THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES. 149 



and powerful of wliicli are personified and propitiated 

 by simple oflferings. Every prominent mountain top 

 is the residence of the Spirit of the Hill, who must 

 be satisfied by an ofi'eritig before a dhya can be 

 cut on its slopes. The forest is peopled by wood- 

 land sprites, for whom a grove of typical trees is 

 commonly left standing as a refuge in clearing away the 

 jungle. When the field is sown, the god of rice-fields 

 (Khodo Pen) has to be satisfied, and again when the 

 €rop is reaped. The malignant powers receive regular 

 propitiation. The Tiger God has a hut built for him in 

 the wilderness that he may not come near their dwellings. 

 The goddess of small-pox and of cholera receives 

 offerings chiefly when her ravages are threatened. 

 Among such elementary powers must be reckoned the 

 ghosts of the deceased, which have to be laid by certain 

 ceremonies. These consist in conjuring the ghost into 

 something tangible, in one case into the body of a fish 

 caught in the nearest water, in another, into a fowl 

 <ihosen by omen. The object, whatever it is, is then 

 brought to the house of the deceased, and propitiated 

 for a certain time, after which it is formally consigned 

 to rest by burial, or in one case by pouring it (in 

 solution) over the representation of the village god. 

 The spirits of persons killed by wild animals are believed 

 to be especially malignant, and are "laid" with much care 

 and ceremony. To this practice has been superadded 

 by some the rite of periodical propitiation of deceased 

 ancestors by sacrifice, implying their continued existence 

 in another world, an entirely difi"erent thing it may be 

 observed from the rite already described, which implies 

 only a restless and spiteful existence in this world of a 

 ghost which may be made an end of by a ceremony. 



