Kans 3 8.] The People of Mungeli Tahsil. 197 
is first oiled and then the mother places one hand over the fire and 
the other over the child’s stomach, and thus with rapid movements 
of the hands massages the child with each hand alternately. 
Meantime she is singing thing lullaby. This fomentation is 
intendedto remove flatulence. But sometimes a much severer 
nght I heard excrutiating cries from a child; on inquiry I was 
casually d th child was suffering from Dhabha and 
the parents were having it branded. If the disease assumes a 
severe form, what is called big Dhabha, then several double-pice are 
placed in the fire, they are then taken up with pinchers and applied 
to the surface of the abdomen leaving a burn the size of the face of a 
carry the marks for forty and fifty years. May we not askif this 
Practice of branding infants has not some connection with the 
radespread belief that changlings and witches are afraid of fire 
an : . aie" 
travellers who, coming from all sides, took up one from the path, 
it with a prayer to the local divinity upon the pile. 
: 1. Ideas regarding Transmigration.—Some years ago I was 
ite intimate with a Satmani Ohamar. He was fully eighty years 
Fags. This man had many strange ideas, which, unfortunately, 
at that time I did not appreciate. With my present acquaintance 
