191fi ] Demon-Cultus in Mundari Games. 121 



made above. On the occasion of the ear-boring ceremony of a 

 Munda baby, a black fowl is sacrificed on a spot marked with 

 the figure of a parallelogram, and the blood of the fowl is 

 sprinkled over the figure. * At the celebration of the Phagu 

 testival, the Pahan makes joint offerings of three pieces of rice- 

 ttour bread, one pot of rice-beer, and a black hen which are 

 ottered to all the Bongas or deities presiding over the woods 

 hills streams, fields and groves and prays for success in hunt' 

 ing. When the Sohorai festival is celebrated, a black fowl is 

 sacrificed at the door of the buffalo-shed; and its meat together 

 with rice-beer are offered up to propitiate the Gorea Bonga— the 

 deity who presides over cattle. 8 



Note the anomalous sacrifice, by the Asurs, of a white 

 cock to Sing-bonga— the Supreme Deity of the Mundas 

 their legend of Lutkum Haram and Lutkum Buria.* 



Now we come to the offering of the black goat. The goat 

 is an animal which is credited with the possession of mystic 

 powers. It is invariably offered up by way of sacrifice. The 

 authorities on cultural anthropology are divided in their 

 opinion about the origin of this belief in the possession of its 

 mystic powers and of the preference given to it as an animal fit 

 for sacrifice. Some of them say that they are based either on 

 its peculiar smell and its habits of butting, and of injuring 

 plants by browsing upon them, or on its uncanny and shaggy 

 appearance. 6 Others think that these have originated from 

 its possession of the curious habit of occasionally shivering, 

 which is supposed to be caused by some divine afflatus or essence 

 in it — some 3pirit residing within it. 



This remarkable habit of shivering is, moreover, utilized by 

 various peoples as an oracle for deciding boundary-disputes and 

 the question whether or not the sacrifice to be offered to a 

 deity is acceptable to the latter. The ancient Greeks would not 

 sacrifice a goat if it did not shiver when it was besprinkled 

 with water. The Thags of India also had recourse to the same 

 device. Whenever they had to offer up a sacrifice to their 

 grim goddess Devi — the deity who presides over malevolent 

 spirits and was the patron-saint of their dreadful profession, 

 they would select two goats, black and perfect in all their 

 limbs, make them stand facing the west and then bathe them 

 with water. If they shivered and shook the water from their 

 shaggy coats, it was regarded as an omen that the sacrifice 

 was acceptable to the goddess. The same procedure was also 

 adopted in the sacrifice to the famous hill-demon Airi, who is 



1 The Mundas and Their Country, pp. 459-460. 



2 Op. cit., pp. 474-475. 8 Op. cit., p. 481. 



4 Op. cit., p. xxxi (Appendix n). 



* Demonology and Devil-lore. By M. D. Conway. London : 1879. 

 Vol. I, p. 122. 



