Witch-Hunting amongst Adivasis

Belief in ‘dains’/‘dans’/‘churails’ (witches) or ‘bongas’ (spirits) occupied a

central place in adivasi cosmology and moral economy. “There is no
genuine Santal”, wrote Bodding, “who does not believe in witches”. Reak
Katha records: “Witchcraft is the great trouble with us Santals. Because
of witchcraft, people in the village become enemies, doors of relatives are
shut, father and sons quarrel, brothers are separated, husband and wife
are divorced, and in the country people kill each other”. While accepting
that the practice was common to many countries, Valentine Ball noted
that conditions in the tribal heartland were particularly unique: “It is a
peculiarity here that the belief (of witchcraft) was so thorough that even
those who are accused of being witches or sorcerers do not deny the
impeachment but accept the position readily with all its pains and
penalties”. Considered a general social threat, such a belief was deeply
soaked in tradition and ingrained in folklore. According to an old Oraon
saying the world is as full of disembodied spirits “as a tree is full of leaves”.

The central idea behind the adivasi religious system therefore was to seek
an alliance with the highest and the most “helpful” spiritual entities and
through them control the “harmful” ones [ibid: 93]. The evil powers had
to be scared through exorcism or magic. The adivasis made a distinction
between white magic (socially and psychologically beneficent) and black
magic (maleficent or evil): The minister of white magic was known as ojha
or diviner and medicine-man, while that of black magic, dan, witch or
sorcerer. The ojha sought to expose and counteract the anti-social
activities of witches and the evil influence of the impersonal spirits.

The witches were feared as mysterious creatures imbued with phenomenal

powers: “...[they] are supposed to have intercourse with the bongas, which
gives them the power of killing people by eating their entrails and also of
causing fevers, murrain in cattle and other kinds of evil”. They can
therefore kill either directly or by “setting (up) the bongas”. The bongas in
turn may bring destruction and death either by themselves or through
agents. The witches, adivasis held, not only “ate” persons and induced
illness such as cholera, smallpox, etc, but were also responsible for
destroying crops, killing cattle and the like. The dains were, in fact, human
embodiments of the “evil-eye” or “evil-mouth” and could cause harm
accordingly: if they cast “evil-eyes” on a person the victim suffered
stomach complaints, headaches, fever, etc; if they uttered “harmful” lines
by looking at somebody, the person was sure to suffer a fatal disease.

Of particular interest here is the adivasi construction of disease and

sickness and how they related to the urgent need for physical elimination
of the witches. Wilkinson noted that the Kols believed in three causes that
led to sickness – witch-craft, angry bongas or the spirit of someone who
had died. While there was remedy for angry bongas and ancestor spirits
who could be appeased by sacrifices – first of fowls, then goats, and if
these two did not work then bullocks and buffaloes were offered – there
was none for the witches who had to be removed. Dalton extends the
argument to include animals as well: “all diseases in men or animals (are)
attributed to one of two causes, the wrath of some evil spirit who has to
be appeased, or to the spell of some witch or sorcerer who should be
destroyed or driven out of (the) land”.

However, it should not be believed that adivasis did not have any medicinal
system. Bodding (1986) writes about a fairly elaborate system of root
medicines and herbs. However, their world of “medicine” was a fairly
extended one including sacrifices, mantras (incantations), divinations, and
amulets. The traditional roots and herbs were mostly supplemented or
substituted by prescriptions from the ojhas particularly in cases where the
disease was uncommon, serious, or did not heal in a short time. Bodding
says: “...it is not strange that a suspicion is always present that witches may
be at work when people fall ill and do not recover”. Man writes, “no
reasoning with them, nor ridicule can dissuade them of their belief in
witches, and of the necessity of their being at once murdered”.

Wilkinson observed “murders related to witchcraft were a part of

traditional practice in Singhbhum [and they] were not confined to the
person supposed to be the witch but all near relations of the supposed
witch killed so that none may remain to retaliate on parties who
committed the murders”. For instance, in Chhotanagpur, accusations of
witchcraft were made in many districts and persons who were thus
denounced were subjected to much “ill-usage” if they could escape with
their lives.
Witchcraft was indeed a ritual belief of adivasis; they did not regard the
occurrence of deadly diseases or other calamities as a natural
phenomenon, but as symptoms of a grave disorder in nature, caused by
the intervention of some malevolent spirits or by the mischievous
activities of a witch. In fact, such a view was not restricted to the santals,
but was universal in the tribal world. Witches were identified by witch
finders who were variously known as the ‘khonses’, ‘sokha’, ‘janguru’ or as
‘ojha’ through certain rituals and then he or she was put to death by tribal
society.

However, a section of the adivasis had raised questions about witch-hunts

even in the 19th century. E G Man’s report, for instance, makes it clear
that santals often sought assistance from British authorities on the plea
that their daughters/wives had been identified as witches and they
therefore needed help. History shows that witch-hunts often resulted out
of personal enmity, where people took advantage of the chaos and
disorder in the society to settle scores with their rivals and foes.

Early interventions by the British

Hardiman says that after their conquest of India, the British sought to
outlaw persecution of witches; a practice seen by them as barbaric.
Around the middle of 19th century, the ban on witch-hunts was enforced
in Gujarat and Rajasthan. Wilkinson, the political agent of the
Chhotanagpur agency in the 1830s, banned the practice of witchcraft and
‘sokhaism’. He stated:
The conviction in the minds of the aboriginals that some persons have in their
possession witchcraft causing illness, or epidemic had to be liquidated. There
should be an encouragement to bring the diseased to the hospitals and the doctors
for a proper cure. The medical officer should be liberally encouraged to explain
that medicine only can cure the disease and if this message of cure through proper
medicine be spread, belief in witchcraft will decrease.

In his study on the Bhils of western India, Hardiman asserts that colonial
administrators failed to acknowledge the degree to which the notion of
witchcraft was socially embedded and universally believed in as a matter
of common sense.