THE USE OF AMULETS IN THE PREVENTION OF DISEASE. 239 



The Kuch Bihar Muhammadans dance from house to house supporting a long 

 bamboo, wrapped with strips of variegated cloth, and adorned with black yak tails at 

 intervals and at the top, in order to collect doles for the performance of Sinni (a propitia- 

 tory service). 



In Bihar, goats, rams, and buffaloes are sacrificed at the Bhagvati cabutrd, which are 

 to be found outside almost every village under a shed or tree. Bhagvati, the goddess of 

 epidemics, is represented by seven stones or earthen balls smeared with vermilion on a 

 small platform two or three feet high. 



In other parts of the Province other gods are propitiated. In Bogra the favourite 

 deities are Raksa Candi and the three-legged Jvaresvar ; in the Tributary States west ot 

 Ranchi, Mainpat and Burpat ; in Burdwan, Didi Thakrun is one of the chief cholera 

 godlings ; the Hos worship Desauli ; the Sauria Paharias, Camda Gosain ; the Santals, 

 Bonga, and Bongi who are represented by rude mud images, or by stones marked with red 

 and white, and who are propitiated with offerings and sacrifices only, no mantras being 

 used ; the up-country Hindus in the Santal Parganas worship Marki, the goddess of pesti- 

 lence, in the form of an earthen pot of water, whose sides are fantastically marked with 

 quicklime and vermilion, with a ritual which resembles that employed in the worship of 

 Kali ; the aborigines of Hazaribagh perform sacrifices at the spot haunted by the Devi 

 Mara, in whose honour a festival is observed annually during the Durga Puja ; whilst in 

 Orissa the Gram Devati is propitiated. In Jalpaiguri, Tista Buri is worshipped in the form 

 of a plantain stem decorated with wreaths of flowers, and Kalai as a winnowing-fan ; the 

 devotees of Mahanti keep vigil through the night, and Uddarcandi is propitiated by 

 seven matrons with seven measures of paddy ; whilst Hindus and Muhamacians alike 

 make offerings to Hawa Ma, Fata Ma and Madar Pir. 



In Chota Nagpur when a house is attacked the floors are smeared every morning with 

 mud brought from a paddy-field unmixed with cowdung. The villagers assemble at 

 night and go round the village breaking everything they can find outside the houses. 

 Care is of course taken that nothing valuable shall be thus sacrificed. An old pot and a 

 broom, or an egg, and, among the Goalas, an old plough and basket also, are col- 

 lected from each house and taken to the village boundary, where they are broken and 

 piled under a tree (usually a mahua) near a pathway. Among the aborigines the place 

 is swept and the priest offers parched rice and vermilion. Fowls spotted with vermilion 

 are sacrificed and are then cooked and eaten by those present. Among the Tamarias 

 the exorcist puts a drop of the blood on each man's forehead, and the fowl's head is 

 wrapped in a leaf and burned. A portion must be eaten by each householder before any 

 other food is taken. 



Elsewhere a pot resembling that used for Grambandhi is broken at cross-roads within 

 another village, and old baskets, brooms, shoes and winnowing-fans are left with the 

 fragments. A flag is planted on a bamboo flagstaff, and a man of low caste, who is 

 believed to have power over the disease godling, mutters incantations. In the case of 

 cholera YoginI is sometimes worshipped at the same time. The idea here seems to be 

 that the disease is represented by the pots and their contents. The inhabitants of the 

 village in which the ceremony takes place resent it strongly, and a riot occasionally 



