14 Journal of the. Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XIII, 



the head of the live goat, and confessed over it the sins of the 

 people. Then the sin-laden beast was sent out into the wilder- 

 ness under the charge of a trustworthy person : — " And the 

 goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not in- 

 habited*' (Lev. xvi. 22). 



These "ceremonies of riddance " are widely current in all 

 parts of India at the present day. They are mostly had re- 

 course to for transferring diseases or some other evil from one 

 place or person to another. I have fully discussed elsewhere ' 

 the component elements of a North Indian charm by means of 

 which a person suffering from some disease or tribulation seeks 

 to pass it on to another by placing on the cross-ways certain 

 objects which have come in contact with the former's body or 

 which have been waved over him or upon which he has bathed. 



One peculiar Indian form of this ceremonv is that wherein 

 the spirit of the disease— the malignant and invisible being 

 which is believed to inflict it upon a locality -is sought to be 

 compulsorily conveyed in a chariot or car from that place to 



another. 



Western 



It is, therefore, my intention in this paper to describe and 



discuss the different variants of this peculiar form of the 



disease-transference ceremony and bring out the salient features 

 thereof. 



In the Bombay Presidency, this mode of disease-transfer- 



Matani 



~i Conveying out 



ot the village the chariot of the village-goddess. ' ' When plague . 

 cholera and small pox rage in a village, the rath or chariot of 

 the village-goddess, which consists of small pieces of wooden 

 planks standing on wheels, and is decorated with small banners, 

 is carried by one of the villagers in his hand ; while some of the 

 latter carry a cock and a goat in their hands, and others carry 

 a cocoanut, betelnuts, cooked food and the like; the whole 

 procession being led by a Bhagat or priest who chants several 

 incantations all the while. The villagers make over the chariot 



•fvi tu ] i ltantS ° f another v i»age, and return to their own 

 with the delusion that they have transferred the epidemic, or 

 tor the matter of that the spirit thereof, to the latter village, 

 i he residents of this latter village, in their turn, pass the chariot 

 on to another village, and so on. When the next village is far 

 oa, the transferring villagers place the rath or chariot in a place, 

 which is hemmed in on all sides by hills, so that the disease- 

 Whir, ft 11 ^ ?^? U P' as il were > *Kay die out in solitude 

 ZuZ a Tu Vlliage ' t0 which the ch ^riot is conveyed, is 

 situated on the sea-coast, the residents thereof throw the rath, 

 and with it the spirit of the disease, into the sea where it is 



ChaL V itlti/jZTl- ent l tl l d "- A Norih Indian Diseasr-Trattsferenc 



in rth? Journal niV °? ??* P , er ** m A ™lo 9 ues" which will be published 



in the Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay 



