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. [709]
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 power. 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
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." [710]
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 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 Drâvidian 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. [711]
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. [712]
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 put under the influence of an
exorciser, she can be forced to take the liver of some animal and put
it back to replace that taken from the original victim. [713] In one
of the tales of Somadeva the wicked wife of the barber is a witch,
and when he is asleep she takes out his entrails and sucks them,
and then replaces them as before. [714]
The Witch in Folk-lore.
We have already learned to look to the folk-tales for the most
trustworthy indications of popular belief, and here the dark shadow of
witchcraft overclouds much of their delicate fancy. Here we find the
witch taking many forms--of an old woman in trouble, of a white hind
with golden horns, of a queen. Others, like the archwitch Kâlarâtrî
or "black night," are of repulsive appearance; she has dull eyes,
a depressed, flat nose. Her eyebrows, like those of the werewolves or
vampires of Slavonia, [715] meet together; she has large cheeks, widely
parted lips, projecting teeth, a long neck, pendulous breasts, a large
belly, and broad, expanded feet. "She appears as if the Creator had
made a specimen of his skill in producing ugliness." Like the Jigar
Khor she obtains her powers by eating human flesh, or like modern
witches, who claim to possess the Dâyan kâ Mantra or Dâkinî's spell,
by which she can tear out the heart of her victim.
The powers of such witches are innumerable. They can find anything on
earth, can open or patch up the sky, possess second sight, can restore
the dead to life, can set fire to water, can turn stones into wax,
can separate lovers, can metamorphose the hero into any shape they
please. They control the weather and cause storms and tempests. If
they follow one they hate and measure his footsteps in the dust,
he at once becomes lame. [716]
They carry on their unholy revels in cemeteries and cremation
grounds. They meet under the leadership of the dreaded Bhairava,
as German witches assemble on the Blocksberg. So Diana Herodias
leads the Italian witches who meet at the walnut tree of Benevento,
as those of Cornwall collect at Trewa. [717]
Many witches obtain power over the fever demon. She fastens a string
round the hero's neck, and by a spell turns him into an ape. She often
kills a child, and the heroine, like Genoveva, is falsely accused,
and expelled from her home, until the plot is discovered and she is
restored to her husband's love. Lastly, we have the conflict between
the powers of good and evil, the benevolent and malignant witch, which
forms one of the stock incidents of the European folk-tales. [718]
The malignant, liver-eating witch is naturally associated with the
tomb-haunting badger. One of them appeared quite recently at Ahmadâbâd,
and being supposed to carry off children in the disguise of a badger,
was called Adam Khor, or the devourer of the sons of men. [719]
Instruction in Witchcraft.
Writing of Italy, Mr. Leland says: [720]--"Among the priestesses of the
hidden spell, an elder dame has usually in hand some younger girl, whom
she instructs, firstly, in the art of bewitching or injuring enemies,
and secondly, in the more important processes of annulling or unbinding
the spells of others, or causing mutual love or conferring luck."
So, among the Agariyas of Bengal, there are old women, professors
of witchcraft, who stealthily instruct the young girls. "The latter
are all eager to be taught, and are not considered proficient till
a fine forest tree selected to be experimented on is destroyed by
the potency of their charms; so that the wife a man takes to his
bosom has probably done her tree, and is confident in the belief that
she can, if she pleases, dispose of her husband in the same manner,
if he makes himself obnoxious." [721]
So, in Bombay, when a Guru, or teacher, wishes to initiate a candidate
into the mysteries of the Black Art, he directs the candidate to
watch a favourable opportunity for the commencement of the study, the
opportunity being the death of a woman in childbirth. As soon as this
event takes place, the candidate is instructed what to do. He watches
the procession as the dead is being taken to the burning or burial
ground, and takes care to see who the bearers are. He then takes a
small tin box in his hand, and picking up a pinch of the earth out
of the hind footsteps of the two rear bearers, he keeps the earth
in the tin box. Then he watches where the dead body is being burnt,
and goes home.
"Next day he goes to the spot, and taking a little of the ashes of
the corpse, puts it in the tin box. Subsequently, on a suitable day,
that is on a new moon or on an eclipse day, he goes to the burning
ground at midnight, and taking off his clothes, he sits on the ground,
and placing the tin box in front of him, lights a little incense, and
repeats the incantations taught to him by his guru or teacher. When
he has practised the repetition of the incantations, the spirit Hadal
becomes subject to his control, and by her help he becomes able to
annoy any one he pleases.
