The Korkus have the same belief in the efficacy of imitative and
sympathetic magic as other primitive peoples. [605] Thus to injure an
enemy, a clay image of him is made and pierced with a knife, in the
belief that the real person will suffer in the same manner. If the
clay can be taken from a place where his foot has made an impression
in walking, or the image wrapped round with his hair, the charm
is more efficacious. Or an image may be made with charcoal on some
stolen portion of his apparel, and similarly wrapped in his hair; it
is then burnt in the belief that the real person will be attacked by
fever. Sometimes the image is buried in a place where it is likely
that the victim will walk over it, when the same result is hoped
for. In order to produce rain, a frog, as the animal delighting in the
element of water, is caught and slung on a stick; the boys and girls
then carry it from house to house and the householders pour water over
it. If it is desired to stop rain a frog is caught and buried alive,
this being done by a naked boy. Another device for producing rain
is to yoke two naked women to a plough, who are then driven across a
field like bullocks and goaded by a third naked woman. This device may
possibly be intended to cause the gods to send rain, by showing how
the natural order of the world is upset and reversed by the continued
drought. In order to stop rain an unmarried youth collects water in
a new earthen pot from the eaves and buries it below the hearth so
that the water may disappear by evaporation and the rain may cease
in the same manner. Another method is to send a man belonging to the
Kasada sept--Kasada meaning slime--to bring a plough from the field
and place it in his house. He also stops bathing or washing for the
period for which a break in the rains is required, and the idea is
perhaps that as the man whose name and nature are mud or slime is
dry so the mud on the earth will dry up; and as the plough is dry,
the ploughed fields which have been in contact with it will also
become dry. In order to produce a quarrel the quills of a porcupine
are smoked with the burnt parings of an enemy's nails and deposited in
the eaves of his house. And as the fretful porcupine raises his quills
when angry with an enemy, these will have the effect of causing strife
among the members of the household. If a person wishes to transfer his
sickness to another, he obtains the latter's cloth and draws on it with
lamp-black two effigies, one upright and the other upside down. As soon
as the owner puts on the cloth, he will fall a victim to the ailment
of the person who drew the effigies. In order to obtain children the
hair of a woman who has borne several is secured by a barren woman
and buried below her bathing-stone, when the quality of fertility
will be transferred to her from the owner of the hair. In order to
facilitate child-birth a twisted thread is untwined before the eyes of
the pregnant woman with the idea that the delivery will thus be made
direct and easy; or she is given water to drink in which her husband's
left leg, a gun-barrel, a pestle, or a thunder-bolt has been washed;
it being supposed that as each of these articles has the quality
of direct and powerful propulsion, this quality will be conveyed
to the woman and enable her to propel the child from her womb. The
Korkus also trust largely to omens. It is inauspicious when starting
out on some business to see a black-faced monkey or a hare passing
either on the left or right, or a snake crossing in front. A person
seeing any of these will usually return and postpone his business
to a more favourable occasion. It is a bad omen for a hen to cackle
or lay eggs at night. One sneeze is a bad omen, but two neutralise
the effect and are favourable. An empty pot is a bad omen and a full
one good. To break a pot when commencing any business is fatal, and
shows that the work will come to naught. Thursdays and Fridays are
favourable days for working, and Mondays and Tuesdays for propitiating
one's ancestors. Odd numbers are lucky. In order to lay to rest the
spirit of a dead person, who it is feared may trouble the living,
five pieces of bamboo are taken as representing the bones of the dead
man, and these with five crab's legs, five grains of rice and other
articles are put into a basket and thrust into a crab's hole under
water. The occasion is made an excuse for much feasting and drinking,
and the son or other representative who lays the spirit works himself
up into a state of drunken excitement before he enters the water to
search for a suitable hole. The fat of a tiger is considered to be an
excellent medicine for rheumatism and sprains, and much store is set by
it. The tiger's tongue is also supposed to be a very powerful tonic or
strengthening medicine for weakly children. It is cooked, pounded up,
and a small quantity administered in milk or water. When a tiger has
been killed the Gonds and Korkus will singe off his whiskers, as they
think this will prevent the tiger's spirit from haunting them. Another
idea is that the whiskers if chopped up and mixed in the food of an
enemy will poison him. They frequently object to touch a man who has
been injured or mauled by a tiger, as they think that to do so would
bring down the tiger's vengeance on them. And in some places any Gond
or Korku who touches a man mauled by a tiger is put temporarily out
of caste and has to be purified and give a feast on readmission.