling the seed of a pomegranate, which he hides in the calf of his leg; after being swelled by the fire, he distributes it among his fellows to be eaten, which ceremony concludes the life of the fascinated person. A Jigar Khor is able to communicate his art to another by teaching him incantations, and by making him eat a bit of the liver cake. These Jigar Khors are mostly women. It is said they can bring intelligence from a long distance in a short space of time, and if they are thrown into a river with a stone tied to them, they nevertheless will not sink. In order to deprive any one of this wicked power, they brand his temples and every joint of his body, cram his eyes with salt, suspend him for forty days in a subterraneous chamber, and repeat over him certain incantations."

Of the modern Jigar Khors of the Panjâb we are told that when a witch succeeds in taking out a man's liver, she will not eat it for two and a half days. If after eating it she is

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