"Among the troubles which the witch or magician brings upon his
enemies, the following are said to be the most common in the Dakkhin as
well as in the Konkan. The witch causes star-shaped or cross-like marks
of marking-nuts on the body of the person she has a grudge against. The
peculiarity of these marks is that they appear in numbers in different
parts of the body, and as suddenly disappear. The other troubles are
the drying-up of the milk of milch cattle, or turning the milk into
blood; stopping or retarding the growth of the foetus in cattle, and
turning them into moles; stealing grain or other field produce from
the farm-yards of the victim; letting loose wolves, jackals, or rats
into the victim's field; pricking needles or thorns into the victim's
eyes or body; applying turmeric to the eyes of a female victim, or
putting lampblack into her eyes; or tearing the open end of her robe;
and causing death to an enemy by means of a method of the Black Art,
called Mûth, literally 'a handful.'
"The Mûth generally consists of a handful of rice or Urad pulse
(Phaseolus radiatus) charmed and sent by the witch against her enemy
through the agency of the familiar spirit. It is likened to a shock of
electricity sudden and sharp, which strikes in the centre of the heart,
causes vomiting and spitting of blood, and may, if not warded against,
end in the death of the victim. Practised experts pretend to see the
Mûth rolling through the air, like a red-hot ball, and say that they
can avert its evil consequences in two ways--either by satiating it,
which is done so as to cause a little bleeding, and allowing the blood
to drop on a charmed lemon, which is afterwards cut and thrown into a
river; or by reversing its action and sending it back to the person
who issued it, which is done by charging a lemon and throwing it in
the direction whence the Mûth has been seen to come. The operation
of a Mûth is most dreaded in many parts of Bombay, and especially in
the Konkan. Cases of sudden illness, blood vomiting, or sudden death
are frequently attributed to the agency of a Mûth or charmed handful
of rice or pulse sent by an enemy." [722]
We have here examples of the dread of the woman dying at her
confinement, which we have already noticed in the case of the Churel,
and the nudity charm is also familiar.
Witch Seasons.
In Central India, witches are supposed, by the aid of their familiars,
who are known as Bîr, or "the hero," to inflict pain, disease, and
death upon human beings. Their power of witchcraft, like that of all
Indian witches, exists on the fourteenth, fifteenth, and twenty-ninth
of each month, and in particular at the Diwâlî or feast of lamps,
and the Naurâtrî or nine days devoted to the worship of Durgâ.
In the same way the Irish witches flit on November Eve, and "on that
night mortal people should keep at home, or they will suffer for it;
for souls of the dead have power over all things on that night of
the year, and they hold a festival with the fairies, and drink red
wine from the fairy cups and dance to fairy music till the moon goes
down." [723] Of the Allhallows demon Professor Rhys writes: "This
night was the Saturnalia of all that was hideous and uncanny in the
world of spirits. It had been fixed as the time of all others when the
Sun god, whose power had been gradually falling off since the great
feast associated with him on the first of August, succumbed to his
enemies, the powers of darkness and of winter. It was their first
hour of triumph after an interval of subjection, and the popular
imagination pictured them stalking abroad with more than ordinary
insolence and aggressiveness." [724]
At other times the Indian witches appear, dress, talk, and eat like
other women, but "when the fit is on them, they are sometimes seen
with their eyes glaring red, their hair dishevelled and bristled,
while their heads are often turned round in a strange, convulsive
manner. On the nights of those days, they are believed to go abroad,
and after casting off their garments, to ride about on tigers and
other wild animals; and if they desire to go on the water, alligators
come like the beasts of the forests at their call, and they disport
in rivers and lakes upon their backs till dawn of day, about which
period they always return home, and resume their usual forms and
occupations." [725]
Witches Taking the Form of Tigers.
The idea that witches take the form of tigers is widespread. Colonel
Dalton describes how a Kol, tried for the murder of a wizard, stated
in his defence that his wife having been killed by a tiger in his
presence, he stealthily followed the animal as it glided away after
gratifying its appetite, and saw that it entered the house of one
Pûsa, a Kol, whom he knew. He called out Pûsa's relations, and when
they heard the story, they not only credited it, but declared that
they had long suspected Pûsa of possessing such power; on entering
they found him, and not a tiger; they delivered him bound into the
hands of his accuser, who at once killed him. In explanation of their
proceedings, they deposed that Pûsa had one night devoured an entire
goat, and roared like a tiger while he was eating it; and on another
occasion he had informed his friends that he felt a longing for a
particular bullock, and that very night the bullock was carried off
by a tiger. [726]
Mr. Campbell gives a very similar story from Bombay, in which a
man-eating tiger was supposed to be a witch in disguise. [727] All
these stories very closely resemble the European were-wolf and similar
legends. [728] In Mirzapur they tell a tale of one of the Drâvidian
Bhuiyârs, whose wife went recently on the Pura Mamuâr Hill, when an
evil spirit in the form of a tiger attacked and killed her. This was
after her death ascertained to be the case by the inquiries of the
village Baiga, who now does an annual ceremony and sacrifice near
the place. For such witch tigers the favourite remedy is to knock
out their teeth to prevent their doing any more mischief and becoming
the Indian equivalent of the Loupgarou. [729]
Witches Extracting Substances from their Victims.
