MALEFICENT WATER-GOBLINS.
So far we have met beneficent spirits of the divine sea and blessed
springs and wells. Let us not forget that there are also maleficent
deities and mischievous water-goblins infesting ill-omened streams and
wells. In India where the lives and fortunes of cattle and people alike
hang on the precarious seasonal rainfall, the water-spirits are as a rule
regarded as friendly dispensers of life and fertility. Even the sea-gods
are on the whole beneficent beings. The _Darya-Pirs_ of the Luvanas
(merchants) and Kharvas (sailors) are devoid of mischief and are regarded
as patron saints. Elsewhere, however, the perils of the deep and rapid
rivers and treacherous pools gave the water-spirits a bad name and their
fury emphasized the need for propitiating them with sacrifices. Thus it
comes to pass that western folklore abounds in blood-thirsty water-demons
who are very often conceived as hideous serpents or dragons. But, as
we have already noticed, people of India also have their mischievous
water-sprites, the _Mâtâs_ and _Shankhinies_ who haunt wayside wells and
either drown or enterthe persons of those who go near their wells. These
ghosts and goblins—_bhuts_ and _prets_—are known as _Jalachar_, _i.e._,
living in water, as contrasted with _Bhuchar_, those hovering on the
earth. One has to propitiate these malignant deities and spirits.
It is believed that most of the demons haunting wells and tanks are the
spirits of those who have met death by drowning. There are also the
spirits of those who die of accidents before the fulfilment of their
worldly desires or the souls of the deceased who do not receive the
funeral _pindas_ with the proper obsequies. These fallen souls in their
_avagati_ or degraded condition reside near the scene of their death and
molest those who approach the water. There is a _vav_ called _Nilkanth
vav_ near Movaiya, in which a _Pinjari_ (a female cotton carder) is said
to have been drowned and to have been turned into a ghost, in which form
she occasionally presents herself to the people.
Another _vav_ in Vadhwan is haunted by a ghost called Mahda, who drowns
one human being every third year as a victim. But a male spirit, named
Kshetrapal, resides in the _kotta_ (or entrance) of the _vav_, and saves
those who fall near the entrance. Those who fall in any other part are,
however, sure to be drowned.
There is in Mirzapur a famous water-hole, known as Barewa. A herdsman
was once grazing his buffaloes near the place, when the waters rose in
fury and carried him off with his cattle. The drowned buffaloes have
now taken the form of a dangerous demon known as _Bhainsasura_, or the
buffalo-demon, and he lives there in company with the Naga and the Nagin
and none dare fish there until he has propitiated these demons with the
offerings of a fowl, eggs and goat.
Until recently the Bengalis believed that a water-spirit in the form of
an old hag called _Jaté Buddi_ haunted tanks and ponds and fettered with
an invisible chain the feet of persons who approached her territories.
Even to this day the name of this witch is taken to frighten naughty
children. Another Bengal spirit, called _Jakh_, was believed to reside
in tanks and to guard hidden treasure. Woe to the man who threw covetous
eyes on that treasure! The Sion Indians believe in a water-demon called
Unk-tahe who, like the Siamese spirit Pnuk, drags underneath the water
those who go to bathe in it.[39]
Corresponding to these haunted wells are the water holes in Scotland,
known as the “cups of the fairies,” and the Trinity Well in Ireland into
which no one can gaze with impunity, and from which the river Bayne once
burst forth in pursuit of a lady who had insulted it.
In Indian folklore this wicked class of water-nymphs is known as Apsarás.
The village of Mith-Báv in Ratnagiri is a well-known resort of these
nymphs and the villagers relate many a thrilling story of persons drowned
and carried off by them in the river. Another favourite habitat of these
water-spirits is a tank in the village of Hindalem in the same district.
Every reservoir of water in Thana is believed to be a habitat of
water-nymphs. Some, however, believe that they dwell only in those lakes
in which lotuses grow. The images of seven _apsarás_ are particularly
worshipped by the people, _viz._, Machhi, Kurmi, Karkati, Darduri,
Jatupi, Somapa and Makari.
