Note 21 — Chapter IV · WORSHIP OF ANCESTORS AND SAINTS.

At Bankavali in the Dápoli taluka, it is believed that ghosts or evil spirits have the form of a human being, but their feet are turned backwards. They can assume any form they choose. Their character is ordinarily to trouble the people, but when satisfied they are said to prove friendly. The following story is narrated of a person who went to reside in one of the villages of the Konkan. His wife was first attacked by a ghost called Girha. The Girha troubled him much by playing mischief in his house, viz.: by taking away eatables or by mixing dirt in his food. At night he used to divest the couple of their clothes, and on one occasion an ornament was removed by the spirit from the person of the wife. Tired of these annoyances, the man left the village and went to reside at a distance, when, to the astonishment of the public, it happened that the ornament which was lost at the old village was restored to the man’s wife while she was asleep in the new village, and nobody knew who brought it there. All this was believed to be the work of the Girha.21