Native superstitions.--Charming a bewitched woman.--Exorcising ghosts
from a field.--Witchcraft.--The witchfinder or 'Ojah.'--Influence of
fear.--Snake bites.--How to cure them.--How to discover a thief.--Ghosts
and their habits.--The 'Haddick' or native bone-setter.--Cruelty to
animals by natives.
The natives as a rule, and especially the lower classes, are
excessively superstitious. They are afraid to go out after nightfall,
believing that then the spirits of the dead walk abroad. It is almost
impossible to get a coolie, or even a fairly intelligent servant, to go
a message at night, unless you give him another man for company.
A belief in witches is quite prevalent, and there is scarcely a village
in Behar that does not contain some withered old crone, reputed and
firmly believed to be a witch. Others, either young or old are believed
to have the evil eye; and, as in Scotland some centuries ago, there are
also witch-finders and sorcerers, who will sell charms, cast
nativities, give divinations, or ward off the evil efforts of wizards
and witches by powerful spells. When a wealthy man has a child born,
the Brahmins cast the nativity of the infant on some auspicious day.
They fix on the name, and settle the date for the baptismal ceremony.
I remember a man coming to me on one occasion from the village of
Kuppoorpuckree. He rushed up to where I was sitting in the verandah,
threw himself at my feet, with tears streaming down his cheeks, and
amid loud cries for pity and help, told me that his wife had just been
bewitched. Getting him somewhat soothed and pacified, I learned that a
reputed witch lived next door to his house; that she and the man's wife
had quarrelled in the morning about some capsicums which the witch was
trying to steal from his garden; that in the evening, as his wife was
washing herself inside the _angana_, or little courtyard appertaining
to his house, she was seized with cramps and shivering fits, and was
now in a raging fever; that the witch had been also bathing at the
time, and that the water from her body had splashed over this man's
fence, and part of it had come in contact with his wife's body--hence
undoubtedly this strange possession. He wished me to send peons at
once, and have the witch seized, beaten, and expelled from the village.
It would have been no use my trying to persuade him that no witchcraft
existed. So I gave him a good dose of quinine for his wife, which she
was to take as soon as the fit subsided. Next I got my old _moonshee_,
or native writer, to write some Persian characters on a piece of paper;
I then gave him this paper, muttering a bit of English rhyme at the
time, and telling him this was a powerful spell. I told him to take
three hairs from his wife's head, and a paring from her thumb and big
toe nails, and at the rising of the moon to burn them outside the walls
of his hut. The poor fellow took the quinine and the paper with the
deepest reverence, made me a most lowly _salaam_ or obeisance, and
departed with a light heart. He carried out my instructions to the
letter, the quinine acted like a charm on the feverish woman, and I
found myself quite a famous witch-doctor.
There was a nice flat little field close to the water at Parewah, in
which I thought I could get a good crop of oats during the cold
weather. I sent for the 'dangur' mates, and asked them to have it dug
up next day. They hummed and hawed and hesitated, as I thought, in
rather a strange manner, but departed. In the evening back they came,
to tell me that the dangurs would _not_ dig up the field.
'Why?' I asked.
'Well you see, Sahib,' said old Teerbouan, who was the patriarch and
chief spokesman of the village, 'this field has been used for years as
a burning ghaut' (i.e. a place where the bodies of dead Hindoos were
buried).
'Well?' said I.
'Well, Sahib, my men say that if they disturb this land, the "Bhoots"
(ghosts) of all those who have been burned there, will haunt the
village at night, and they hope you will not persist in asking them to
dig up the land.'
'Very well, bring down the men with their digging-hoes, and I will
see.'
Accordingly, next morning, I went down on my pony, found the dangurs
all assembled, but no digging going on. I called them together, told
them that it was a very reasonable fear they had, but that I would cast
such a spell on the land as would settle the ghosts of the departed for
ever. I then got a branch of a _bael_[1] tree that grew close by,
dipped it in the stream, and walking backwards round the ground, waved
the dripping branch round my head, repeating at the same time the first
gibberish that came into my recollection. My incantation or spell was
as follows, an old Scotch rhyme I had often repeated when a child at
school--
'Eenerty, feenerty, fickerty, feg,
Ell, dell, domun's egg;
Irky, birky, story, rock,
An, tan, toose, Jock;
Black fish! white troot!
"Gibbie Gaw, ye're oot."'
