Folklore of Wells: Being a Study of Water-Worship in East and West

by Rustom Pestonji Masani

This beautiful song of the well is taken from the Jewish scriptures. Budde believes that the song alludes to a custom by which when a well or spring was found, it was lightly covered over, and then opened by the Sheikhs in the presence of the clan and to the accompaniment of a song. In this way, by the fiction of having dug it, the well was regarded as the property of the clan. He thinks that a passage in Nilus (Migne, “Patrologia Graeca”), to which Goldziber has called attention, confirms this view. Nilus says that when the nomadic Arabs found a well they danced by it and sang songs to it. According to Kazivini when the water of the wells of Ilabistan failed, a feast was held at the source, with music and dancing, to induce it to flow again.

In India when a well is to be dug, an expert is first called to select a favourable site. To some experts such sites are revealed in dreams. Some possess the faculty of hearing the sound of water running underneath, others point out the sites by smelling out sweet water underground. The Bombay Gazetteer bears testimony to the wonderful faculties of these experts. “Sites for wells,” says the writer,[52] “are chosen with great success by water-diviners, or pánikals, whose services can be engaged at the rate of Re. 1-4 a well. Their judgment is unerring and many instances are on record of their practical ability. They can also generally tell at what depth the spring will be tapped.”

The sniffers are known as Bhonyesunghna in Gujarat and Cutch, and as Sunga in the Punjab, and they generally belong to a class of Faqirs gifted with this faculty. The Luniyas, a caste of navvies, are also endowed with these powers. In the Punjab a herd of goats is driven about in search of sites of deserted wells. When these goats arrive at the right spot, they lie down and that is a signal for a search.

Water-diviners are not unknown in the West. One of the extraordinary incidents of the recent Gallipoli campaign was the discovery of water by a Kentish water-diviner at Suvla Bay. During the critical hours which followed the landing at the place in August 1915, the great problem for the officers was to find water on that parched land. The experts had examined the district and reported that there was no water to be got there, but Sapper Stephen Kelly, of the 3rd Australian Light Horse Brigade, a hydraulic engineer of Melbourne, possessed the gift for water-divining. While he was standing with Captain Shearen, a New Zealand Officer, in the line of communications, he cried out, “There’s water here where we’re standing.” News of his reputation had reached Brigadier-General Hughes, who sent for him immediately and asked him if he could find water. The Sapper was confident of finding it. The Brigadier gave him a sporting chance and put a thousand men under his direction. Within a few hours he opened up a well which had been sunk. In a little more time he had thirty wells going with sufficient water to supply every man with a gallon a day and every mule with its six gallons, and this of pure cold spring water “instead of the lukewarm liquor from kerosene tins off the transport.”

The army’s engineers were astonished by Sapper Kelly’s success, especially as he was without paper plans. When they asked him about it, he replied that it would take him about half the time to get the wells going that it would to draw up the plans. Sapper Kelly was a Kent man, born in Maidstone. He went out to Queensland when a small boy. At that time an old water-diviner arrived in the neighbourhood and tried his art in that locality. The boy trotted after the old man in his twistings and turnings about the paddock with a divining twig in his hand and when the old man found water, the boy “felt his nerves twitch and a thrill go through him that wasn’t just excitement.” He thought he would try too, and he did. From that moment he had practised his powers. At Suvla, he said, he got better results with a copper rod instead of the divining twig.

We are not aware of any ceremonies connected with the digging of wells in the West, but in India it is regarded as a very important function requiring care and caution and, above all, propitiation of the deities. A Brahmin is consulted as to the auspicious hour when the work of digging should commence. The auspicious days vary in different places. In Gujarat, Tuesdays and the days on which the earth sleeps are avoided; and the earth is supposed to be asleep on the 1st, the 7th, the 9th, the 10th, the 14th and the 24th days following a Sankranti, i.e., the day on which the sun crosses from one constellation to another. With the exception of these days, a date is generally selected on which the chandra-graha, or the moon, is favourable to the constructor of the well.

On the appointed day, the water diviner, the constructor of the well, the Brahmin priest, and the labourers go to the place where the well is to be dug, and an image of the god Ganpati, the protector of all auspicious ceremonies, is first installed on the spot and worshipped with panchamrit, a punch or mixture of milk, curds, ghee, honey and sugar. A green-coloured piece of atlas (silk cloth), about two feet long, is then spread on the spot, and a pound and a quarter of wheat, a cocoanut, betels, dates and copper coins are placed on it. A copper bowl filled with water and containing some silver or gold coins is also placed there. The mouth of the bowl is covered with the leaves of the mango tree and a cocoanut is placed over the leaves. After this the priest chants sacred hymns and asks his host to perform the Khat ceremonies.

These Khat-muhurt or Khat-puja must be performed before commencing the construction not only of wells, reservoirs and tanks, but also of all works above or under the ground, such as setting the nankestambha, or the first pillar of a marriage bower, or a bower for a thread ceremony, or laying the foundation-stone of a house or temple, or a sacrificial pit, or of a street, or fortress, or a city or a village. The earth-mother is then worshipped in the manner prescribed in the shashtras to propitiate her against interruptions in the completion of the work undertaken. The owner or the person interested in the new work pours a little water on the earth where the foundation-pit is to be dug, sprinkles red lead and gulal (red powder), places a betel-nut and a few precious coins, and digs out the first clod of earth himself. Rich persons use silver or golden spades and hoes when turning up the first clod. Among the usual offerings to Ganpati and to the earth on the occasion are curd, milk, honey, molasses, cocoanuts, dhana (a kind of spices), leaves of nagarval (a kind of creeper) and red lead. The expert who is called to choose a proper site for the well offers frankincense and a cocoanut to the spot, and lights a lamp thereon. After the Khat ceremonies are over, the host distributes sugar or molasses among those present and offers money to the expert who generally refuses to accept it and asks the host to dispose of it in charity. Even those who accept money give away a part of it in alms to the poor.

Occasionally, with a view to securing unobstructed completion of the work, the god Ganpati and the goddess Jaladevi are installed and worshipped daily, until water appears in the well. Some people, however, install the goddess Jaladevi after the appearance of water, when a stone is taken out from the bottom of the well and is plastered with red lead to represent the goddess and is ceremoniously worshipped. When the construction of the well is complete, a ceremony called Vastu or jalostsana or water-festival is celebrated, Brahmins are entertained at a feast and dakshina is given.[53]