THE RELIGION AND CUSTOMS OP THE URAONS. 133 



his circles to represent the rainbow or God's granary, places some rice and an egg in 

 the middle ; but this time does not use the triangle, nor the five sticks representing the 

 panch. Instead of two chapters, he sings only one, viz.-, the Genesis of the Asurs or bhuts. 

 At the end he invokes the protection of God against Baranda and says, " O God, from to- 

 day do not send any more your chaprasi to punish us. You see we have paid our respects 

 to you, and we are going to give him his dasturl " (" tip" or perquisite). Having said this 

 they move a little further to offer their sacrifice to Baranda ; they feed first the bullock with 

 arwa rice, which is the offering, then the votary strikes the animal slightly with a hatchet 

 and leaves him to be killed by anyone of those that are present. The skin is immediately 

 taken off and the Sankatalas chooses one piece from the ribs, one from the tongue, and 

 three from the liver. He cuts these into small bits, which he strings on the rib of a palm-leaf. 

 This with the rest of the liver is put in an earthen vessel on the fire to cook without any 

 condiment. When the meat is sufficiently cooked, the Sankatalas takes out the strung 

 meat and puts it in a winnowing fan, leaving the rest of the liver ; he adds then some 

 water and rice. When he sees that the water is boiling, he again inserts the strung meat 

 into the pot until he sees that five grains of rice are adhering to it, when he takes it out, 

 unstrings it and lets it drop into a winnowing fan. Meanwhile someone of the crowd has 

 prepared two cups each made of three sal leaves sewn together. The Sankatalas divides the 

 meat into three portions which he lets fall one after the other into one of the leaf cups. 

 This being done, he takes the other leaf cup, puts it on the first and sews them together. 

 A shoot of a sal tree of the thickness of an arm is cut, and five rings are cut in it by re- 

 moving the bark. This represents Baranda. The Sankat sticks it in the ground, places 

 the leaf cups containing the meat close to it, and surrounds the whole with thorns. The 

 ring of the bachchia bandhna is thrown inside, and, the vow being now fulfilled, they 

 throw away the sakhua leaf and the arwa rice with the sabai string. Then they all 

 shout, " Uddu Baranda, Keter Baranda, Chakki Baranda, Dharmes ke chaprasi ! " " Now 

 that we have paid what we owed to your master and given you your dasturi, leave us alone 

 and do not come to tease us any more." Uddu Baranda, Keter Barenda are nicknames. 

 They are not afraid of him any more, because they have paid their debts to his master. 

 When this is done, they eat the rest of the liver that has remained in the cooking-pot, 

 whilst the rice is taken out to be distributed to the people of the village. As for the 

 meat, it is divided in this way : the votary gets the leg on which the bullock has fallen 

 when being slaughtered ; the panchayat the other leg ; the rest of the meat is distributed 

 among the other people. When leaving the place, they put the tail of the animal round 

 the post representing Baranda and repeat, " Now, Baranda, we leave you : you have got 

 your dasturi, do not molest us any more." Then they depart, and five children who have 

 received five special shares of meat keep on shouting — " E Baranda, E Baranda, give 

 salt, give salt to the man who has offered you the sacrifice !" 



Worship of the Spirits of the Asur Women whose Husbands were 



Destroyed by Dharmes. 



The Uraons look upon these not as bhuts but as deotas, and offer them sacrifices 

 because Dharmes entrusted their feeding to them when they caught hold of the bridle of 