Another remedy is thus described by Abul Fazl: "The sorceress casts
something out of her mouth like the grain of a pomegranate, which
is believed to be part of the heart which she has eaten. The patient
picks it up as part of his own intestine and greedily swallows it. By
this means, as if his heart was replaced in his body, he recovers
his health by degrees."
The idea that witches extract substances out of a sick person's body
is very common. [730] The witch in Macbeth says, "I will drain him
dry as hay." In the same way the original object of kissing is said
to be to extract an evil spirit out of a person. Many people get a
holy man to kiss a sick child and blow over some water which is given
it to drink, and thus the evil spirit is removed.
General Sleeman gives the case of a trooper who had taken some
milk from an old woman without payment, and was seized with severe
internal pains, which he attributed to her witchcraft. She was sent
for, but denied having bewitched him. She admitted, however, that
"the household gods may have punished him for his wickedness." She
was ordered to cure him, and set about collecting materials for the
purpose, but meanwhile the pains left him.
Another man took a cock from an old Gond woman and was similarly
affected. "The old cock was actually heard crowing in his belly." In
spite of all the usual remedies he died, and the cock never ceased
crowing at intervals till his death.
He tells of another witch who was known to be such by the juice of the
sugar-cane she was eating turning into blood. A man saw her staring
at him and left the district at once. "It is well known that these
spells and curses can only reach a distance of ten or twelve miles,
and if you offend one of these witches, the sooner you put that
distance between you and them, the better."
Another witch was bargaining with a man for some sugar-cane. She seized
one end of the stalk and the purchaser the other. A scuffle ensued, and
a soldier came up and cut the cane in two with a sword. Immediately a
quantity of blood flowed from the cane to the ground, which the witch
had been drawing through it from the man's body. So we read of the
two witches in the Italian tale, who "seeing that he would not go,
cast him by their witchcraft into a deep sleep, and with a small
tube sucked all his blood from his veins, and made it into a blood
pudding which they carried with them. And this gave them the power
to be invisible till they should return." [731]
"It is the general belief that there is not a village or a single
family without its witch in this part of the country. Indeed, no one
will give his daughter in marriage to a family without one, saying,
'If my daughter has children, what will become of them without
a witch to protect them from witches of other families in the
neighbourhood?'" [732] Sir John Malcolm notices the same fact. "In
some places men will not marry into a family where there is not a
Dâkinî or witch to save them from the malice of others; but this name,
which is odious, is not given to those persons by their relations
and friends. They are termed Rakhwâlî or guardians." [733]
Witches and Cats.
One sign of the witch is that she is accompanied by her cat. This is
an idea which prevails all over the world. Thus, in Ireland, cats are
believed to be connected with demons. On entering a house the usual
salutation is, "God save all here except the cat!" Even the cake on the
griddle may be blessed, but no one says, "God bless the cat!" [734]
The negroes in Mussouri say "some cats are real cats and some are
devils; you can never tell which is which, so for safety it is well
to whip them all soundly." [735] One explanation of the connection
of witches and cats is that "when Galinthis was changed into a cat
by the Fates, Hecate took pity on her and made her her priestess,
in which office she continues to this day." [736] We have already
seen that it is probably her stealthy ways and habit of going about
at night which gave the cat her uncanny character.
The cat, say the jungle people, is aunt of the tiger, and taught
him everything but how to climb a tree. The Orâons of Chota Nâgpur
say that Chordeva, the birth fiend, comes in the form of a cat and
worries the mother. [737] The Thags used to call the caterwauling
of cats Kâlî ki Mauj, or the roaring wave of Kâlî, and it was of
evil omen. The omen could be obviated only by gargling the mouth in
the morning with sour milk and spitting it out. We have already seen
the danger of killing a cat. Zâlim Sinh, the famous regent of Kota,
thought that cats were associated with witches, and on one occasion
when he believed himself exposed to enchantment, ordered that every
cat should be expelled from his cantonment. [738]
Witch Ordeals.
All the ordeals for witches turn on the efficacy of certain things
to which reference has been already made as scarers of evil spirits.