Greek folklore represents these nymphs as tall and slim, clad in
white, with flowing golden hair, and divinely beautiful, so much so
that the highest compliment that can be paid to a Greek maiden is
to compare her in loveliness to a Neraida. Such beauty, however, is
fatal to the beholder and many a story is related of people who having
exposed themselves to its fascination were bereft of speech or suffered
otherwise. A single illustration will suffice. In the island of Chios
is a bridge called the Maid’s Bridge, which is popularly believed to
be haunted by a water-spirit. Early one morning a man was crossing the
bridge on his way from the village of Daphnona to the capital city, when
he met a tall young woman dressed in white. She took him by the hand
and made him dance with her. He was foolish enough to speak and was
immediately struck dumb. He recovered, however, some days after, thanks
to the prayers and exorcisms of a priest.
So too the sirens frequent an island near the coast of Italy and entice
seamen by the sweetness of their song which is so bewitching that the
listeners forget everything and die of hunger. In Homeric mythology there
were only two sirens, later writers named three, and the number has since
been augmented by those who loved “lords many and gods many.”
Plato says there are three kinds of sirens—the celestial, the generative
and the cathartic. The first are under the government of Jupiter,
the second under the government of Neptune, and the third under the
government of Pluto. When the soul is in heaven, the sirens seek, by
harmonic motion, to unite it to the divine life of the celestial host;
and when in Hades, to conform them to the infernal regimen, but on earth
they produce generation, of which the sea is emblematic.
We may tarry a little here to greet a beneficent class of sea-nymphs.
These are the Nereids, fifty in number, named after Nereid, daughter of
Nereus, the sea-god whose sway extended over the Ægean Sea. Camoens,
in his _Lusiad_, has spiritualised their office, and he makes them the
sea-guardians of the virtuous. According to a legend they went before the
fleet of Vasco da Gama, and when the treacherous pilot supplied by the
King of Mozambique steered his ship towards a sunken rock, these guardian
nymphs pressed against the prow, lifting it from the water and turning it
round.
To turn back to the malevolent spirits. At Dervinato, a village in the
island of Chios, there is a fountain-head, or “water mother,” the common
Greek expression for a spring, called Plaghia, which is reputed to be the
haunt of a Black Giant. This monster is a crafty demon of Oriental origin
who lures the guileless to destruction by various stratagems, generally
by assuming the form of a fair maid. He is a being mortally dreaded by
the peasantry, and is not so often met with as the water-spirit.
There is also the Drakos, a cousin-german to the Black Giant. Like the
Black Giant he also haunts the wells and works mischief on the people by
withholding the water. This trick of the monster is alluded to in the
following lines, which form the beginning of a song heard at Nigrita:—
Yonder at St. Theodore’s, yonder at St. George’s,
A fair was held, a great fair.
The space was narrow and the crowd was large.
The Drakos held back the water and the people were athirst,
Athirst was also a lady who was heavy with child.
In Greek legends the Drakos figures as a large uncouth monster akin to
the Troll of Norse and the Ogre and Giant of British and Continental
fairy tales. His simplicity of mind is only equalled by his might and he
is easily bamboozled. He is also regarded as a performer of superhuman
feats. As in Ireland there is a Giant’s Causeway, so in Macedonia we find
a “Drakos’s Weight” (a big stone to the south of Nigrita), a “Drakos’s
Shovelful,” (a mound of earth), a “Drakos’s Tomb,” a rock in the same
neighbourhood, resembling a high-capped _Dervish_, resting against the
slope of the hill, and a “Drakos’s Quoits,” two solitary rocks standing
in the plain of Serres.
Various superstitions concerning drowning can be easily traced to
this belief in mischievous water-spirits. These spirits demand human
sacrifices and those who get drowned are supposed to be their victims.
Thus, when in Germany a person comes by his death from drowning, the
Germans say: “The river-spirit claims his annual sacrifice,” or that
“the nix has taken the drowned man.” In India _pujas_ are invariably
offered to propitiate these spirits before any member of a family starts
on a journey involving the crossing of the deep or of the rivers. While
passing over creeks and streams, travellers on the Indian Railways will
notice even to-day many a traveller, Hindu and Parsi, male and female,
throwing from the train cocoanuts, sugar and flowers in the water in
the devout hope of averting accidents. The followers of Islam, however,
believe that God Almighty would, by reason of the benign influence of His
name, preserve them from drowning. Therefore, whilst starting on a voyage
they chant the following couplet from Surah Nooh of the _Koran_, as a
protective from drowning:—
_Bismillaheh Majriha O Mursaha inna Rabi-ul-ghafur ul-Rahim_, meaning,
“The moving and stopping (of this boat, Noah’s Ark) depends upon the
influence of the Name of God, for, in truth, our Lord is pre-eminently a
Pardoner of sins and merciful.”
