He tells of another witch who was known to be such by the juice of the sugar-cane she was eating turning into blood. A man saw her staring at him and left the district at once. “It is well known that these spells and curses can only reach a distance of ten or twelve miles, and if you offend one of these witches, the sooner you put that distance between you and them, the better.”
Another witch was bargaining with a man for some sugar-cane. She seized one end of the stalk and the purchaser the other. A scuffle ensued, and a soldier came up and cut the cane in two with a sword. Immediately a quantity of blood flowed from the cane to the ground, which the witch had been drawing through it from the man’s body. So we read of the two witches in the Italian tale, who “seeing that he would not go, cast him by their witchcraft into a deep sleep, and with a small tube sucked all his blood from his veins, and made it into a blood pudding which they carried with them. And this gave them the power to be invisible till they should return.”[23]
“It is the general belief that there is not a village or a single family without its witch in this part of the country. Indeed, no one will give his daughter in marriage to a family without one, saying, ‘If my daughter has children, what will become of them without a witch to protect them from witches of other families in the neighbourhood?’”[24] Sir John Malcolm notices the same fact. “In some places men will not marry into a family where there is not a Dâkinî or witch to save them from the malice of others; but this name, which is odious, is not given to those persons by their relations and friends. They are termed Rakhwâlî or guardians.”[25]
Witches and Cats.
One sign of the witch is that she is accompanied by her cat. This is an idea which prevails all over the world. Thus, in Ireland, cats are believed to be connected with demons. On entering a house the usual salutation is, “God save all here except the cat!” Even the cake on the griddle may be blessed, but no one says, “God bless the cat!”[26] The negroes in Mussouri say “some cats are real cats and some are devils; you can never tell which is which, so for safety it is well to whip them all soundly.”[27] One explanation of the connection of witches and cats is that “when Galinthis was changed into a cat by the Fates, Hecate took pity on her and made her her priestess, in which office she continues to this day.”[28] We have already seen that it is probably her stealthy ways and habit of going about at night which gave the cat her uncanny character.
The cat, say the jungle people, is aunt of the tiger, and taught him everything but how to climb a tree. The Orâons of Chota Nâgpur say that Chordeva, the birth fiend, comes in the form of a cat and worries the mother.[29] The Thags used to call the caterwauling of cats Kâlî ki Mauj, or the roaring wave of Kâlî, and it was of evil omen. The omen could be obviated only by gargling the mouth in the morning with sour milk and spitting it out. We have already seen the danger of killing a cat. Zâlim Sinh, the famous regent of Kota, thought that cats were associated with witches, and on one occasion when he believed himself exposed to enchantment, ordered that every cat should be expelled from his cantonment.[30]
Witch Ordeals.
All the ordeals for witches turn on the efficacy of certain things to which reference has been already made as scarers of evil spirits.