Thus, the ordeal of walking over hot coals and on heated ploughshares
was a common method of testing a witch both in India and in
Europe. [739] Zâlim Sinh, however, generally used the water ordeal,
a test which is known all over the world. [740] Even Pliny knew that
Indian witches could not sink in water. [741] Manu prescribes water
as a form of oath, and to this day it is a common form of oath ordeal
for a man to stand in water when he is challenged to swear. Zâlim Sinh
used to say that handling balls of hot iron was too slight a punishment
for such sinners as witches, for it was well known that they possessed
substances which enabled them to do this with impunity; so he used
to throw them into a pool of water; if they sank, they were innocent;
if they, unhappily, came to the surface, their league with the powers
of darkness was apparent. A bag of cayenne pepper tied over the head,
if it failed to suffocate, afforded another test.
"The most humane method employed was rubbing the eyes with a well-dried
capsicum; and certainly if they could furnish the demonstration of
their innocence by withholding tears, they might justly be deemed
witches." [742] Akin to these tests is the folk-tale ordeal by
which the calumniated heroine bathes in boiling oil to prove her
chastity. [743]
Santâl Witch Ordeals.
Forbes gives the tests in vogue in his day among the Santâls, whom
he calls Soontaar. Branches of the Sâl tree (Shorea robusta) marked
with the names of all the females of the village, whether married or
unmarried, who had attained the age of twelve years, were planted in
the morning in water for the space of four and a half hours; and the
withering of any of these branches was proof of witchcraft against the
person whose name was attached to it. Small portions of rice enveloped
in pieces of cloth marked as before, were placed in a nest of white
ants; the consumption of the rice in any of the bags was proof of
witchcraft against the woman whose name it bore. Lamps were lighted
at night; water was placed in cups made of leaves, and mustard oil
was poured drop by drop into the water, while the name of each woman
in the village was pronounced. The appearance of the shadow of any
woman in the water during the ceremony proved her to be a witch. [744]
Witch Tests, Bilâspur.
One of the most noted witch-finders in the Bilâspur District of the
Central Provinces had two most effectual means of checkmating the
witches. "His first effort was to get the villagers to describe the
marked eccentricities of the old women of the community, and when these
had been detailed, his experience soon enabled him to seize on some
ugly or unlucky idiosyncrasy, which indicated in unmistakable clearness
the unhappy offender. If no conclusion could be arrived at in this way,
he lighted an ordinary earthen lamp, and repeating consecutively the
name of each woman in the village, he fixed on the witch or witches
by the flicker of the wick when the name or names were mentioned. The
discovery of the witch soon led to her being grossly maltreated, and,
under the Native Government, almost invariably in her death. Since
the introduction of the British rule these cases are becoming year
to year rarer; but the belief itself remains strong and universal,
and the same class of superstitions pervades every-day life." [745]
Witch Tests, Bastar.
In Bastar, "a fisherman's net is wound round the head of the suspected
witch to prevent her escaping or bewitching her guards. Two leaves of
the Pîpal or sacred fig tree, one representing her and the other her
accusers, are thrown upon her outstretched hands. If the leaf in her
name fall uppermost, she is supposed to be a suspicious character;
if the leaf fall with the lower part upwards, it is possible that
she may be innocent, and popular opinion is in her favour." The final
test is the usual water ordeal. [746]
Miscellaneous Tests: Eggs.
Several persons, natives of the Khasiya Hills, were convicted
of beating to death a man whom they believed to be a wizard. They
confessed freely, saying that he destroyed their wives and daughters
by witchcraft. One of the accused was the brother of the wife of the
deceased. It appears that they discovered he was a sorcerer by the
appearance of an egg when broken. [747] A similar case is reported
among the Banjâras of Berâr. [748] The use of eggs in this way opens
up an interesting chapter in folk-lore. Thus, we have the famous
legend which tells how a golden egg was produced at the beginning
of all things, and from it Prajapati Brahma, the great progenitor of
the universe, was produced. This piece of primitive folk-lore appears
in the folk-tales in the numerous stories of children produced from
eggs. [749] In one of the Kashmîr tales the egg of the wondrous bird
has the power of transmuting anything it touches into gold. [750]
Again, we have everywhere instances of the belief in the power of eggs
as guardians against evil spirits. "An egg laid on Ascension Day hung
to the roof of the house preserveth the same from all hurts." [751]
Children in Northumberland, when first sent abroad in the arms of the
nurse, are presented with an egg, salt, and fine bread. In India, we
constantly see the eggs of the ostrich hung up in mosques and tombs
to repel evil influences. We have the same idea in the use of eggs
at Easter in England. In the Konkan, Kunbis give a mixture of eggs
and turmeric to a man who spits blood; and to remove the effects of
the Evil Eye, they wave bread and an egg round a sick person. The
Sultânkârs, when their wives are possessed with evil spirits, offer
rice, a fowl, and an egg, and the spirit passes away. The Beni Israels,
to avert evil, break a hen's egg under the forefoot of the bridegroom's
horse. [752]
There is another form of witch test in Chhatîsgarh, where a pole
of a particular wood is erected on the banks of a stream, and each
suspected person, after bathing, is required to touch the pole;
it is supposed that if any witch does this her hand will swell.
