1890.] P. N. Bose — Ghhattisgar : notes on its tribes, sects and castes. 275 
wives as his means will allow ; and a wife can leave her lord for any- 
body else provided the latter compensates the injured husband, the 
damages being rated according to the customary marriage expenses of 
the caste. 
The practice of worshipping the Thakur Deo and Mata is almost 
universal. The former is the village god, and is worshipped by all the 
villagers twice a year, in the months of Pans and Chaitra. The Doo 
consists of a collection of peculiarly shaped stones usually placed on a 
sort of dais under an umbrageous tree. In Drug Subdivision (Raipur 
district), stool-shaped stones with two legs (supposed by General 
Cunningham to be Buddhist remains) take the place of the Thakur 
Deo. Elsewhere, he is supposed to be embodied in characteristically 
shaped pebbles. Besides the stones stinctly representing the Thakur 
Deo, numbers of others are placed by their side. In fact, the seat of 
the Thakur Deo is a sort of local museum. Any curiosities found in 
the neighbourhood, either pebbles or other rock specimens or remains of 
old temples &c. are carefully deposited there. Before leaving a village, 
I always made it a point to pay my respects to the Thakur Deo, and 
the visit was always interesting, and sometimes instructive as welt. 
The worship of the Thakur Deo consists in sacrificing goats and 
fowls, and having a good feast. In some villages the headman (malgu- 
zar) collects subscriptions from the villagers, and the expenses of the 
festival are met from the fund so raised. 
Matd, called also Bhavani and Kalika at places is the well known 
goddess of smallpox. She is greatly dreaded, and universally worship- 
ped, being carefully lodged in a thatched shed in the outskirts of the 
village. She is usually represented by a pebble ; a trident, an earthen 
lamp, and a pot for milk or water being its necessary adjuncts. She is 
worshipped in Baisakh with sacrifices of fowls. 
Bhim Son represented by his celebrated club, a large piece of stone 
daubed with vermilion, is universally venerated. Mr. Hislop says* that 
“ his worship is spread over all parts of the country, from Berar to the 
extreme cast of Bastar, and that not merely among the Hinduised abori- 
gines, who have begun to honour Khandoba, Hanuman, Ganpati, &c. 
but among the rudest and most savage of the tribe.” This universal 
popularity of Bhim Sen (who cannot be any other than the well known 
Panda va) is a rather curious fact. 
Belief in witchcraft is universal. People coming from Jabalpur and 
other places are in mortal terror of the Chhattisgaris who are supposed 
to be past masters in the black art. A Jabalpur servant of mine — a 
* Op. Cit. p. 16. 
