724 Account of the Origin, etc. of the [July, 



the lump ! A good many of the household or national divinities of 

 the Bodo are elemental gods, chiefly rivers. Batho, however, the chief 

 god of the Bodo, is not an elemental god : but he is clearly and indis- 

 putably identifiable with something tangible, viz. the Sij or Euphorbia ; 

 though why that useless and even exotic plant should have been thus 

 selected to type the godhead, I have failed to ascertain. Mainou or 

 Mainong is the wife of Batho, and equally revered with him : more I 

 cannot learn of her. The supreme gods of the Dhimals are usually 

 termed Warang-Berang, that is, the old ones, or father and mother of 

 the gods. They likewise are a wedded pair, whose proper names are, 

 respectively, Pochima and Timai vel Timang, of whom the latter is un- 

 doubtedly the Tishta river ; and the former, I believe, the river Dhorla. 

 The Bodo and Dhimals have neither temple nor idol ; and altogether 

 their religion belongs to the same primitive era with their habits and 

 manners, is void of offence or scandal, and if any judgment may be 

 made of it from the manners and character of its professors, is not 

 without beneficial influences. 



I proceed now to some details upon this point, in which it will be 

 necessary sometimes to speak separately, of the Bodo and Dhimal 

 religions, though so little essentially distinct. This general corre- 

 spondence extends not merely to the entire substance and character of 

 the religion, properly so called, of each people, but to all minor points 

 connected therewith ; for example, both people have but a vague no- 

 tion of the existence or functions of those Dii minores called Genii, 

 Fauns, Satyrs and Sylvans by the classic ancients, and Fairies, Sprites, 

 Gnomes, Ogres, &c. by our Gothic or Teutonic ancestors. Neither 

 people is infested with the Gothic bugbear of ghosts, or with the 

 Gothic and classic follies of magic, sorcery, divining, omens, auspices, 

 astrology or fortune -telling. On the other hand, both Bodo and 

 Dhimal alike and devoutly believe in witchcraft, of which they enter- 

 tain a deep dread, and likewise in the influence of the evil eye, though 

 much less dreaded than witchcraft. Omens are very slightly, if at all, 

 heeded by either. 



