1916.] Demon-Cultus in Mundari Games. 123 



relented and said : ■ < You may substitute goats for children when 

 you offer sacrifice to me. And I will bless your lands with 

 double crops, hut the goats must be as black as your own children 

 without a single spot of white. " So she was allowed to remain 

 in her temple ; and a festival is held in her honour in the month 

 of March every year. 1 



In this connection, it may be stated here that a white 

 goat appears to be the appropriate sacrifice for a beneficent 

 deity. In the Mundari legend of Lutkum Haram and Lutkum 

 Buria, the Asurs are stated to have sacrificed a white goat to 

 Sing Bonga, the Supreme Deity of the Mundas, when their 

 supply of iron fell short, whereupon the deity is said to have 

 provided them with an abundance of this metal.* In the same 

 legend, two virgins are stated to have, on behalf of the 

 Asurs, worked the furnaces with bellows newly made of white 

 goat skin. 3 



Now I come to the subject of the offering of the buffalo. 

 The buffaloes are invariably black ; while albino ones are 

 rarities. A black buffalo is a fit offering for Kali or Devi, who 

 presides over demons and malignant spirits, and is usually 

 sacrificed to her. It is also offered up as sacrifice to the goddess 

 Durga who is said to have slain the buffalo-shaped Mahisha- 

 sura. Hence her appellation of Mahishasuraghatini. The black 

 buffalo is, therefore, very appropriately requisitioned for offer- 

 ing to the demon in the Mundari game referred to above. 



The colours black, white, red and yellow are stated to be 

 particularly dreaded by demons and malignant spirits, and are 

 said to scare them away. 4 If this be so, the offerings of a 

 white hen, a black goat and a black buffalo, as mentioned in 

 the Mundari children's game which has been described, would 



have scared the demon away instead of propitiating him. But 

 from what I have stated above, it would appear that, as a 

 matter of fact, white fowls, black goats and buffaloes are invari- 

 ably sacrificed in India to propitiate demons and malevolent 

 deities. This is one among the many anomalies in the popular 

 customs and beliefs of India. 



1 On the Goromandel Coast. By F. E. Penny. London : Smith 

 Elder & Co. 1908. pp. 288-291. 



1 Roy's The Mundas and Their Country, p. xxxi ( AnDendix ID. 



8 Op. cit., p. xxxiii (Appendix TI). 

 * Crooke's An Introduction to the 

 Northern India, p. 201. 



and 



