Note 7 — Religion

But in times of special emergency, e.g., plague, pestilence, famine, &c., the services of the “possessed” woman,7 the Deodáni, are called into action for a special puja organised on a somewhat large scale. These gatherings are not very common, but when they do occur the order of the proceedings is something as follows, as occasionally witnessed by the writer. A piece of ground about fifteen or twenty yards square, usually on the bank of a running stream, is selected for the purpose. The surface of the soil is carefully removed, and a rude screen of cotton cloth some six or eight feet high erected on bamboos at the western side of the cleared ground. At the eastern side a slight earthwork embankment, some three or four inches high and about a foot broad is thrown up; and on this a number of figures, usually seven or nine, but always an odd number, bearing a rude resemblance to the outlines of the human form, are placed in an upright position. These figures are roughly made of jungle grass twisted together, and are about one foot in height. Before each figure is placed a layer of the plantain tree with its concave side upwards, and in this are deposited the heads of slaughtered goats, pigeons, chickens, with salt, sugar-cane, plantains, gazi (a mixture of rice and pulse), &c., the whole being freely sprinkled with blood and pounded rice flour (pitháguri). The Deodáni, a somewhat weird-looking figure, with dishevelled hair, and vermilion-stained forehead, wearing a long petticoat, dances up and down to and fro before these figures, keeping time roughly with the music of cymbals and tom-toms played by four or five men, who act as her assistants. The ceremony is a prolonged one, often extending over many hours: and the Deodáni, whose faculties are apparently quite absorbed in what she is doing and who seems for the time to be lifted above the world of time and sense, gradually works herself up to a state of excitement bordering on frenzy. At this stage, which is only slowly attained, a goat is brought forward and taken up before one of the figures above mentioned, when the Deodáni, with one stroke of the long sacrificial sword, known as the imfi and reserved exclusively for such purposes, severs the victim’s head from the body. Most of the blood is held to be offered in sacrifice to the madái, before whose emblem the animal has been slaughtered; but some part is said to be sprinkled on the persons of the assembled worshippers. It is at this climax of the puja, i.e., at the sacrificial slaughtering of the goat, that the Deodáni is supposed to become possessed of the knowledge she is in search of, i.e., the name of the offended deity who has brought about the plague, &c., and also the best method of propitiating his anger; which usually involves an offering of pigs, goats, &c., to the angered god, and the giving of a feast to the whole village community, the expense being defrayed by a general contribution.