Before setting out on an expedition it was their regular custom
to take the omens, and the following account may be quoted of the
preliminaries to an expedition of the great leader, Meherban Singh,
who has already been mentioned: "In the latter end of that year,
Meherban and his brother set out and assembled their friends on the
bank of the Bisori river, where the rate at which each member of the
party should share in the spoil was determined in order to secure to
the dependants of any one who should fall in the enterprise their due
share, as well as to prevent inconvenient disputes during and after
the expedition. The party assembled on this occasion, including women
and children, amounted to two hundred, and when the shares had been
determined the goats were sacrificed for the feast. Each leader and
member of the gang dipped his finger in the blood and swore fidelity
to his engagements and his associates under all circumstances. The
whole feasted together and drank freely till the next evening, when
Meherban advanced with about twenty of the principal persons to a spot
chosen a little way from the camp on the road they proposed to take in
the expedition, and lifting up his hands in supplication said aloud,
'If it be thy will, O God, and thine, Kali, to prosper our undertaking
for the sake of the blind and the lame, _the widow and the orphan_,
who depend upon our exertions for subsistence, vouchsafe, we pray thee,
the call of the female jackal.' All his followers held up their hands
in the same manner and repeated these words after him. All then sat
down and waited in silence for the reply or spoke only in whispers. At
last the cry of the female jackal was heard three times on the left,
and believing her to have been inspired by the deity for their guidance
they were all much rejoiced." The following was another more elaborate
method of taking omens described by Ajit Singh: "When we speak of
seeking omens from our gods or Devi Deota, we mean the spirits of those
of our ancestors who performed great exploits in dacoity in their day,
gained a great name and established lasting reputations. For instance,
Mahajit, my grandfather, and Sahiba, his father, are called gods
and admitted to be so by us all. We have all of us some such gods
to be proud of among our ancestors; we propitiate them and ask for
favourable omens from them before we enter upon any enterprise. We
sometimes propitiate the Suraj Deota (sun god) and seek good omens
from him. We get two or three goats or rams, and sometimes even ten
or eleven, at the place where we determine to take the auspices, and
having assembled the principal men of the gang we put water into the
mouth of one of them and pray to the sun and to our ancestors thus:
'O thou Sun God! And O all ye other Gods! If we are to succeed in
the enterprise we are about to undertake we pray you to cause these
goats to shake their bodies.' If they do not shake them after the
gods have been thus duly invoked, the enterprise must not be entered
upon and the goats are not sacrificed. We then try the auspices with
wheat. We burn frankincense and scented wood and blow a shell; and
taking out a pinch of wheat grains, put them on the cloth and count
them. If they come up odd the omen is favourable, and if even it is
bad. After this, which we call the auspices of the Akut, we take that
of the Siarni or female jackal. If it calls on the left it is good,
but if on the right bad. If the omens turn out favourable in all three
trials then we have no fear whatever, but if they are favourable in
only one trial out of the three the enterprise must be given up."