1 round her child's neck till he grows up." Mr. Ibbetson suggests that this may have been the origin of the mysterious so-called "cup-marks," described by Mr. Rivett-Carnac. But this is far from certain; they may equally well have been used for sacrifices to Mother Earth, or in any other primeval form of worship. SHRINES TO PERSONS Accidentally Killed. Many of these shrines to persons who have died by an untimely death are known by special names, which indicate the character of the accident. We shall meet again with the Baghaut, or shrine, to a man killed by a tiger. We have also Bijaliya Bîr, the man who was killed by lightning, Târ Bîr, a man who fell from a Târ or toddy tree, and Nâgiya Bîr, a person killed by a snake. General Cunningham mentions shrines of this kind; one to an elephant driver who was killed by a fall from a tree, another to a Brâhman who was killed by a cow, a third to a Kashmîri lady who had only one leg and died in her flight from Delhi to Oudh of exhaustion on the journey. Bhûts are most to be feared by women and children, and by people at any serious crisis of their lives, such as marriage or child-birth. They also attack people after eating sweets, x 66 so that if you treat a school to sweetmeats, the sweetmeat seller will also bring salt, of which he will give a pinch to each boy to take the sweet taste out of his mouth." Salt is, as we shall see later on, particularly offensive to evil spirits.3 SECOND MARRIAGE AND BHÛTS. Women who have married a second time are specially liable to the envious attacks of the first husband. If in Bombay "a Mahâdeo Koli widow bride or her husband sicken, it is considered the work of the former husband. Among the Somavansi Kshatriyas, there is a strong belief 2 Ibbetson, loc. cit., 117. 3 Aubrey, "Remaines," 121; Lady Wilde, "Legends," 44, 233. 1 "Panjab Ethnography," 116. that when a woman marries another husband, her first husband becomes a ghost and troubles her. This fear is so strongly rooted in their minds, that whenever a woman of this caste sickens, she attributes her sickness to the ghost of her former husband, and consults an exorcist as to how she can get rid of him. The exorcist gives her some charmed rice, flowers, and basil leaves, and tells her to enclose them in a small copper box and wear it round her neck. Sometimes the exorcist gives her a charmed cocoanut, which he tells her to worship daily, and in some cases he advises the woman to make a copper or silver image of the dead and worship it every day."1 So in Northern India, people who marry again after the death of the first wife wear what is known as the Saukan Maura, or second wife's crown. This is a little silver amulet, generally with an image of Devî engraved on it. This is hung round the husband's neck, and all presents made to the second wife are first dedicated to it. The idea is that the new wife recognizes the superiority of her predecessor, and thus appeases her malignity. The illness or death of the second wife or of her husband soon after marriage is attributed to the jealousy of the ghost of the first wife, which has not been suitably propitiated. In the Panjâb, on the same principle, if a man has lost two or three wives in succession, he gets a woman to catch a bird and adopt it as her daughter. He then pays the dower, marries his bird bride, and immediately divorces her. By this means the malignant influence is diverted to the bird, and the real wife is safe. We shall meet again with the same principle in dealing with the curious custom of tree marriage. FOOD OF BHÛTS. Like evil spirits all the world over, Bhûts will eat filthy food, and as they are always thirsty, they are glad to secure 1 Campbell," Notes," 171. 2 "Panjâb Notes and Queries," i. 13; "North Indian Notes and Queries," i. 4. even a drop of water, no matter how impure the purpose may have been for which it has been used. On the other hand, they are very fond of milk, and no Panjâbi woman likes her child to leave the house after drinking fresh milk. If she cannot prevent it from going, she puts some salt or ashes into its mouth to scare the Bhût.' POSTURE OF BHÛTS. 