Folklore of the Santal Parganas
160,314 words
The Santals are a Munda tribe, a branch of that aboriginal element which probably entered India from the North East. At the present day they inhabit the Eastern outskirts of the Chutia Nagpore plateau. This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it unde...
Chapter CLXXII - The Dead
Santals are very much afraid of burial grounds; for dead men become bongas and bongas eat men. If a man meet such a bonga in a burial ground it is of little use to fight for the bonga keeps on changing his shape. He may first appear as a man and then change into a leopard or a bear or a pig or a cat: very few escape when attacked by such a being.
It is said that the spirits of young children become bhuts and those of grown-up people bongas and those of pregnant women churins.