Folklore of the Santal Parganas

by Cecil Henry Bompas

While the younger brother was up in the tree his cattle had got into a gundli field and eaten up the crop: and the owner found it out and got the brothers fined. So that evening the elder brother asked him where he had been that he had not looked after the cattle properly nor eaten any breakfast. In answer the younger brother only began to cry; at that his sister-in-law said. “Let him alone; he is crying for want of a wife; he is going silly because we have not married him;” and so nothing more was said. But the elder brother was not satisfied and the next day when they went together to work he asked the younger what was the real reason for his crying.

Then the younger answered. “Brother, I am in great trouble; it makes me cry all day; if you wish ever to look on my face again, you must not work in the fields to-morrow but keep me company while I tend the cattle; if we are separated for a moment a tiger will kill me; it will be quickly over for me but you I know will miss me much and so I am grieving for you; if you have any tenderness for me do not leave me to-morrow but save me from the tiger.” His brother asked the reason for this foreboding but the younger man said that he would explain nothing and accuse no one until the events of the next day had shown whether he was speaking the truth; if a tiger really came to stalk him then that would be proof that he had had good reason for his apprehension; and he begged his brother not to speak a word about it to anyone and especially not to his wife.

The elder brother promised to keep the matter a secret and cheered his brother up and told him to be of good heart; they would take their bows and axes and he would like to see the tiger that would touch them. So the next morning the two brothers went off together well armed and tended the cattle in company; nothing happened and at midday they brought the cattle home; when the woman saw them with bows in their hands she asked where they had been. Her husband told her that he had been to look for a hare which he had seen on the previous day but he had not been able to find it. Then his brother said that he had seen a hare in its form that very morning but had not had time to shoot it. So they pretended to arrange to go and hunt this hare and after having eaten their rice they drove out the cattle again.

As they went along they kept close together with their arrows on the string, so that the tiger which came to stalk the younger brother got no opportunity to attack; at last it showed itself at the edge of the jungle; the cattle were thrown into a turmoil and the brothers saw that it was really following them; and the elder brother was convinced that there was some reason for his brother’s fears. So they turned the cattle back and cautiously drove them home, keeping a good look out all the way; the tiger prowled round them hiding in the bushes, sometimes in front and sometimes behind, but found no opening to attack while they for their part did not dare to shoot at it. The tiger followed them right up to the house; but the elder brother did not leave the other for a moment nor let him go outside the door and at night he slept on the same bed with him.

The next morning he begged his brother to tell him all that had happened and explain how he knew that a tiger would seek his life on the previous day. “Come then” said the other, “to yonder open ground. I cannot tell you in the house;” so they went out together and then the younger told all that had happened and how his sister-in-law had ordered the Bonga to have him killed by a tiger; “I did not tell you before till my story had been put to the proof for fear that you would not believe me and would tell your wife; but now you know all. I cannot live with you any longer; from this very day I must go and find a home elsewhere.” “Not so” said the other, “I will not keep such a woman with me any longer; she is dangerous; I will go home now and put her to death,” and so saying he went home and killed his wife with an axe.

CLXXXIII. Ramjit Bonga.

Once upon a time a man went out to snare quail: he set his snares by the side of a mountain stream and then sat down under a bush to watch them. As he waited he saw a young woman come along with her water pot under her arm to draw water from the stream. When she got to the ghat she put down her pot and made her way up the stream towards where the snares had been set; she did not notice the hunter but went to the stump of an ebony tree near him and looking round and seeing no one she suddenly became possessed and started dancing round the ebony tree and singing some song which he could not clearly catch; and as she danced she called out “The Pig’s fat is overflowing: brother-in-law Ramjit come here to me.” When she called out like this the quail catcher quietly crept nearer still to her. Although the woman repeatedly summoned him in this way the Bonga would not come out because he was aware of the presence of the onlooker; the woman however got into a passion at his non-appearance and stripping off her clothes she danced naked round the tree calling out “The Pig’s fat is overflowing: brother-in-law Ramjit come hither at once.” At last out of the nala appeared the bonga, dark, enormous and shaggy; and approached the woman: Then the woman said “Brother-in-law Ramjit there is something that you must do for me; my nephew is ill; he must die on such and such a day; that day I must see the smoke of his funeral pyre; but you must save me from the witch-finder; let the blame fall not on me but on so and so; this is what I came to urge on you; that you protect me from discovery and then we shall always be friends.”

The Bonga at first knowing that they were being watched would not make the promise but when the woman insisted he promised in a low voice and then disappeared into the nala; and the witch went back to the ghat, filled her water pot and went home. The quail catcher also went trembling home and he remembered the day fixed for the death of the nephew of the witch and he decided to wait and see what happened before saying anything to the villagers. Sure enough on the day before that fixed by the witch the invalid became unconscious and was obviously at the point of death. When he heard this the quail catcher went to the sick man’s bedside and seeing his condition told his relatives to collect all the villagers to beat the woman whom he had seen with the Bonga and he told them all that had passed; the villagers believed him and summoning all the women of the village they scolded them; and then being excited by this they rose up and began to beat the women; to each they gave one blow with a stick, but the woman whom the quail catcher pointed out they beat till she fainted.

Then they ordered her to cure the sick man and threatened to burn her along with him if he died, but she insisted that she was innocent. Then they told her that they knew all that had passed between her and the Bonga Ramjit, she persisted that it was all a mistake. So they started to beat her again; they beat her from her heels to her neck and then from her neck down to her heels till the blood flowed and they swore that they would not let her go unless she cured the sick man and that if he died they would cut her to pieces. At last the torture made her confess that it was she who was eating the sick man; and she promised to cure him; so they first made her tell the names of all the other witches in the village and then tied her to a post and kept her there, and did not untie her till in four or five days the sick man recovered. When she was let loose the quail catcher ran away from the village and would not live there any more.