3 Bhûts can never sit on the ground, apparently, because, as has been shown already, the earth, personified as a goddess, scares away all evil influence. Hence, near the low-caste shrines a couple of pegs or bricks are set up for the Bhût to rest on, or a bamboo is hung over it, on which the Bhût perches when he visits the place. On the same principle the Orâons hang up the cinerary urn containing the bones of a dead man on a post in front of the house, and the person who is going on a pilgrimage, or conveying the bones of a relative to the Ganges, sleeps on the ground; but the bones must not rest on the ground; they are hung on the branch of a tree, so that their late owner may revisit them if so disposed. Near shrines where Bhûts are always about on the chance of appropriating the offerings, it is expedient to sleep on the ground. So the bride and bridegroom rest, and the dying man is laid at the moment of dissolution. TESTS OF BHÛTS. There are at least three infallible tests by which you may recognize a Bhût. In the first place he casts no shadow. In the third Canto of the Purgatorio, Dante is much distressed because Virgil, being a disembodied spirit, casts no shadow. In the second place a Bhût can stand almost anything in his neighbourhood but the scent of burning turmeric, which, as we shall see, is a well-known demonThirdly, a genuine Bhût always speaks with a nasal scarer. 1 "Panjab Notes and Queries," iv. 57. 2 See Cunningham, "Archæological Reports," xvii. 147. twang, and it is possibly for this last reason that the term for the gibberish in the mediæval plays and for modern English is Pisâcha Bhâsha, or the language of goblins.' Some of them have throats as narrow as a needle, but they can drink gallons of water at a time. Some, like the Churel, whom we shall meet later on, have their feet turned backwards. Some, like Brâhman ghosts, are wheat-coloured or white; others, like the Kâfari, the ghost of a murdered negro, are black, and particularly dreaded. A famous ghost of this class haunts a lane in Calcutta, which takes its name from him. SPIRIT LOVERS. Many denizens of the spirit land have connection with mortals. We have the cycle of folk-tales known as that of the Swan maidens. Urvasî came and lived with Parûravas until he broke the curiosity taboo. We shall see instances where Indra gives one of his fairies to a mortal lover, and spirits like the Incubi and Succubi of European folk-lore can be brought down by incantation. SPIRIT ENTRIES: THE HEAD. Spirits enter and leave the body in various ways. They often use the head in this way, and in particular the tenth aperture of the body, one of the skull sutures, known as Brahma-randhra. This is the reason why the skull is broken at cremation to open the "crevice of Brahma," as this orifice is called. In the case of one of the ascetic orders, who are buried and not cremated, a blow is given on the head with a cocoanut or a conch shell. Thus, when the chief teacher of the Brahmans in Bombay dies, his successor breaks a cocoanut on his skull and makes an opening, in which the sacred 1 66 Panjab Notes and Queries," iv. 51; Lal Bihâri Dê, “Folk Tales," 199: "Govinda Sâmanta,” i. 109, 152 sq., 157; "North Indian Notes and Queries," i. 83. Sâlagrâma stone is laid.' This rite of skull-breaking, which is done by the next relation, is a recognized part of the Hindu cremation rite, and is known as Kapâlakriya. The same theory that the head is an entry for spirits accounts for numerous strange practices. Thus, when in Kumaun a man is bitten by a snake they pull three hairs from his scalp-lock and strike him three times on the top of the head with the first joint of the middle finger, a kind of blow which in ordinary cases is regarded with the utmost terror. So when a person has fever, they take a bone and fill it with grain, and, making the patient stand in the sun, dig a hole where the shadow of his head falls, and there bury the bone, saying, "Fever! Begone with the bone!" 2 At a Gond wedding, the old man who officiates knocks the heads of the bride and bridegroom together to scare the evil spirits, and at a Hindu marriage in Northern India the mother of the youth, as he leaves to fetch his bride, and as he returns with her, waves lamps, a brass tray, grain, and a rice pounder, to drive off the Bhûts fluttering round his head. It is on the same principle that the bridegroom wears a marriage crown, and this also accounts for many of the customs of blessing by the laying on of hands and anointing which prevail all over the world. In the same way the hair has always been regarded as a spirit entry. Magistrates in Northern India are often troubled by people who announce their intention of "letting their hair grow at some one whom they desire to injure. This, if one can judge by the manifest terror exhibited by the person against whom this rite is directed, must be a very stringent form of coercion. For the same reason ascetics wear the hair loose and keep it uncut, as Sampson did, and the same idea probably accounts for the rites of ceremonial shaving of youths, and of the mourners after death. 2 1 "Bombay Gazetteer," xv. 150; Campbell, "Notes," 172. "Panjab Notes and Queries," iv. 5; "North Indian Notes and Queries," ii. 9; iii. 74. Hislop, "Notes," i. 3. |