It had the desired effect. No sooner was my charm uttered, than, after
a few encouraging words to the men, telling them that there was now no
fear, that my charm was powerful enough to lay all the spirits in the
country, and that I would take all the responsibility, they set to work
with a will, and had the whole field dug up by the evening.
I have seen many such cases. A blight attacks the melon or cucumber
beds; a fierce wind rises during the night, and shakes half the mangoes
off the trees; the youngest child is attacked with teething
convulsions; the plough-bullock is accidentally lamed, or the favourite
cow refuses to give milk. In every case it is some 'Dyne,' or witch,
that has been at work with her damnable spells and charms. I remember a
case in which a poor little child had bad convulsions. The 'Ojah,' or
witch-finder, in this case a fat, greasy, oleaginous knave, was sent
for. Full of importance and blowing like a porpoise, he came and caused
the child to be brought to him, under a tree near the village. I was
passing at the time, and stopped out of curiosity. He spread a tattered
cloth in front of him, and muttered some unintelligible gibberish,
unceasingly making strange passes with his arms. He put down a number
of articles on his cloth--which was villainously tattered and
greasy--an unripe plantain, a handful of rice, of parched peas, a thigh
bone, two wooden cups, some balls, &c., &c.; all of which he kept
constantly lifting and moving about, keeping up the passes and
muttering all the time.
The child was a sickly-looking, pining sort of creature, rocking about
in evident pain, and moaning and fretting just as sick children do.
Gradually its attention got fixed on the strange antics going on. The
Ojah kept muttering away, quicker and quicker, constantly shifting the
bone and cups and other articles on the cloth. His body was suffused
with perspiration, but in about half an hour the child had gone off to
sleep, and attended by some dozen old women, and the anxious father,
was borne off in triumph to the house.
Another time one of Mr. D.'s female servants got bitten by a scorpion.
The poor woman was in great agony, with her arm swelled up, when an
Ojah was called in. Setting her before him, he began his incantations
in the usual manner, but made frequent passes over her body, and over
the bitten place. A gentle perspiration began to break out on her skin,
and in a very short time the Ojah had thrown her into a deep mesmeric
sleep. After about an hour she awoke perfectly free from pain. In this
case no doubt the Ojah was a mesmerist.
The influence of fear on the ordinary native is most wonderful. I have
known dozens of instances in which natives have been brought home at
night for treatment in cases of snake-bite. They have arrived at the
factory in a complete state of coma, with closed eyes, the pupils
turned back in the head, the whole body rigid and cold, the lips pale
white, and the tongue firmly locked between the teeth. I do not believe
in recovery from a really poisonous bite, where the venom has been
truly injected. I invariably asked first how long it was since the
infliction of the bite; I would then examine the marks, and as a rule
would find them very slight. When the patient had been brought some
distance, I knew at once that it was a case of pure fright. The natives
wrap themselves up in their cloths or blankets at night, and lie down
on the floors of their huts. Turning about, or getting up for water or
tobacco, or perhaps to put fuel on the fire, they unluckily tread on a
snake, or during sleep they roll over on one. The snake gives them a
nip, and scuttles off. They have not seen what sort of snake it is, but
their imagination conjures up the very worst. After the first outcry,
when the whole house is alarmed, the man sits down firmly possessed by
the idea that he is mortally bitten. Gradually his fears work the
effect a real poisonous bite would produce. His eye gets dull, his
pulse grows feeble, his extremities cold and numb, and unless forcibly
roused by the bystanders he will actually succumb to pure fright, not
to the snake-bite at all. My chief care when a case of this sort was
brought me, was to assume a cheery demeanour, laugh to scorn the fears
of the relatives, and tell them he would be all right in a few hours if
they attended to my directions. This not uncommonly worked by
sympathetic influence on the patient himself. I believe, so long as all
round him thought he was going to die, and expected no other result,
the same effect was produced on his own mind. As soon as hope sprang up
in the breasts of all around him, his spirit also caught the contagion.
As a rule, he would now make an effort to articulate. I would then
administer a good dose of sal volatile, brandy, eau-de-luce, or other
strong stimulant, cut into the supposed bite, and apply strong nitric
acid to the wound. This generally made him wince, and I would hail it
as a token of certain recovery. By this time some confidence would
return, and the supposed dying man would soon walk back sound and whole
among his companions after profuse expressions of gratitude to his
preserver.
