186 The “ Kols” of Chota-Nagpore. 
who should be destroyed. The fear of punishment and, I may add 
for some of them, the respect they bear to the orders of their rulers, 
restrain their hands, and witch murders are now very rare, but a 
village is soon made too hot to hold one who is supposed to be 
a witch. 
When a belief is entertained that sickness in a family, or mortality 
amongst cattle, or other misfortune has been brought about by sorcery, 
a Sokha or witch-finder is employed to find out who has cast the 
spell. By the Sokhas various methods of divination are employed. 
One of the most common is the test by the stone and “ povla.” The 
latter ig a large wooden cup shaped like a half cocoanut, used as a 
measure for grain. It is placed under a flat stone, and becomes a 
pivot for the stone to turn on. A boy is then placed in a sitting 
position on the stone, supporting himself by his hands, and the names 
of all the people in the neighbourhood are slowly pronounced, and as 
each name is uttered, a few grains of rice are thrown at the boy; 
when they come to the name of the witch or wizard, the stone turns 
and the boy rolls off! 
There is no necessary collusion between the Sokha and the boy ; 
the motion of the hand throwing the rice produces coma, and the 
Sokha is, [suppose, sufficiently a mesmerist to bring about the required 
result when he pleases. 
The Singbhoom Kols or Hos, left to themselves, not only considered 
it necessary to put to death a witch thus denounced, but if she had 
children or other blood relations, they must all perish, as all of the 
same blood were supposed to be tainted. 
In 1857, when, in consequence of the mutinies, Singbhoom was 
temporarily without officers, the Ho tribes of the southern parts of 
the district, always the most turbulent, released from a restraint they 
had never been very patient under, set to work to search out the 
witches and sorcerers who, it was supposed, from the long spell of 
protection they had enjoyed, had increased and multiplied toa danger- 
ous extent. Ina report on this subject from the district officer, in 
1860, it is stated that “the destruction of human life that ensued 
is too terrible to contemplate ; whole families were put anend to. In 
some instances the destroyers, issuing forth in the dusk and commen- 
cing with the denounced wizard and his household, went from house 