The Rowan Tree.
According to British folk-lore, one of the most potent antidotes
for witches is a twig of the rowan tree bound with scarlet thread,
or a stalk of clover with four leaves laid in the byre, or a bough
of the whitty, or "wayfaring tree." [753] Many, in fact, are the
herbs which are potent in this way, of which the chief is perhaps
that Moly, "that Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave." In India, the
substitute for these magic trees is a branch of the tamarind, or a
stalk of the castor-oil tree (Palma Christi). If, after receiving in
silence an ordinary scourging by the usual methods, the suspected
person cries out at a blow with the magic branch, he is certainly
guilty. [754] These plants are everywhere supposed to exercise power
over witches, and even in places like the North-Western Provinces,
where witch-hunting is happily a thing of the past, a Chamâr or
currier, a class which enjoy an uncanny reputation, is exceedingly
afraid of even a slight blow with a castor-oil switch.
Witch-finding among Kols.
The Kolarian witch-finder's test is to put a large wooden grain measure
under a flat stone as a pivot on which the latter can revolve. A
boy is then seated on the stone supporting himself with his hands,
and "the names of all the people in the neighbourhood are slowly
pronounced. As each name is uttered a few grains of rice are thrown
at the boy. When they come to the name of the witch or wizard, the
stone turns and the boy rolls off." [755] This, no doubt, is the
effect of the boy's falling into a state of coma, and losing the
power of supporting himself with his hands.
Marks of Witches.
Some witches are believed to learn the secrets of their craft by
eating filth. We have already seen that this is also believed to
be the case with evil spirits. Such a woman, in popular belief, is
always very lovely and scrupulously neat in her personal appearance,
and she always has a clear line of red lead applied to the parting
of her hair. Witches have a special power of casting evil glances on
children, and after a child is buried, they are believed to exhume the
corpse, anoint it with oil, and bring it to life to serve some occult
purpose of their own. On the same principle the Kâfirs believe that
dead bodies are restored to life, and made hobgoblins to aid their
owners in mischief. [756] Indian witches, moreover, are supposed to
keep a light burning during the ceremony of child exhumation, and if
the father or the mother has the courage to run and snatch away the
child just as it is revived, and before the witch can blow out the
light, the child will be restored to them safe and sound. [757]
Charms Recited Backward.
One well-known characteristic of witches is that she cannot die as
long as she is a witch, but must while alive pass on her craft to
another, is well recognized in India. Hence a witch is always on
the look-out for some one to whom she may delegate her functions,
and many well-meaning people have been ruined in this way through
misplaced confidence in the benevolence of a witch. [758]
Indian witches also resemble their European sisters in their habit
of reciting their charms backward,--
He who'd read her aright must say her
Backwards like a witch's prayer.
And in "Much ado about Nothing," Hero says of Beatrice,--
"I never yet saw man
How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured,
But she would spell him backward."
This backward recital of spells appears all through folk-lore. [759]
Indian witches are supposed to repeat two letters and a half from
a verse in the Qurân, known only to themselves, and to say them
backwards. We have the same belief in one of the tales of Somadeva,
where Bhîmabhatta prays in his extremity to Mother Ganges, and
she says, "Now receive from me this charm called 'forwards and
backwards.' If a man repeats it forwards, he will become invisible to
his neighbour; but if he repeats it backwards, he will assume whatever
shape he desires." [760] The use of this charm enables the witch to
take the liver out of a living child and eat it. But, in order to do
this effectively, she must first catch some particular kind of wild
animal not larger than a dog, feed it with cakes of sugar and butter,
ride on it, and repeat the charm one hundred times. When dying, the
breath will not leave the body of the witch until she has taught
the two and a half letters to another woman, or failing a woman,
until she has repeated it to a tree. [761]
Witchcraft by Means of Hair, Nail Parings, etc.
The idea is common in folk-lore that a witch can acquire power over
her victim by getting possession of a lock of hair, the parings of
his nails, or some other part of his body. In the "Comedy of Errors,"
Dromio of Syracuse says,--
"Some devils ask but the parings of one's nail,
A rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin,
A nut, a cherry stone."
