Folklore of the Santal Parganas - Cecil Henry Bompas (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📗

cold and there used to be heavy frost at nights. And there was a

man who had seven grown-up daughters and no son; and at the time of

threshing the paddy he had to undergo much hardship because he had

no son to work for him; he had to sleep on the threshing floor and

to get up very early to let out the cattle; and as the hoar frost

lay two inches deep he found it bitterly cold.

 

In those days the villagers had a common threshing floor; and one

day this man was talking to a friend and he jestingly asked whether

he would spend a night naked on the threshing floor; and the friend

said that he would if there were sufficient inducement but certainly

not for nothing. Then the father of the seven daughters said "If

you or any one else will spend a night naked on the threshing floor

I will give him my eldest daughter in marriage without charging any

bride price."--for he wanted a son-in-law to help him in his work. A

common servant in the employ of the village headman heard him and

said "I will accept the offer;" the man had not bargained for such

an undesirable match but he could not go back from his word; so he

agreed and said that he would choose a night; and he waited till it

was very cold and windy and then told the headman's servant to sleep

out that night. The servant spent the night on the threshing floor

without any clothes in spite of the frost and won his bride.

 

CHAPTER IV Part IV

 

The following stories illustrate the belief in Bongas, i.e. the spirits

which the Santals believe to exist everywhere, and to take an active

part in human affairs. Bongas frequently assume the form of young men

and women and form connections with human beings of the opposite sex.

 

At the bidding of witches they cause disease, or they hound on the

tiger to catch men. But they are by no means always malevolent and

are capable of gratitude. The Kisar Bonga or Brownie who takes up his

abode in a house steals food for the master of the house, and unless

offended will cause him to grow rich.

CXLVIII. (Marriage with Bongas.)

 

There have been many cases of Santals marrying _bonga_ girls. Not of

course with formal marriage ceremonies but the marriage which results

from merely living together.

 

In Darbar village near Silingi there are two men who married

_bonga_. One of them was very fond of playing on the flute and his

playing attracted a _bonga_ girl who came to him looking like a human

girl, while he was tending buffaloes. After the intimacy had lasted

some time she invited him to visit her parents, so he went with her

and she presented him to her father and mother as her husband. But he

was very frightened at what he saw; for the seats in the house were

great coiled up snakes and on one side a number of tigers and leopards

were crouching. Directly he could get a word alone with his wife he

begged her to come away but she insisted on his staying to dinner;

so they had a meal of dried rice and curds and _gur_ and afterwards

he smoked a pipe with his _bonga_ father-in-law and then he set off

home with his _bonga_ wife. They were given a quantity of dried rice

and cakes to take with them when they left.

 

After seeing him home his wife left him; so he thought that he would

share the provisions which he had brought with a friend of his; he

fetched his friend but when they came to open the bundle in which

the rice and cakes had been tied, they found nothing but _meral_

leaves and cow dung cakes such as are used for fuel. This friend saw

that the food must have been given by _bongas_ and it was through

the friend that the story became known.

 

In spite of this the young man never gave up his _bonga_ wife until

his family married him properly. She used to visit his house secretly,

but would never eat food there; and during his connection with her

all his affairs prospered, his flocks and herds increased and he

became rich, but after he married he saw the _bonga_ girl no more.

 

The adventures of the other young man of the same village were much

the same. He made the acquaintance of a _bonga_ girl thinking that

she was some girl of the village, but she really inhabited a spring,

on the margin of which grew many _ahar_ flowers. One day she asked

him to pick her some of the _ahar_ flowers and while he was doing

so she cast some sort of spell upon him and spirited him away into

the pool. Under the water he found dry land and many habitations;

they went on till they came to the _bonga_ girl's house and there he

too saw the snake seats and tigers and leopards.

 

He was hospitably entertained and stayed there about six months;

one of his wife's brothers was assigned to him as his particular

companion and they used to go out hunting together. They used tigers

for hunting-dogs and their prey was men and women, whom the tigers

killed, while the _bonga_ took their flesh home and cooked it. One

day when they were hunting the _bonga_ pointed out to the young

man a wood cutter in the jungle and told him to set the tiger on to

"yonder peacock"; but he could not bring himself to commit murder;

so he first shouted to attract the wood cutter's attention and then

let the tiger loose; the wood cutter saw the animal coming and killed

it with his axe as it sprang upon him.

 

His _bonga_ father-in-law was so angry with him for having caused

the death of the tiger, that he made his daughter take her husband

back to the upper world again.

 

In spite of all he had seen the young man did not give up his _bonga_

wife and every two or three months she used to spirit him away under

the water: and now that man is a _jan guru_.

CXLIX. (The Bonga Headman.)

 

Sarjomghutu is a village about four miles from Barhait Bazar on

the banks of the Badi river. On the river bank grows a large banyan

tree. This village has no headman or _paranic_; any headman who is

appointed invariably dies; so they have made a _bonga_ who lives in

the banyan tree their headman.

 

When any matter has to be decided, the villagers all meet at the banyan

tree, where they have made their _manjhi than_; they take out a stool

to the tree and invite the invisible headman to sit on it. Then they

discuss the matter and themselves speak the answers which the headman

is supposed to give. This goes on to the present day and there is no

doubt that these same villagers sometimes offer human sacrifices,

but they will never admit it, for it would bring them bad luck to

speak about it.

 

The villagers get on very well with the _bonga_. If any of them has

a wedding or a number of visitors at his house, and has not enough

plates and dishes, he goes to the banyan tree and asks the headman

to lend him some. Then he goes back to his house, and returning in a

little while finds the plates and dishes waiting for him under the

tree; and when he has finished with them he cleans them well and

takes them back to the tree.

CL. (Lakhan and the Bongas.)

 

Once a young man named Lakhan was on a hunting party and he pursued

a deer by himself and it led him a long chase until he was far from

his companions; and when he was close behind it they came to a pool

all overgrown with weeds and the deer jumped into the pool and Lakhan

after it; and under the weeds he found himself on a dry high road

and he followed the deer along this until it entered a house and he

also entered. The people of the house asked him to sit down but the

stool which was offered him was a coiled up snake, so he would not

go near it; and he saw that they were _bongas_ and was too frightened

to speak. And in the cattle pen attached to the house he saw a great

herd of deer.

 

Then a boy came running in and asked the mistress of the house

who Lakhan was; she said that he had brought their kid home for

them. Lakhan wanted to run away but he could not remember the road

by which he had come. Two daughters of the house were there and they

wanted their father to keep Lakhan as a son-in-law; but their father

told them to catch him a kid and let him go; so they brought him a

fawn and the two girls led him back and took him through the pool to

the upper world: but on the way they put some enchantment on him,

for two or three weeks later he went mad and in his madness he ran

about from one place to another and one day he ran into the pool and

was seen no more, and no one knows where he went or whether the two

bonga maidens took him away.