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 CLXXVII - Witchcraft
Girls are taught witchcraft when they are young and are married to a bonga husband. Afterwards when they marry a man they still go away and visit the bonga and when they do so they send in their place a bonga woman exactly like them in appearance and voice; so that the husband cannot tell that it is not his real wife. There is however a way of discovering the substitution; for if the man takes a brand from the fire and burns the woman with it, then if it is really a bonga and not his wife she will fly away in a flame of fire.