In Ireland, nail-parings are an ingredient in many charms, and
hair-cuttings should not be placed where birds can find them, for they
take them to build their nests, and then you will have headaches all
the year after. [762] The same is the case with the leavings of food,
which should be thrown to the crows lest some ill-disposed person get
possession of them. On the same principle English mothers hide away the
first tooth of a child. [763] There are numerous instances of these
and similar beliefs all through the whole range of folk-lore. Hence
natives of India are very careful about the disposal of hair-cuttings
and nail-parings; and it is only at shrines and sacred places of
pilgrimage where shaving is a religious duty that such things are
left lying about on the ground. In the Grihyasûtras it is provided
that the hair cut from a child's head at the end of the first, third,
fifth, or seventh year shall be buried in the earth at a place covered
with grass or in the neighbourhood of water. The carelessness shown
at places of pilgrimage in this respect rests on the belief that the
sanctity of the place is in itself a protective against sorcery. But
some people do not depend on this, and fling the hair into running
water. At Hardwâr the barber at the sacred pool takes the hair which
he keeps collected in a bag and flings it into the air on the top of
the neighbouring hill, at least he assures his patrons that he does so.
Witchcraft by Means of Images.
Another means which witches are supposed to adopt in order to
injure those whom they dislike, is to make an image of wax, flour,
or similar substances, and torture it, with the idea that the pain
will be communicated to the person whom they desire to annoy.
Thus, among Muhammadans, when the death of an enemy is desired,
a doll is made of earth taken from a grave, or a place where bodies
are cremated, and various sentences of the Qurân are read backwards
over twenty-one small wooden pegs. The officiant is to repeat the
spell three times over each peg, and is then to strike them so as
to pierce various parts of the body of the image. The image is then
to be shrouded like a corpse, conveyed to a cemetery, and buried in
the name of the enemy whom it is intended to injure. He will, it is
believed, certainly die after this rite is performed. The practice
has become a branch of the fine arts and numerous methods are detailed
by Dr. Herklots. [764]
It is almost unnecessary to say that similar ideas prevail in
Europe. The wounded Melun in "King John" says:--
"Have I not hideous death within my view,
Retaining but a quantity of life,
Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax
Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire?"
An old woman in Cornwall was advised "to buy a bullock's heart, and get
a packet of pound pins. She was to stick the heart as full of pins as
she could, and the body that wished her ill felt every pin run into
the bullock's heart, same as if they had been run into her." [765]
Examples of such images may be seen in the Pitt-Rivers collection at
Oxford. Sir W. Scott describes how, under the threshold of a house in
Dalkeith, was found the withered heart of some animal, full of many
scores of pins; and Aubrey tells us of one Hammond, of Westminster,
who was hanged or tried for his life in 1641 for killing a person by
means of an image of wax. This was one of the charges made against
the unfortunate Jane Shore. [766]
In Bengal, "a person sometimes takes a bamboo which has been used
to keep down a corpse during cremation, and making a bow and arrow
with it, repeats incantations over them. He then makes an image of
his enemy in clay, and lets fly an arrow into this image. The person
whose image is thus pierced is said to be immediately seized with a
pain in his breast." In the folk-tales restoration to life is usually
effected by collecting the ashes or bones of the deceased and making
an image of them, into which life is breathed. [767]
Witchcraft through the Footsteps.
It was a precept of Pythagoras not to run a nail or a knife into
a man's foot. This, from the primitive point of view, was really
a moral, not merely a prudential precept. For it is a world-wide
superstition that by injuring the footsteps you injure the foot that
made them. Thus, in Mecklenburgh it is thought that if you thrust
a nail into a man's footsteps the man will go lame. The Australian
blacks held exactly the same view. "Seeing that a Tutungolung was very
lame," says Mr. Howitt, "I asked him what was the matter. He said,
'Some fellow has put bottle in my foot.' I asked him to let me see
it. I found that he was probably suffering from acute rheumatism. He
explained that some enemy must have found his foot-track, and have
buried in it a piece of broken bottle." [768] The same feeling
widely prevails in Northern India, and rustics are in the habit of
attributing all sorts of pains and sores to the machinations of some
witch or sorcerer who has meddled with their footprints.
Punishment of Witches.
The method by which witches are punished displays a diabolical
ingenuity. The Indian newspapers a short time ago recorded six out of
nine murders in the Sambalpur District as due to "the superstition,
which is so general, that the spread of cholera is due to the sorcery
of some individual, whose evil influence can be nullified if he be
beaten with rods of the castor-oil plant. The people who are thus
suspected are so cruelly beaten that in the majority of cases they
die under the infliction."