I have treated dozens of cases in this way successfully, and only seen
two deaths. One was a young woman, my chowkeydar's daughter; the other
was an old man, who was already dead when they lifted him out of the
basket in which they had slung him. I do not wish to be misunderstood.
I believe that in all these cases of recovery it was pure fright
working on the imagination, and not snake-bite at all. My opinion is
shared by most planters, that there is no cure yet known for a cobra
bite, or for that of any other poisonous snake, where the poison has
once been fairly injected and allowed to mix with the blood[2].
There is another curious instance of the effects of fear on the native
mind in the common method taken by an Ojah or Brahmin to discover a
suspected thief. When a theft occurs, the Ojah is sent for, and the
suspected parties are brought together. After various _muntras_, i.e.
charms or incantations, have been muttered, the Ojah, who has meanwhile
narrowly scrutinized each countenance, gives each of the suspected
individuals a small quantity of dry rice to chew. If the thief be
present, his superstitious fears are at work, and his conscience
accuses him. He sees some terrible retribution for him in all these
_muntras_, and his heart becomes like water within him, his tongue gets
dry, his salivary glands refuse to act; the innocent munch away at
their rice contentedly, but the guilty wretch feels as if he had ashes
in his mouth. At a given signal all spit out their rice, and he whose
rice comes out, chewed indeed, but dry as summer dust, is adjudged the
thief. This ordeal is called _chowl chipao_, and is rarely
unsuccessful. I have known several cases in my own experience in which
a thief has been thus discovered.
The _bhoots_, or ghosts, are popularly supposed to have favourite
haunts, generally in some specially selected tree; the _neem_ tree is
supposed to be the most patronised. The most intelligent natives share
this belief with the poorest and most ignorant; they fancy the ghosts
throw stones at them, cast evil influences over them, lure them into
quicksands, and play other devilish tricks and cantrips. Some roads are
quite shunned and deserted at night, for no other reason than that a
ghost is supposed to haunt the place. The most tempting bribe would not
make a native walk alone over that road after sunset.
Besides the witchfinder, another important village functionary who
relies much on muntras and charms, is the _Huddick_, or cow doctor. He
is the only veterinary surgeon of the native when his cow or bullock
dislocates or breaks a limb, or falls ill. The Huddick passes his hands
over the affected part, and mutters his _muntras_, which have most
probably descended to him from his father. Usually knowing a little of
the anatomical structure of the animal, he may be able to reduce a
dislocation, or roughly to set a fracture; but if the ailment be
internal, a draught of mustard oil, or some pounded spices and
turmeric, or neem leaves administered along with the _muntra_, are
supposed to be all that human skill and science can do.
The natives are cruel to animals. Half-starved bullocks are shamefully
overworked. When blows fail to make the ill-starred brute move, they
give a twist and wrench to the tail, which must cause the animal
exquisite torture, and unless the hapless beast be utterly exhausted,
this generally induces it to make a further effort. Ploughmen very
often deliberately make a raw open sore, one on each rump of the
plough-bullock. They goad the poor wretch on this raw sore with a
sharp-pointed stick when he lags, or when they think he needs stirring
up. Ponies, too, are always worked far too young; and their miserable
legs get frightfully twisted and bent. The petty shopkeepers, sellers
of brass pots, grain, spices, and other bazaar wares, who attend the
various bazaars, or weekly and bi-weekly markets, transport their goods
by means of these ponies.
The packs of merchandise are slung on rough pack-saddles, made of
coarse sacking. Shambling along with knees bent together, sores on
every joint, and frequently an eye knocked out, the poor pony's back
gets cruelly galled; when the bazaar is reached, he is hobbled as
tightly as possible, the coarse ropes cutting into the flesh, and he is
then turned adrift to contemplate starvation on the burnt-up grass.
Great open sores form on the back, on which a plaster of moist clay, or
cowdung and pounded leaves, is roughly put. The wretched creature gets
worn to a skeleton. A little common care and cleanliness would put him
right, with a little kindly consideration from his brutal master, but
what does the _Kulwar_ or _Bunneah_ care? he is too lazy.