In the same way Bengal boatmen cry “Badar,” “Badar,” when a boat is
in danger of capsizing, in the hope that the saint Khwaja Khizr would
protect them.
Others wear amulets to ward off the danger of drowning. In “Unbeaten
Tracks in Japan,” Miss Bird says that the amulet which saves the Japs
from drowning is “a certain cure for choking, if courageously swallowed.”
Some sailors believe that if a portion of the cowl which covers the face
of some children at the time of birth be worn as an amulet round the
neck, the person wearing it will not get drowned, while some Bengalees
believe that if a person accidentally eats ants along with sweets or any
foodstuff, he will not get drowned.[40]
Once, however, a man is in the grip of the water-spirit, to venture to
save him is, according to various widespread beliefs, sure to bring on
disaster. In several places, therefore, including Great Britain, people
show great reluctance to save a drowning person, because, as suggested
by Tylor, they fear the vengeance of the water-spirit, who would, in
consequence, be deprived of his prey.
Thus we gather from Tudor’s _Orkney and Shetland_, that amongst the
seamen of those places it was deemed unlucky to rescue persons from
drowning since it was held as a matter of religious faith that the sea
was entitled to certain victims, and that, if deprived, it would avenge
itself on those who interfere. The still more cautious and considerate
people in the Solomon Islands go a step further. If a man accidentally
falls into the river and a shark attacks him, he is not allowed to
escape. If he does succeed in eluding the shark, his fellow-tribesmen
will throw him back to his doom, believing him to be marked out for
sacrifice to the god of the river.[41]
In his “Folk Medicine” Black accounts for this superstition on the ground
that it is believed that the spirits of people who have died a violent
death may return to earth if they can find a substitute and that hence
the soul of the last dead man would feel insulted or injured by anyone
preventing another from taking his place. Some people on the other hand
believe that the reluctance to save drowning persons is due to the belief
that the person rescued from being drowned would inflict mischief on the
man who saves his life. It would seem from Walter Scott’s novel[42] that
this belief prevailed in Scotland. In it asks the pedlar Bryce: “Are
you mad? You that have lived so long in Zetland to risk the saving of a
drowning man? Wot ye not if we bring him to life again, he will be sure
to do you capital injury?”
This superstition appears to have been confined to the West only. In the
East, luckily, there is no such antipathy to extend a helping hand to the
drowning. It may be mentioned, however, that in his _Popular Religion and
Folklore of Northern India_ Crooke seems to suggest that this feeling is
also common in India, but he cites no examples although he gives several
instances and quotes several authorities concerning the Western ideas on
the subject. We, however, find no such instance recorded anywhere. In the
year 1893 Mr. Sarat Chandra Mitra read before the Anthropological Society
of Bombay a paper on some superstitions regarding drowning. He quoted
several Western examples concerning the aversion to save drowning people
but gave no parallel for any of these from the folklore of Bengal and
Upper India with which he is intimately familiar. If such antipathy did
exist, that indefatigable student of Indian folklore would have certainly
heard of it.
Crooke appears to have confounded two separate, though analogous, ideas,
and to have assumed that the prevalence of one connotes the existence of
the other. There is, of course, abundant evidence in Indian folklore
to show that it was believed throughout this country that the spirits
of those persons who got drowned wandered for a hundred years if their
corpses were not properly and solemnly buried with all the requisite
ceremonies. The spirits of the drowned are, therefore, believed to haunt
those rivers and wells and tanks in which they have found their graves,
just as the fisher-folk of England believed that the spirits of the
sailors who were drowned by a shipwreck frequented those parts of the
shores near which the shipwreck took place. In his “Romances in the West
of England” Hunt refers to these superstitions. The mere prevalence,
however, of one of the superstitious beliefs of the same class in two
countries does not warrant the sweeping assertion that the other beliefs
also prevail in both the countries.