A milder form of treatment is to make the witch drink the filthy water
of a washerman's tank, which is believed to destroy her skill. [769]
The punishment in vogue in Central India was to make witches drink
the water used by curriers, leather being, as we have seen, a scarer
of evil spirits, and drinking such water involves degradation from
caste. In more serious cases the witch's nose was cut off, or she
was put to death. [770]
In Bastar, if a man is adjudged guilty of witchcraft, he is beaten by
the crowd, his hair is shaved, the hair being supposed to constitute
his power of mischief, his front teeth are knocked out, in order,
it is said, to prevent him from muttering incantations, or more
probably, as we have already seen, to prevent him from becoming a
Loupgarou. All descriptions of filth are thrown at him; if he be of
good caste, hog's flesh is thrust into his mouth, and lastly he is
driven out of the country, followed by the abuse and execrations of
his enlightened fellow-men. Women suspected of sorcery have to undergo
the same ordeal; if found guilty, the same punishment is awarded,
and after being shaved, their hair is attached to a tree in some
public place. In Chhattîsgarh, a witch has her hair shaved with a
blunt knife, her two front teeth are knocked out, she is branded in
the hinder parts, has a ploughshare, which is a strong fetish, tied
to her legs, and she is made to drink the water of a tannery. [771]
Witchcraft Punishments among the Drâvidians.
In former times among the Drâvidian races persons denounced as
witches were put to death in the belief that witches breed witches and
sorcerers. A terrible raid was made on these unfortunate people when
British authority was relaxed during the Mutiny, and most atrocious
murders were committed. "Accusations of witchcraft are still sometimes
made, and persons denounced are subjected to much ill-usage, if they
escape with their lives." [772] Among the Bhîls suspected persons used
to be suspended from a tree head downwards, pounded chillies being
first put into the witch's eyes to see if the smarting would bring
tears from her. Sometimes after suspension she was swung violently from
side to side. She was finally compelled to drink the blood of a goat,
slaughtered for the purpose, which is regarded as a substitute for the
sick man's life, and to satisfy the witch's craving for blood. She was
then brought to the patient's bedside, and required to make passes
over his head with a Nîm branch; a lock of hair was also cut from
the head of the witch and buried in the ground, that the last link
between her and her former powers of mischief might be broken. [773]
Other Witchcraft Punishments.
Dr. Chevers has collected a number of instances in which the punishment
of death or mutilation was inflicted on supposed witches. He quotes
a case in 1802, in which several of the witnesses declared that
they remembered numerous instances of persons being put to death for
sorcery; one of them, in particular, proved that her mother had been
tried and executed as a witch. In another case a Kol, thinking that
some old women had bewitched him, placed them in a line and cut off all
their heads, except that of the last, who, objecting to this drastic
form of ordeal, ran away and escaped. In another, the nose-ring of a
suspected witch was torn out with such violence as to cause extensive
laceration. There are recorded instances of even more brutal forms
of mutilation. A case occurred at Dhâka in which some people went to
the house of a supposed witch, intending, as they said, to make her
discontinue her enchantments, and ill-treated her in such a shameful
way as to leave her in a dying state. She appears to have been in the
habit of prescribing medicine for children, and this seems to have
been the only basis for the reports that she practised magic. [774]
Drawing Blood from a Witch.
One favourite way of counteracting the spells of a witch is to draw
blood from her. Thus, Professor Rhys, writing of Manxland, says:
"There is a belief that if you can draw blood, however little, from a
witch or one who has the Evil Eye, he loses his power of harming you;
and I have been told that formerly this belief was sometimes acted
on. Thus, on leaving church, for instance, the man who fancied himself
in danger from another would go up to him, or walk by his side, and
inflict on him a slight scratch or some other trivial wound, which
elicited blood." [775] In the First Part of "Henry VI." Talbot says
to the Pucelle de Orleans,--
"I'll have a bout with thee;
Devil or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee;
Blood will I draw on thee, thou art a witch."
And Hudibras says,--
"Till drawing blood o' the Dames like witches,
They're forthwith cur'd of their capriches."
So at the present day in Mirzapur, when a woman is marked down
as a witch, the Baiga or Ojha pricks her tongue with a needle,
and the blood thus extracted is received on some rice, which she
is compelled to eat. In another case she is pricked on the breast,
tongue, and thighs, and given the blood to drink. The ceremony is
most efficacious if performed on the banks of a running stream. This
is probably a survival of the actual blood sacrifice of a witch.
Witch Haunts.
