352 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [Sept., 1914. 



It is believed to be a common practice with the witch or the 

 sorcerer to injure a person in health by secretly mixing with 

 his food a bit of a bone or a nail-paring over which some magic 

 spell has been pronounced. This bit of bone or nail is believed 

 to grow in bulk inside the stomach of the man who swallows it 

 unawares, and finally to kill him unless he secures the timely 

 aid of some other magician. 



Again, the soul of the Chota Nagpur witch is believed to 

 be able to quit the body and walk about at night in the shape 

 either of a black cat or of a pigmy, no bigger than the size of 

 a man's thumb Such a cat enters the houses of people and 

 licks up the saliva trickling down the corners of the mouths of 

 sleeping persons, or bites off their hair, with the result that 

 they fall dangerously ill. While walking about in the guise of 

 a pigmy, the Chota Nagpur witch is believed to carry a dim- 

 inutive banghi pole made of the twig of a castor-plant. To 

 each end of this banghi-ipole is attached a proportionately small 

 carrying-net or sika made of human hair. With this magical 

 sika -baiting a ^ the pigmy enters people's granaries and carries 

 off their grain. Although the grain thus taken away be no 

 more than a mere handful, the magic touch of the witch soon 

 exhausts the granary in question; and, through sympathetic 

 magic, even the fields of the owner of the granary cease to 

 yield their wonted produce. 



Although the Chota Nagpur magician or mati has always 

 his sadhak-bhut or familiar with whom he has entered into a 

 secret compact to enable him to effect his mischievous designs, 

 yet, when in a case of spirit-possession he has to exorcise an 

 evil spirit, he must invoke the help of all the good and benefi- 

 cent gods— indigenous and foreign — that he can think of: 

 Even Kalihata Kalimai (the famous goddess of Kalighat) — and 

 Mecca- Medina (the holy places of the Aluhammadaiis)— are not 

 overlooked. When the evil spirit has been exorcised by magic 



spells and magnetic 'passes', two mechanical contrivances 

 known respectively as the iihli and the singhi, are employed to 

 confine the exorcised spirit and transfer it to some other 

 person. The tikli is a very small thin circular bit of metal 

 about one-third the size and thickness of a two-anna bit, and 

 the singhi is a small tapering iron tube. Just when an evil 

 spirit is expelled, the spirit is compelled by the mati to enter 

 either the tikli or the singhi, or both. Subsequently the mati 

 goes to some market or fair with the tikli concealed in his 

 clothes, and secretly manages to throw it on the garments of 

 some unmarried girl who thereupon becomes obsessed with the 

 evil spirit. Sometimes the tikli is affixed to a copper-corn 

 which is then left on a public thoroughfare in the belief that 

 whoever takes up the pice will be ■ possessed ' by the spirit. 

 Sometimes, again, the tikli is attached to the wings of a 



pigeon or other bird in the belief that the evil spirit win 



