190 The " Kols" of Chota-Nagpore. 



Nagpore, and amongst the Sonthals ' passim.' Marang Booroo and 

 Pongla his wife ; Desaoolli, Jaer Boori, Eekin Bonga, Boora Bonga, 

 Charee Desoolli and Dara are invoked in Chota-Nagpore. 



The Sonthals have Marang Booroo, also Maniko his brother and 

 Jaer his sister. Tickell's paper in Yol. IX, part 2nd of this Journal 

 gives the Singbhoom gods and their attributes. They too have 

 Marang Booroo and Pongala, Desaoolli and Jaer Boori or Jaer Era 

 and others. In cases of sickness the Ho, after ascertaining by augury 

 which of the gods should be propitiated, will go on offering sacrifices 

 till the patient recovers or his live stock is entirely exhausted. 



Next to Singbonga I am inclined to place the deity that is adored 

 as " Marang Booroo." Booroo means mountain, but every mountain 

 has its spirit, and the word is therefore used to mean god or spirit* 

 also. Marang Booroo is the great spirit or great mountain. Not far 

 from the village of Lodmah in Chota-Nagpore one of the most 

 conspicuous hills on the plateau is called Marang Booroo, and here 

 the great spirit is supposed to dwell. It is worshipped by the 

 Sonthals, the Bhoomij, the Hos, the Moondahs and the Oraons. The 

 two latter make pilgrimages to it. The Hos have some vague notion 

 of its situation ; the more distant members of the family canonize 

 some hill more conveniently situated. 



The Marang Booroo is especially venerated as the lord of rain. 

 Before the rains the women go to the top of the hill, under the 

 leadership of the wives of the Pahans, with drums, which are on this 

 occasion only played on by young ladies, and with offerings of milk 

 and leaves of the Bel tree. On the top of the hill there is a flat mass 

 of rock on which they deposit their offerings. 



The wives of the Pahans now kneel down, and with hair loosened 

 invoke the deity, beseeching him to give their crops seasonable rain. 

 They shake their heads violently as they reiterate this prayer, till they 

 work themselves into a phrensy, and the movement becomes involuntary. 

 They go on thus wildly gesticulating, till a " little cloud like a man's 

 hand" is seen. Then they arise, take up the drums, and dance the 

 Kurrun on the rock, till Marang Booroo's response to their prayer is 

 heard in the distant rumbling of thunder, and they go home rejoicing. 



* Thus they have for their altars groves and high places like the idolatrous 

 Jews. 



