The Ghoul.
Besides these there is a host of minor demons, such as the Ghûl, the English Ghoul, who is a kind of Shaitân, eats men, and is variously described as a Jinn or as an enchanter. By one tradition, when the Shaitân attempt by stealth to hear the words of men, they are struck by shooting stars, some are burnt, some fall into the sea and become crocodiles, and some fall upon the land and become Ghûls. The Ghûl is properly a female, and the male is Qutrub. They are the offspring of Iblîs and his wife. The Silât or Silâ lives in forests, and when it captures a man makes him dance and plays with him, as the cat plays with the mouse. Similar to this creature is the Ghaddâr, who tortures and terrifies men, the Dalhâm, who is in the form of a man and rides upon an ostrich, and the Shiqq or Nasnâs, who are ogres and vampires. But these are little known in Indian folk-lore, except that directly imported from Arabic sources.[91]
The Baghaut.
As an instance of the respect paid to the ghosts of those who have perished by an untimely death, we may mention the Baghaut. According to the last census returns some eight thousand persons recorded themselves as worshippers in the North-Western Provinces of Bagahu or Sapaha, the ghosts of people killed by tigers or snakes. The Baghaut is usually erected on the place where a man was killed by a tiger, but it sometimes merges into the common form of shrine, as in a case given by Dr. Buchanan, where a person received the same honour because he had been killed by the aboriginal Kols.[92] The shrine is generally a heap of stones or branches near some pathway in the jungle. Every passer-by adds to the pile, which is in charge of the Baiga or aboriginal priest, who offers upon it a pig, or a cock, or some spirits, and lights a little lamp there occasionally. Many such shrines are to be found in the Mirzapur jungles. In the Central Provinces they are known as Pât, a term applied in Chota Nâgpur to holy heights dedicated to various divinities.[93] They are usually erected in a place where a man has been killed by a tiger or by a snake; sometimes no reason whatever is given for their selection. “In connection with these shrines they have a special ceremony for laying the ghost of a tiger. Until it is gone through, neither Gond nor Baiga will go into the jungles if he can help it, as they say not only does the spirit of the dead man walk, but the tiger is also possessed, for the nonce, with an additional spirit of evil (by the soul of the dead man entering into him) which increases his power of intelligence and ferocity, rendering him more formidable than usual, and more eager to pursue his natural enemy, man. Some of the Baigas are supposed to be gifted with great powers of witchcraft, and it is common for a Baiga medicine man to be called in to bewitch the tigers and prevent them carrying off the village cattle. The Gonds thoroughly believe in the powers of these men.”[94]
I myself came across a singular instance of this some time ago. I was asking a Baiga of the Chero tribe what he could do in this way, but I found him singularly reticent on the subject. I asked the Superintendent of the Dudhi Estate, who was with me, to explain the reason. “Well,” he answered, “when I came here first many years ago, a noted Baiga came to me and proposed to do some witchcraft to protect me from tigers, which were very numerous in the neighbourhood at the time. I told him that I could look after myself, and advised him to do the same. That night a tiger seized the wretched Baiga while he was on his way home, and all that was found of him were some scraps of cloth and pieces of bone. Since then I notice that the Baigas of these parts do not talk so loudly of their power of managing tigers when I am present.”
The Churel.
More dreaded even than the ghost of a man who has been killed by a tiger is the Churel, a name which has been connected with that of the Chûhra or sweeper caste. The ghosts of all low-caste people are notoriously malignant, an idea which possibly arises from their connection with the aboriginal faith, which was treated half with fear and half with contempt by their conquerors. The corpses of such people are either cremated or buried face downwards, in order to prevent the evil spirit from escaping and troubling its neighbours. So, it was the old custom in Great Britain in order to prevent the spirit of a suicide from “walking” and becoming a terror to the neighbourhood, to turn the coffin upside down and thrust a spear through it and the body which it contained so as to fix it to the ground.[95] Riots have taken place and the authority of the magistrates has been invoked to prevent a sweeper from being buried in the ordinary way.[96]
The Churel, who corresponds to the Jakhâî, Jokhâî, Mukâî, or Navalâî of Bombay,[97] is the ghost of a woman dying while pregnant, or on the day of the child’s birth, or within the prescribed period of impurity. The superstition is based on the horror felt by all savages at the blood, or even touch of a woman who is ceremonially impure.[98] The idea is, it is needless to say, common in India. The woman in her menses is kept carefully apart, and is not allowed to do cooking or any domestic work until she has undergone the purification by bathing and changing her garments. Some of the Drâvidian tribes refuse to allow a woman in this condition to touch the house-thatch, and she is obliged to creep through a narrow hole in the back wall whenever she has to leave the house. Hence, too, the objection felt by men to walk under walls or balconies where women may be seated and thus convey the pollution. From Kulu, on the slopes of the Himâlayas, a custom is reported which is probably connected with this principle and with the rules of the Couvade, to which reference will be made later on. When a woman who is pregnant dies, her husband is supposed to have committed some sin, and he is deemed unclean for a time. He turns a Faqîr and goes on pilgrimage for a month or so, and, having bathed in some sacred place, is re-admitted into caste. The woman is buried, the child having been first removed from her body by one of the Dâgi caste, and her death is not considered a natural one under any circumstances.[99]