168 THE LATE REV. P. DEHON ON 



auxiliaries of the Hindi verbs lagna and rahna. Thus : — as ana lagiyas, he was saying, 

 and ankan rahdan, I have said. 



Most of the words they now use have Hindi roots or are the same as those they use 

 in Sadani, or the lingua franca of Chota Nagpur. They all know Sadani, even the women ; 

 and their language seems doomed to perish soon. In some parts of the Province they 

 have forgotten it entirely. The Uraons living close to Ranchi speak Sadani and Mundari. 

 The people of Biru speak Sadani more than Uraon, while some of those that live in 

 Sirguja speak only Sadani. There is a great resemblance between the language of the 

 Uraons and that of their brothers the Male of Rajmahal. Any intelligent reader who 

 knows Uraon can easily understand any book written in Malto. 



Explanation of some phenomena. — The earth of course is flat, otherwise how could 

 men walk on the other side with their head downwards without being thrown into space. 

 To keep her in position, they imagine a rather complicated contrivance. She rests on 

 the back of a tortoise which is caught very firmly between the long legs of a crab. 

 When the tortoise gets tired and wants to change her position an earthquake takes place, 

 but the crab is always there attentive to her duty and saves the world from a catastrophe. 

 She catches the tortoise very firmly with her claws and never allows her to move too much. 



The sun is alive, otherwise how could he make his rounds every day. The moon 

 also is alive, and has many children, namely the stars. Formerly the sun also had lots of 

 children, but he was induced by the moon to eat them up. Hence the enmity that exists 

 between them. This is how the moon effected her purpose. One day the moon invited 

 the sun to dinner and gave him a good meal of sweet potatoes cooked in butter. These 

 were so good and tasty that the sun asked her what it was, as he wanted to eat the same 

 thing again. The moon shamefacedly confessed that they were her own children. " Well," 

 said the sun, " my children must be as good as yours." So saying he departed and killed 

 them all. When he began to eat he found out that he had been cheated, and came down 

 in a rage to punish the moon. She, however, seeing him coming, hid behind a mango 

 tree, but the sun cut her with a sword, cursing her at the same time, saying : " Now you 

 shall keep that cut all your life. You will try to get cured every month, but as soon as 

 you think you are all right, the cut will reappear and go on increasing." From that time 

 we have the different phases of the moon, and the shadow of the mango tree remains 

 printed on her face. From that time, also, the moon keeps away from the sun and ap- 

 pears only when she knows that he is gone to sleep. 



Now let us not suppose for a moment that they look upon these explanations as 

 humbug. These strange stories satisfy their simple minds as much as the most com- 

 plicated astronomical theories satisfy ours. Tell an Uraon peasant that the moon is per- 

 haps as big as the top of the banian tree that is at the entrance of his village, and some 

 of the stars might be even bigger. Out of respect for you, he will pretend to believe 

 you, but follow him stealthily till he meets one of his own kind and listen to the good and 

 hearty laugh they will have together at your stupidity and the stupidity of all the 

 sahibs to believe such stories. They will laugh much more at your theories than we 

 can laugh at theirs. A whirlwind is a bhut that has gone mad. A nightmare is a bhut 

 trying to smother a man, etc. etc. 



