INDIAN CUSTOMS. 225 



assert that it was a prevailing custom with some 

 of the inhabitants of that country. 



" The judicial records contain a case of great 

 enormity, in which five women were put to death 

 for the supposed practice of sorcery. I shall 

 submit the circumstances of this transaction, with 

 some detail, before the Society, premising that it 

 happened in a district of Ramghur, the least 

 civilized part of the Company's possessions, 

 amongst a wild and unlettered tribe, denominated 

 Soontaar, who have reduced the detection and 

 trial of persons suspected of witch-craft to a 

 system." 



" Three men of the cast of Soontaar , were, 

 in the year 1792, indicted for the murder of five 

 women ; the prisoners, without hesitation, con- 

 fessed the crime with which they were charged, 

 and pleaded in their defence that with their tribes 

 it was the immemorial custom and practice to try 

 persons notorious for witch-craft. That for this 

 purpose an assembly was convened of those of tjie 

 same tribe, from far and near, and if, after due 

 investigation, the charge was proved, the sorcerers 

 were put to death, and no complaint was ever 

 preferred on this account to the ruling power. 



Q 



