41. Tribal gods, and

Muhammadan doctor under the name of Doctor Deo. А
Gond of the place where the doctor died is occasionally
possessed by his spirit, and on such occasions he can talk
fluent Urdu. This man's duty is to keep off cholera, and
when the epidemic breaks out he is ordered by the Rāja to
drive it away.
The local method of averting cholera is to
make a small litter covered with cloth, and in it to place a
brass or silver image of the cholera goddess, Marai Māta.
When the goddess is thus sent from one village to another
it is supposed that the epidemic is similarly transferred.
The man possessed by Doctor Deo has the power of prevent-
ing the approach of this litter to villages in Bastar, and
apparently also can drive away the epidemic, though his
method of doing this is not explained. The dealings of the
Gonds with the Government of India are mainly conducted
through chuprassies or peons, who come to collect their
revenue, obtain supplies and so on. The peons have in the
past been accustomed to abuse their authority and practise
numerous petty extortions, which is a very easy business
with the ignorant Gonds of the wilder tracts. Regarding
the peons as the visible emblem of authority, the Gonds,
like the Oraons, have similarly furnished the gods with a
peon, who is worshipped under the name of Kalha Deo with
offerings of liquor and fowls. Besides this if a tiger makes
himself troublesome a stone is set up in his honour and he
receives a small offering; and if a platform has been erected
to the memory of the founder of the village he is included
with the others. The cholera and smallpox deities are
worshipped when an epidemic breaks out. The worship of
the village gods is communal, and in Chhindwara is per-
formed at the end of the hot weather before seed is sown,
houses thatched, or the new mahua oil eaten by the Gonds.
All the villagers subscribe, and the Bhumka or village priest
conducts the rite. If in any year the community cannot
afford a public worship they hang up a little grass over the
god just to intimate that they have not forgotten him, but
that he will have to wait till next year.

Besides the village gods worshipped in common with the their place Hindus, the Gonds have also their special tribal gods. These are sometimes kept at a Deo-khulla, which is said to mean

of resi

dence.

II TRIBAL GODS, AND THEIR PLACE of residencE 99 literally the threshing-floor of the gods, and is perhaps so called because the place of meeting of the worshippers is cleaned and plastered like a threshing-floor in the fields. The gods most commonly found are Pharsi Pen, the battleaxe god; Matiya, the great god of mischief; Ghangra, the bell god; Chawar, the cow's tail, which is also used as a whisk; Pālo, who consists of a piece of cloth used to cover spear-heads; and Sale, who may be the god who presides over cattle-pens (sāla). The Deo-khulla of a six-god Gond should have six, and that of a seven-god Gond seven gods, but this rule is not regularly observed, and the Deo-khullas themselves now tend to disappear as the Gonds become Hinduised and attention is concentrated on the village and household gods. The collection of gods at a Deo-khulla, Mr. Tawney remarks, is called Bura Deo, and when a Gond swears by Bura Deo, he swears by all the gods of his sect. "The gods," Mr. Tawney writes, "are generally tied up in grass and fixed in the fork of the sāj tree, or buried in some recess in the forest, except Pālo, who is put in a bag to prevent his getting wet, and Chawar the cow's tail. The Bhumkas or priests are somewhat shy of showing the gods at the Deo-khulla, and they may have some reason for this, for not long since, a young scamp of a Muhammadan, having determined to put to a test the reputed powers of the Gond gods for evil, hid himself in a tree near the Deo-khulla during a meeting, and afterwards took the gods out and threw them bag and baggage down a well. However, when I went there, the Bhumka at Mujāwar after some parley retired into the forest, and came out quite confidingly with an armful of gods. The Deo-khulla gods are generally all of iron, and those at Mujāwar were all spear-shaped except Pālo, who is a piece of cloth, and Ghangra, who is of bell-metal and in form like the bells ordinarily put round the necks of bullocks. When a spear-head has been lost, and another is not available, anything in the shape of a pike or spear will do, and it does not appear to make any difference so long as iron is the metal used. Women may not worship at the Deo-khulla. It seems clear that the original gods were, with the exception of Ghangra, hunting-weapons and representations of animals. Ghangra may be venerated because of his association with bullocks

