If a woman is barren and has no children one of the remedies prescribed
by the Sarodis or wandering soothsayers is that she should set fire
to somebody's house, going alone and at night to perform the deed. So
long as some small part of the house is burnt it does not matter if
the fire be extinguished, but the woman should not give the alarm
herself. It is supposed that the spirit of some insect which is burnt
will enter her womb and be born as a child. Perhaps she sets fire
to someone else's house so as to obtain the spirit of one of the
family's dead children, which may be supposed to have entered the
insects dwelling on the house. Some years ago at Bhandak in Chanda
complaints were made of houses being set on fire. The police officer
[30] sent to investigate found that other small fires continued
to occur. He searched the roofs of the houses, and on two or three
found little smouldering balls of rolled-up cloth. Knowing of the
superstition he called all the childless married women of the place
together and admonished them severely, and the fires stopped. On
another occasion the same officer's wife was ill, and his little son,
having fever, was sent daily to the dispensary for medicine in charge
of a maid. One morning he noticed on one of the soles of the boy's
feet a stain of the juice of the _bhilawa_ [31] or marking-nut tree,
which raises blisters on the skin. On looking at the other foot he
found six similar marks, and on inquiry he learned that these were
made by a childless woman in the expectation that the boy would soon
die and be born again as her child. The boy suffered no harm, but his
mother, being in bad health, nearly died of shock on learning of the
magic practised against her son.
Another device is to make a _pradakshana_ or pilgrimage round a pipal
tree, going naked at midnight after worshipping Maroti or Hanuman, and
holding a necklace of _tulsi_ beads in the hand. The pipal is of course
a sacred tree, and is the abode of Brahma, the original creator of the
world. Brahma has no consort, and it is believed that while all other
trees are both male and female the pipal is only male, and is capable
of impregnating a woman and rendering her fertile. A variation of this
belief is that pipal trees are inhabited by the spirits of unmarried
Brahman boys, and hence a woman sometimes takes a piece of new thread
and winds it round the tree, perhaps with the idea of investing the
spirit of the boy with the sacred thread. She will then walk round the
tree as a symbol of the wedding ceremony of walking round the sacred
post, and hopes that the boy, being thus brought to man's estate
and married, will cause her to bear a son. But modest women do not
go naked round the tree. The Amawas or New Moon day, if it falls on
a Monday, is specially observed by married women. On this day they
will walk 108 times round a pipal tree, and then give 108 mangoes or
other fruits to a Brahman, choosing a different fruit every time. The
number 108 means a hundred and a little more to show there is no stint,
'Full measure and flowing over,' like the customary present of Rs. 1-4
instead of a rupee. This is also no doubt a birth-charm, fruit being
given so that the woman may become fruitful. Or a childless woman will
pray to Hanuman or Mahabir. Every morning she will go to his shrine
with an offering of fruit or flowers, and every evening will set a
lamp burning there; and morning and evening, prostrating herself, she
makes her continuous prayer to the god: '_Oh, Mahabir, Maharaj! hamko
ek batcha do, sirf ek batcha do_.' [32] Then, after many days, Mahabir,
as might be anticipated, appears to her in a dream and promises her a
child. It does not seem that they believe that Mahabir himself directly
renders the woman fertile, because similar prayers are made to the
River Nerbudda, a goddess. But perhaps he, being the god of strength,
lends virile power to her husband. Another prescription is to go to
the burying-ground, and, after worshipping it, to take some of the
bone-ash of a burnt corpse and wear this wrapped up in an amulet on
the body. Occasionally, if a woman can get no children she will go
to the father of a large family and let him beget a child upon her,
with or without the connivance of her husband. But only the more
immodest women do this. Or she cuts a piece off the breast-cloth of
a woman who has children, and, after burning incense on it, wears
it as an amulet For a stronger charm she will take a piece of such
a woman's cloth and a lock of her hair and some earth which her feet
have pressed and bury these in a pot before Devi's shrine, sometimes
fashioning an image of the woman out of them. Then, as they rot away,
the child-bearing power of the fertile woman will be transferred to
her. If a woman's first children have died and she wishes to preserve a
later one, she sometimes weighs the child against sugar or copper and
distributes the amount in charity. Or she gives the child a bad name,
such as Dagharia (a stone), Kachria (sweepings), Ukandia (a dunghill).