Читать книгу The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 3 - Robert Vane Russell - Страница 56

In Mandla the dead are sometimes mingled with Bura Deo or the Great God. On the occasion of a communal sacrifice to Bura Deo a stalk of charra grass is picked in the name of each of the dead ancestors, and tied to the little bundle containing a pice and a piece of turmeric, which represents the dead ancestor in the house. The stalk of grass and the bundle is called kunda; and all the kundas are then hidden in grass or under stones in the adjacent forest. Then Bura Deo comes on some man and possesses him, and he waves his arms about and goes and finds all the kundas. Some of them he throws down beside Bura Deo, and these they say have been absorbed in Bura Deo and are disposed of. Others he throws apart, and these are said not to have been absorbed into the god. For the latter, as well as for all persons who have died a violent death, a heap of stones should be made outside the village, and wine and a fowl are offered at the heap, and passers-by cast additional stones on it to keep down their spirits, which remain unquiet because they have not been absorbed in the god, and are apt to wander about and trouble the living.