7- Demon-Cultus in Mundari Children's Games 



By Sarat Chandra Mitra, M.A., B.L. 



A theory has been recently propounded to the effect that a 

 number of the games played by children are survivals of 

 demon- worship. I have already shown ' that the origin of 

 several of the North Indian children's games may be explained 

 by this theory. Take, for instance, the highly interestingand 

 popular North Indian game known under the name of Arjkh 

 MundauL It has a very striking similarity to the German 

 game of fl Blind Cow,' 7 the French " Blind Man's Buff/' 

 the Dutch " Blind Cat," the 'Blind Goat" of the Danes 

 and the Swedes, and the " Blind Fly " of the Italians. The 

 method of playing it is as follows : —One boy is selected to be 

 blind and has to stand facing a wall. The other players 

 conceal themselves, and, while the blind player is searching* for 

 them, try to touch the wall. Whosoever among the players is 

 touched by the blind man becomes a ■ ■ thief " or € ' blind man ' ' in 

 his place. Curiously enough, the Bengalis, like the Italians, 

 designate this game with the name of Kana Machhi or the $ t Blind 

 Fly. " In the Bengali variant of this game, as in the English 

 form thereof, the blind man has to touch one of the players 

 who are sitting round, and, after feeling him, has to bawl out 

 his name. In the Dundu-Khel or the Munda version of this 

 game, however, the "blind man's " playmates slap him one 

 after the other. If the former succeeds in identifying the boy 

 who slaps him, the covering is removed from his eyes, and the 

 boy who has been caught slapping him and recognized, has 

 at once to take the place of the former and is blind-folded. 

 And the play goes on in the same way as before till he, in his 

 own turn, succeeds in recognizing the boy who may have been 

 slapping him.* 



Applying our theory to the explanation of the foregoing 

 North Indian game, we find that the " blind man " represents 

 the masked demon of the German children's games, who tries 

 to catch the rest of the players, while the latter try to evade 

 being caught by him. 



The essential component of these games is the evasion of 

 the demon's efforts to catch one of the players. But there 

 is not the least trace of the existence therein of any incident 



1 ** North Indian Children's Games and Demon-Cultus " Journ. Bombay 

 Anthropoid Soc. t vol x, pp. 1-7. 



2 The Mundas and Their Country. By S. C. Roy, M.A., B.L. With 

 an Introduction by E. A. Gait, Esq., I.C.S., CLE, Calcutta : The City 

 Book Society. 1912. pp. 491-92, 