42. House

and also on account of the melodious sound made by bullock-
bells. Of all the gods the most remarkable probably is Pālo.
He is made of cloth and acts as a covering for the spear-
heads at the time of worship. The one I saw was a small
cloth, about 30 by 18 inches, and in the form of a shield.
He is a very expensive god and costs from Rs. 50 to Rs. 80,
his outside value perhaps being Rs. 5. When a new one is
required it has to be made by a Katia or Rāj-Pardhān, who
must live in a separate house and not go near his own till
its completion. He must also be naked while he is working
and may not eat, drink, smoke or perform natural functions
till he has finished for the day. While engaged on the cloth
he is well fed by the Gonds and supplied with fowls and
spirits; it is not surprising, therefore, that the god is never
finished in six months, though I would engage to make one
in a week. The cloth is embroidered with figures in coloured
silk, with a stitch or two of red silk in each animal, which
will subsequently represent blood. The animals I saw
embroidered were a bullock, some sort of deer, a gouty-
looking snake with a body as thick as the elephant's, and the
latter animal barely distinguishable from it by having two
legs and a trunk. When ready the cloth Palo is taken to
the Deo-khulla and a great worship is held, during which
blood is seen to flow from the figures on the cloth and they
are supposed to be endowed with life." The animals
embroidered on the cloth are probably those principally
revered by the Gonds, as the elephant, snake, deer and
bullock, while the worship of the cloth itself and the em-
broidery on it indicates that they considered the arts of
weaving and sewing as divinely revealed accomplishments.
And the fact that the other gods were made of iron shows a
similar reverence for this metal, which they perhaps first dis-
covered in India. At any rate the quarrying and refining
of indigenous iron-ore is at present carried out by the
Agarias, a caste derived from the Gonds.
The spear-

head shape of most of the gods and that of Pālo like a shield
show their veneration for these weapons of war, which are
themselves sacred.

"In almost every house," Mr. Tawney states, "there is hold gods. also a set of gods for everyday use. They are often the same

as the village gods or those of the Deo-khulla and also include deified ancestors. These household gods have a tendency to increase, as special occasions necessitate the creation of a new god, and once he is enthroned in the house he never seems to leave it of his own accord. Thus if a man is killed by a cobra ; he or the cobra becomes a household god and is worshipped for many generations. If a set of gods does not work satisfactorily, they are also, some or all of them, discarded and a new lot introduced. The form of the gods varies considerably, the only constant thing about them being the vermilion with which they are all daubed. They are sometimes all earthen cones and vary from that to miniature wooden tables. I may mention that it is somewhat difficult to get a Gond either to confess that he has any household gods or to show them. The best way is to send off the father of the family on some errand, and then to ask his unsuspecting wife to bring out the gods. You generally get them on a tray and some of the villagers will help her to name them." In Mandla in every Gond's house there is a Deothāna or god's place, where all the gods are kept. Those who have children include Jhulan Devi, or the cradle goddess, among their household deities. In the Deothāna there is always a vessel full of water and a stick, and when a man comes in from outside he goes to this and sprinkles a little water over his body to free himself from any impurity he may have contracted abroad.

On one of the posts of the house the image of Nāg Deo, 43. Nāg the cobra god, is made in mud. In Asarh (June) the first Deo. month of the rains, which the Gonds consider the beginning of the year, snakes frequently appear. In this month they try to kill a cobra, and will then cut off the head and tail, and offer them to Nāg Deò, inside the house, while they cook and eat the body. They think that the eating of the snake's body will protect them from the effects of eating any poisonous substance throughout the year.

Nārāyan

He Deo.

Nārāyan Deo or the sun is also a household deity. He 44. has a little platform inside the threshold of the house. may be worshipped every two or three years, but if a snake appears in the house or any one falls ill they think that Nārāyan Deo is impatient and perform his worship. A

45. Bura Deo.

young pig is offered to him and is sometimes fattened up beforehand by feeding it on rice. The pig is laid on its back over the threshold of the door and a number of men press a heavy beam of wood on its body till it is crushed to death. They cut off the tail and testicles and bury them near the threshold. The body of the pig is washed in a hole dug in the yard, and it is then cooked and eaten. They sing to the god, "Eat, Nārāyan Deo, eat this rice and meat, and protect us from all tigers, snakes and bears in our houses; protect us from all illnesses and troubles." Next day the bones and any other remains of the pig are buried in the hole in the compound and the earth is well stamped down over it.

Bura Deo, the great god of the Gonds, is sometimes, as seen, a name for all the gods in the Deo-khulla. But he is usually considered as a single god, and often consists of a number of brass or iron balls suspended to a ring and hung on a sāj tree. Again, he may be represented by a few links of a roughly forged iron chain also hung on the tree, and the divine power of the chain is shown by the fact that it can move of itself, and occasionally descends to rest on a stone under the tree or migrates to a neighbouring nullah (stream). Nowadays in Mandla Bura Deo is found as an iron doll made by a neighbouring blacksmith instead of a chain. It would appear, however, that he was originally the saj tree (Boswellia serrata), an important forest tree growing to a considerable height, which is much revered by the Gonds. They do not cut this tree, nor its branches, except for ceremonial purposes, and their most sacred form of oath is to swear by the name of Bura Deo, holding a branch of the saj tree above the head. If Bura Deo was first the sāj tree, then we may surmise that when the Gonds discovered iron they held it more sacred than the tree because it was more important, as the material from which their axes and spears were made. And therefore Bura Deo became an iron chain hanging on the saj tree. The axe is a Gond's most valuable > implement, as with it he cut down the forest to clear a space for his shifting cultivation, and also provided himself with wood for hutting, fuel and other purposes. The axe and spear were also his weapons of war. Hence the discovery