This unfeeling cruelty and callous indifference to the sufferings of
the lower animals is a crying evil, and every magistrate, European, and
educated native, might do much to ease their burdens. Tremendous
numbers of bullocks and ponies die from sheer neglect and ill treatment
every year. It is now becoming so serious a trouble, that in many
villages plough-bullocks are too few in number for the area of land
under cultivation. The tillage suffers, the crops deteriorate, this
reacts on prices, the ryot sinks lower and lower, and gets more into
the grasp of the rapacious money-lender. In many villages I have seen
whole tracts of land relapsed into _purtee_, or untilled waste, simply
from want of bullocks to draw the plough. Severe epidemics, like foot
and mouth disease and pleuro, occasionally sweep off great numbers;
but, I repeat, that annually the lives of hundreds of valuable animals
are sacrificed by sheer sloth, dirt, inattention, and brutal cruelty.
In some parts of India, cattle poisoning for the sake of the hides is
extensively practised. The _Chumars_, that is, the shoemakers,
furriers, tanners, and workers in leather and skins generally,
frequently combine together in places, and wilfully poison cattle and
buffaloes. There is actually a section in the penal code taking
cognisance of the crime. The Hindoo will not touch a dead carcase, so
that when a bullock mysteriously sickens and dies, the _Chumars_ haul
away the body, and appropriate the skin. Some luckless witch is blamed
for the misfortune, when the rascally Chumars themselves are all the
while the real culprits. The police, however, are pretty successful in
detecting this crime, and it is not now of such frequent occurrence
[3].
Highly as the pious Hindoo venerates the sacred bull of Shira, his
treatment of his mild patient beasts of burden is a foul blot on his
character. Were you to shoot a cow, or were a Mussulman to wound a
stray bullock which might have trespassed, and be trampling down his
opium or his tobacco crop, and ruining his fields, the Hindoos would
rise _en masse_ to revenge the insult offered to their religion. Yet
they scruple not to goad their bullocks, beat them, half starve them,
and let their gaping wounds fester and become corrupt. When the poor
brute becomes old and unable to work, and his worn-out teeth unfit to
graze, he is ruthlessly turned out to die in a ditch, and be torn to
pieces by jackals, kites, and vultures. The higher classes and
well-to-do farmers show much consideration for high-priced
well-conditioned animals, but when they get old or unwell, and demand
redoubled care and attention, they are too often neglected, till, from
sheer want of ordinary care, they rot and die.
[1] The _bael_ or wood-apple is a sacred wood with Hindoos. It is
enjoined in the Shastras that the bodies of the dead should be
consumed in a fire fed by logs of bael-tree; but where it is not
procurable in sufficient quantity, the natives compound with their
consciences by lighting the funeral pyre with a branch from the
bael-tree. It is a fine yellow-coloured, pretty durable wood, and
makes excellent furniture. A very fine sherbet can be made from
the fruit, which acts as an excellent corrective and stomachic.
[2] Deaths from actual snake bite are sadly numerous; but it appears
from returns furnished to the Indian Government that Europeans
enjoy a very happy exemption. During the last forty years it would
seem that only two Europeans have been killed by snake bite, at
least only two well substantiated cases. The poorer classes are
the most frequent victims. Their universal habit of walking about
unshod, and sleeping on the ground, penetrating into the grasses
or jungles in pursuit of their daily avocations, no doubt conduces
much to the frequency of such accidents. A good plan to keep
snakes out of the bungalow is to leave a space all round the
rooms, of about four inches, between the walls and the edge of the
mats. Have this washed over about once a week with a strong
solution of carbolic acid and water. The smell may be unpleasant
for a short time, but it proves equally so to the snakes; and I
have proved by experience that it keeps them out of the rooms.
Mats should also be all firmly fastened down to the floor with
bamboo battens, and furniture should be often moved, and kept
raised a little from the ground, and the space below carefully
swept every day. At night a light should always be kept burning in
occupied bedrooms, and on no account should one get out of bed in
the dark, or walk about the rooms at night without slippers or
shoes.
[3] Somewhat analogous to this is the custom which used to be a
common one in some parts of Behar. _Koombars_ and _Grannés_, that
is, tile-makers and thatchers, when trade was dull or rain
impending, would scatter peas and grain in the interstices of the
tiles on the houses of the well-to-do. The pigeons and crows, in
their efforts to get at the peas, would loosen and perhaps
overturn a few of the tiles. The grannés would be sent for to
replace these, would condemn the whole roof as leaky, and the
tiles as old and unfit for use, and would provide a job for
himself and the tile-maker, the nefarious profits of which they
would share together.
Cultivators of thatching-grass have been known deliberately and
wantonly to set fire to villages simply to raise the price of
thatch and bamboo.