Vol, I, No. 8.] The People of Mungeli Tahsil, 195 
[N. 8.] 
he alone had possessed. The cobra e scorpions and all 
other stinging insects received as ch poison as was ained 
in the food of which they partook. Hence the various degrees in 
the p of sna he Ashariya in consequence had only a 
little poison left, and so it is poisonous only in the month 
of er Tt aid that traders in cattle and those who 
ve to do_with eaking in of ca p i of the 
tail of the Ashariya by them. If the tail of tis snake is pushed 
up the nostril of a refractory animal (a ck or a buffalo) the 
; ionally. It is not much more than eight inches 
in length, thick and of much the same dimension from end to end, 
aw away her mi 
while she sleeps. The snake, it is said, will place its tail in the 
child’s mouth and thus soothe the child while drawing away the 
milk for its own nourishment. Women hold this snake in special 
abhorrence, 
t. 
8iven was that the snake was taking the woman’s milk while the 
child was starving. Now that the snake had been destroyed, the 
herbs and roots with medicinal properties, also have with them a 
herb known as hathajori, which may be roughly translated hands 
