Note 46 — Chapter III · DISEASE DEITIES.

It has been already said above that such epidemic diseases as cholera or the plague are often supposed to be the result of the sinister practices of the Bhangis. There is a belief that the Bhangis sometimes prepare an image out of the flour of adad (phaseolus radiatus) and pierce it with needles, and it is said that for every hole made in the image one human being falls a victim to some epidemic disease. Such an image is sometimes placed in an earthen vessel and buried underground in a public way so that every passer-by treading on the spot where it is buried may be attacked by some disease. Or it is thrown into the well which is most used by village people, with the object that all persons drinking water from the well may perish by the disease.46