The belief in witchcraft is universal and every village has its
tonhi or witch, to whom epidemic diseases, sudden illnesses and other
calamities are ascribed. The witch is nearly always some unpopular
old woman, and several instances are known of the murder of these
unfortunate creatures, after their crimes had been proclaimed by
the Baiga or medicine-man. In the famine of 1900 an old woman from
another village came and joined one of the famine-kitchens. A few
days afterwards the village watchman got ill, and when the Baiga was
called in he said the old woman was a witch who had vowed the lives
of twenty children to her goddess, and had joined the kitchen to kill
them. The woman was threatened with a beating with castor-oil plants
if she did not leave the village, and as the kitchen officer refused
to supply her with food, she had to go. The Baiga takes action to
stop and keep off epidemics by the methods common in Chhattisgarh
villages. When a woman asks him to procure her offspring, the Baiga
sits dharna in front of Devi's shrine and fasts until the goddess,
wearied by his importunity, descends on him and causes him to prophesy
the birth of a child. They have the usual belief in imitative and
sympathetic magic. If a person is wounded by an axe he throws it
first into fire and then into cold water. By the first operation
he thinks to dry up the wound and prevent its festering, and by
the second to keep it cool. Thin and lean children are weighed in
a balance against moist cowdung with the idea that they will swell
out as the dung dries up. In order to make a bullock's hump grow,
a large grain-measure is placed over it. If cattle go astray an iron
implement is placed in a pitcher of water, and it is believed that
this will keep wild animals off the cattle, though the connection of
ideas is obscure. To cure intermittent fever a man walks through a
narrow passage between two houses. If the children in a family die,
the Baiga takes the parents outside the village and breaks the stem
of some plant in their presence. After this they never again touch
that particular plant, and it is believed that their children will
not die. Tuesday is considered the best day for weddings, Thursday
and Monday for beginning field-work and Saturday for worshipping the
gods. To have bats in one's granary is considered to be fortunate, and
there is a large harmless snake which, they say, produces fertility
when it makes its home in a field. If a crow caws on the house-top
they consider that the arrival of a guest is portended. A snake or
a cat crossing the road in front and a man sneezing are bad omens.