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SEPTEMBER, 1897.)
SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
251
Plague.- Hindus and Musalmans seem agreed that the Plague epidemic in Bombay in 1896-97 was the work of hostile air-spirits. They appeared to a Musalmam woman, whose eyes had been cleansed by a recent pilgrimage to Meoca, as four tæll gaunt female forms with bloody fangs, and fleshless sinewy limbs sheeted in white. To scare or to trap these and other diseasespirits the Musalmans hung in their streets kite-like papers covered with holy words. The Hindus seemed to have no special service for the Plague Mother as they have for the Smallpox and the Cholera mothers. They thought, or some of them thought, the destruction was due to the anger of offended Siva and other guardians. They prayed their guardiaus to relent and withdraw the messengers of punishment. The general belief was that the plagne was sent by the guardian Siva because of an insnlt to one of his lings or homes. This ling had been in a shrine in the Dôngri, or east quarter of the city, on land sold by a Vaishnava to a Musalinan. The Vaishnava declined to take care of the ling and the Musalman let it lie dishonoured in the street. Siva's wife, Chanda, sent dreams to two Brahmans, telling them that the plague had come because of this dishonour to the ling, and ordering them to have the liny cared for and set in some shrine. A meeting was called and the ling was laid in a palanquin and carried to the shrine of Agya Vêtil, at the top of the Siri Road up Malabar Hill. Speeches were made and prayers offered, promising a temple if the plagne ceased. Unluckily a rascal ascetic, Bhûryê Bîwî, who has since been hanged for mordering a woman, hoping to secure a large reward for replacing it, stole the ling. The violence of the plague redoubled.70
In the Korikan, the continuance for several years of some peculiar sickness, of drought, or of failure of crops is, like the prevalence of cholera, attributed to the agency of epidemic spirits. A few years ago in Dugad, a village near Blindwi in the Thâná District, after several years of sickness and poor crops, the villagers concluded that the sickness and failure of crops were due to epidemic spirits. To expel, or to propitiate, these spirits, the villagers collected about Rs. 100, and, after consnlting a Brahman astrologer, fixed a day for the ceremony. With the Rs. 100 ten sheep, fifty fowls, one hundred cocoanuts, and a supply of betel-nuts, sugar, clarified butter, frankinoense, red powder, turmeric and flowers were hought. The day before the beginning of the ceremony all the people of the village, taking their clothes, vessels, cattle and other moveables, left their houses, and, coming out of the village, encamped at the gate or boundary where a tóran or triumphal arch had been erected and adorned with garlands of fiowers and mango leaves. Cocoanuts were hung from the arch, and the inango leaves were covered with red powder and turmeric. The villagers bathed, pnt on new clothes, and formed a procession. The véskur or village watchman walked in front, followed by the patil or village headman, the musthavi or village crier, and the principal men of the village. At the torms or triumphal arch the procession stopped. A hole was dug and in the hole the village watchman Inid the hond of a sheep, a cocoanut, betel nuts and leaves, and Rowers. Tho tóran or arch was then worshipped by each of the villagers. The village watchman passed throngh the arch, and was followed by the villagers with music, cheering, and clapping of hands. The whole party then went to the village temple, bowed to the village god, and returned to their liomes. The blood of the ten sheep and fifty fowls was offered to the village gods, and the flesh was distributed among the villagers. The ceremony ended with a dinner to Brahmans.
To the early unclad and unhoused man wind must have caused many diseases. Vára the Marathi and váyu the Gujarathi word for wind means rheumatism. In Middle Age and
50 With these plague rites and beliefs may be compared tbe story of the return by the Philistines of the plaguespreading Ark of the Jews (1. Kings, Chap. vi. v. 5). Before returning the Ark the priosts of the Philistines placed in the Ark golden likenesses of rat and of a bubo, the two lending characteristics of the opidomie, of which the Ark had seemed to be the centre, and therefore the two forms specially well known to the spirits of, or the spirits rent by. Javeh the Hebrew wargou to punish the Philistines. The pleasure of having golden shapes of their old homes
1. as well as the placing of them as guardians among the other guardians of Judæa wonld tempt all the plaque influences to settle in the Ark and with the Ark to pass from Philistia into Judies. The result established the efficacy of the rite.