"In any country an isolated or outlying race, the lingering survivors
of an older nationality, is liable to the imputation of sorcery." [776]
This is exactly true of Asia. Marco Polo makes the same assertion about
Pachai in Badakhshân. He says the people of Kashmîr "have extraordinary
acquaintance with the devilries of enchantment, insomuch that they
can make their idols to speak. They can also by their sorceries
bring on changes of weather, and produce darkness, and do a number
of things so extraordinary, that without seeing them no one would
believe them. Indeed this country is the very original source from
which idolatry has spread abroad." In Tibet, he says, "are the best
enchanters and astrologers that exist in that part of the world;
they perform such extraordinary marvels and sorceries by diabolical
art, that it astounds one to see or even hear of them." [777] So
in European folk-lore the north was considered the home of witches,
and in Shakespeare La Pucelle invokes the aid of the spirit under the
"lordly monarch of the north."
In India, the same is the case with the Konkan in Bombay. [778] The
semi-aboriginal Thârus of the Himâlayan Tarâî are supposed to possess
special powers of this kind, and Thâruhat, or "the land of the Thârus,"
is a common synonym for "Witchland." At Bhâgalpur, Dr. Buchanan was
told that twenty-five children died annually through the malevolence
of witches. These reputed witches used to drive a roaring trade, as
women would conceal their children on their approach and bribe them
to go away. In Gorakhpur, he says, the Tonahis or witches were very
numerous, "but some Judge sent an order that no one should presume to
injure another by enchantment. It is supposed that the order has been
obeyed, and no one has since imagined himself injured, a sign of the
people being remarkably easy to govern," [779] and it may be added
of the patriarchal style of government in those early days. Nowadays
the accusation of witchcraft is practically confined to the menial
tribes. The wandering, half-gipsy Banjâras, or grain-carriers, are
notoriously witch-ridden, and the same is the case with the Dom,
Sânsiya, Hâbûra, and other vagrants of their kin.
Nonâ Chamârin, the Witch.
At the present day the half-deified witch most dreaded in the
Eastern Districts of the North-Western Provinces is Lonâ, or Nonâ,
a Chamârin, or woman of the currier caste. Her legend is in this
wise. The great physician Dhanwantara, who corresponds to Luqmân
Hakîm of the Muhammadans, was once on his way to cure King Parikshit,
and was deceived and bitten by the snake king Takshaka. He therefore
desired his son to roast him and eat his flesh, and thus succeed to his
magical powers. The snake king dissuaded them from eating the unholy
meal, and they let the cauldron containing it float down the Ganges. A
currier woman, named Lonâ, found it and ate the contents, and thus
succeeded to the mystic powers of Dhanwantara. She became skilful in
cures, particularly of snake-bite. Finally she was discovered to be
a witch by the extraordinary rapidity with which she could plant out
rice seedlings. One day the people watched her, and saw that when she
believed herself unobserved, she stripped herself naked, and taking the
bundle of the plants in her hands threw them into the air, reciting
certain spells. When the seedlings forthwith arranged themselves
in their proper places, the spectators called out in astonishment,
and finding herself discovered, Nonâ rushed along over the country,
and the channel which she made in her course is the Lonî river to
this day. So a saint in Broach formed a new course for a river by
dragging his clothes behind him. In Nonâ's case we have the nudity
charm, of which instances have been already given.
Pûtanâ, the Witch Fiend.
Another terrible witch, whose legend is told at Mathura, is Pûtanâ,
the daughter of Bali, king of the lower world. She found the infant
Krishna asleep, and began to suckle him with her devil's milk. The
first drop would have poisoned a mortal child, but Krishna drew her
breast with such strength that he drained her life-blood, and the
fiend, terrifying the whole land of Braj with her cries of agony, fell
lifeless on the ground. European witches suck the blood of children;
here the divine Krishna turns the tables on the witch. [780]
The Witch of the Palwârs.
The Palwâr Râjputs of Oudh have a witch ancestress. Soon after the
birth of her son she was engaged in baking cakes. Her infant began to
cry, and she was obliged to perform a double duty. At this juncture
her husband arrived just in time to see his demon wife assume gigantic
and supernatural proportions, so as to allow both the baking and
nursing to go on at the same time. But finding her secret discovered,
the witch disappeared, leaving her son as a legacy to her astonished
husband. [781] Here, though the story is incomplete, we have almost
certainly, as in the case of Nonâ Chamârin, one of the Melusina type of
legend, where the supernatural wife leaves her husband and children,
because he violated some taboo, by which he is forbidden to see her
in a state of nudity, or the like. [782]
The history of witchcraft in India, as in Europe, is one of the saddest
pages in the annals of the people. Nowadays, the power of British law
has almost entirely suppressed the horrible outrages which, under the
native administration, were habitually practised. But particularly in
the more remote and uncivilized parts of the country, this superstition
still exists in the minds of the people, and occasional indications of
it, which appear in our criminal records, are quite sufficient to show
that any relaxation of the activity of our magistrates and police would
undoubtedly lead to its revival in some of its more shocking forms.