304 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



fulness. To remove pestilence or sickness, they have a 

 pleasant notion that it must be transferred to some one 

 else; and so they sweep their villages, after the usual 

 sacrifices, and cast the filth on the highway or into the 

 bounds of some other village. 



The real Byga medicine-man possesses the gift of throw- 

 ing himself into a trance, during which the afl&atus of the 

 Deity is supposed to be vouchsafed to him, communicating 

 the secrets of the future. I never saw the performance 

 myself, but persons who have aflfi.rm that it is too severe 

 in its physical symptoms to be mere acting; and there is 

 sufl6.cient evidence from other quarters to prove that some 

 persons can educate themselves into the power of passing 

 into such fits at will, to lead us to credit the Byga at least 

 with nothing worse than self-deception in the matter. In 

 rehgion the Bygas have admitted a few of the Hindu deities 

 of the destructive type ; but their chief reverence is paid 

 to the spirits of the waste, and to Mother Earth, who is 

 their tribal god. One of their tribal names is Bhumia, 

 meaning " people of the soil," and it is curious that among 

 every aboriginal tribe of these hills, including the Bheels, 

 the priests or medicine-men are called by the same name. 

 The rite of charming the souls of deceased persons into some 

 material object, before described, and which seems pecuhar 

 to these hiUs, is practised also by these Bygas. 



A male Byga is easily distinguished from a Gond ; but 

 their women are scarcely in any respect different — ^perhaps 

 a little blacker, but dressing in a similar manner, wearing 

 the same ornaments (including a chignon of goat's hair), 

 and, hke them, also tattooed as to the legs. Though the 

 Bygas are, hke the Bheels, less given to congregate together 

 in large villages than some other tribes, often indeed Hving 

 in entirely detached dwelhngs, there are a good many 

 villages of a considerable number of houses. These are 

 arranged with much neatness in the form of a square, and 

 the whole place is kept very clean. 



The Byga is the most terrible enemy to the forests we 

 have anywhere in these hills. Thousands of square miles 

 of sal forest have been clean destroyed by them in the 

 progress of their dhya cultivation, the ground being after- 



