THE SAL FOEBSTS 303 



in this part of the hills. They consider themselves, and 

 are allowed to be, superior to the G6nds, who may not 

 eat with them, and who take their priests of the mysteries, 

 or medicine-men, from among them. Theirs it is to hold 

 converse with the world of spirits, who are everywhere 

 present to aboriginal superstition ; theirs it is to cast omens, 

 to compel the rain, to charm away the tiger or disease. 

 The Byga medicine-man fully looks his character. He is 

 tall, thin, and cadaverous : abstraction and mystery residing 

 in his hollow eyes. When wanted, he has to be sent for 

 to some distant haunt of gnomes and spirits, and comes 

 with charms and simples slung in the hollow of a bottle- 

 gourd. A great necklace, fashioned with much carving 

 from the kernels of forest fruits, marks his holy calling. 



The Byga charmer's most dangerous duty is that of 

 laying the spirit of a man who has been killed by a tiger. 

 Man-eaters have always been numerous in Mandla, the 

 presence during a part of every year of large herds of 

 cattle fostering the breed, while their withdrawal at other 

 times to regions where the tigers cannot foUow causes 

 temporary scarcity of food, too easily relieved in the 

 abundant tall grass cover by recourse to the killing of 

 man; the desultory habits of the wild people, and the 

 numbers of travellers who take this short route between 

 the Narbada valley and the plains of Chattisgarh, fur- 

 nishing them with abundant and easy victims. The Byga 

 has to proceed to the spot where the death occurred — 

 which is probably still frequented by the tiger — ^with 

 various articles, such as fowls and rice, which are offered 

 to the manes. A pantomime of the tragedy is then enacted 

 by the Byga, who assumes the attitude of a tiger, springs 

 on his prey, and devours a mouthful of the blood-stained 

 earth. Eight days are allowed to pass; and should the 

 Byga not, in the interval, be himself carried ofi by the tiger, 

 the spirit is held to be efEectually laid, and the people 

 again resort to the jungle. The theory rests on the super- 

 stition, prevalent throughout these hills, that the ghost 

 of the victim, unless charmed to rest; rides on the head of 

 the tiger, and incites him to further deeds of blood, render- 

 ing him also secure from harm by his preternatural watch- 



