1840.] The Hodesum (improperly called Kolehan) . 799 



foxes. Suttees never are born again, but remain burning for ever in 

 their pits, and come out at night, wandering about, still burning (so 

 say the Ghassees.) Good people after death are born again in some 

 better condition in life than formerly. And this order of things will 

 remain for ever and ever. There will be no last day. 



When men die, their spirits go to the Sing Bonga, who asks them 

 how they have lived, and judges them. The wicked he whips with 

 thorny bushes, and sometimes buries them in great heaps of human 

 ordure, and after a while sends them back to be born in this world as 

 dogs, cats, bullocks, lizards, &c. The good man he sends back to be 

 born a still greater and better man than he lived before, and all that 

 he had given away in charity, Sing Bonga shows him heaped up in 

 heaven, and restores it to him. 



Gods and Spirits. 



Besides Ote Boram and Sing Bonga, or Sirma Thakoor, there are* 

 Nage Era or Garra Nage, Desa Oolee, Marang Bonga — his wife is 

 Pangoora ; these are village gods. 



Chanala Desum Bonga, also his wife Pangoora, belonging to married 

 women. 



Horaten Ko, or road gods, who come along with a new wife ; also 

 Mahlee Bonga, and Chandoo Omol. 



Nage Era, or Garra Nage, or Chandore, is worshipped in springs, 

 rivers, or wells; she is supposed to preside over cutaneous diseases, and 

 deafness; she is propitiated with eggs and huldee; if that do not 

 do, with a pig. She has no father or mother, but was self-created. She 

 is invoked to help in catching fish. Desa Oolee presides over diseases 

 of the head and stomach ; he is the guardian of the village, and 

 invoked to prevent infectious diseases coming into the country, also 

 to insure rain, good crops, no diseases in the cattle. His wife is Jaer 

 Booree. Desa Oolee is worshipped at the Mag Purub ; they sacrifice 

 goats, buffaloes, fowls, Jaer Booree is worshipped at Bah Purub, in 

 March and April, and in Batta Oolee, in Assar. The same things 

 are offered to her, except buffaloes ; and she presides over the same 

 things. Desa Oolee lives in a grove made for him ; Jaer Booree in 



5 I 



