240 THE SUPERINTENDENT OF ETHNOGRAPHY, BENGAL, ON 



results. The villagers may never look behind them as they are returning from the 

 place. 



If the epidemic is of a virulent type the Hos sometimes construct a leaf hut on a sagar 

 (bullock cart with solid wheels) and place within it a mud image of the disease godling. 

 It is then taken to the village boundary and left there with a prayer that the deity may not 

 return. A somewhat similar ceremony is known in the Udaipur Tributary State as 

 Rogbandhan. The Baiga places be I fruit, cocoanuts, an earthen pot spotted with red, blue, 

 and black, a fowl, and some pieces of cloth of various colours in a peilki which is then 

 taken in procession round the village and deposited near the southern boundary with 

 prayers and vows of offerings and sacrifices if the disease should be stayed. On 

 returning to the village everyone who has accompanied the procession must bathe. 



In the Chittagong Hill Tracts an infected village is encircled with newly-spun white 

 thread and a regular system of quarantine is strictly observed for seven days. The qua- 

 rantine is sometimes inaugurated by sacrifices of goats and fowls. In addition to this the 

 Chakmas scratch mantras or figures on five stones or earthen plates which are buried with 

 the edge projecting, one in the centre of the village and the others outside it at the four 

 point of the compass. 



Amulets are worn and are sometimes buried in or near a house both for the prevention 

 and cure of cholera, but for the latter purpose bleeding is also resorted to. The amulets 



usually contain medicinal drugs, such as asafoetida, croton seed, 

 camphor, garlic or a yellow myrabolam. These are consecrated and 

 attached to the arm, neck or loins by a blue thread. They are encased in cloth and not 

 in metal, the idea apparently being that they shall purify the air. A consecrated pice 

 or a ghunsi (waist thread) may be worn on the arm or loins, or a piece of copper attached 

 with palm-leaf fibres to the waist. Marks are sometimes placed on the forehead to ward 

 off the disease. Several other observances are also connected with purification or 

 disinfection. Dhup karail incense and sulphur are burned. Vinegar made from sugar- 

 cane or jaman {Eugenia jambolana) is sprinkled in all the rooms or placed in a small pot 

 smeared with soot and spotted with lime, which is suspended near the door, together with 

 such articles as charcoal, onions tied with black thread or in a black cloth, chillies, 

 mustard-seed, leaves of the lime, a be I fruit, a clod consecrated by a Sddhu or Faqir, a tal 

 fruit with one stone, an old torn shoe, garlic, asafcetida, croton seed, iron, date or cactus 

 thorns, or camphor. Fires are burned at every door and watched all night. Each house 

 is swept daily, and the sweepings are thrown outside the village in an old basket. The 

 origin of other observances is, however, less obvious. The outside corner of the house is 

 marked with black ; charmed herbs and roots, mustard, pulse and eggs are buried at the 

 corners and sides and in the middle of the house ; dried consecrated earth is thrown over 

 every building ; a cactus plant is put on the roof in an earthen vessel containing earth and 

 water ; dots of lime or ink are made on the door ; g/u, barley, and sandal-wood are burned 

 at a small hole at cross-roads ; and the villagers refrain from having their clothes washed, 

 from giving alms, and from boiling paddy in order to convert it into rice. 



Various ceremonies are performed. Although they are mostly in honour of Kali or 

 some aboriginal godling with similar attributes, the women do not neglect to offer water 



