the person or clothes of some.  This is done several times to make certain.  Then the deona declares he has done his work, and is usually treated to the best dinner the sick man’s friends can afford.  It is said that the person to whom the spirit by either of these methods is transferred may not be affected for weeks or even months.  But some fine day while he is at his work, he will suddenly stop, wheel round two or three times on his heels and fall down more or less convulsed, from that time forward he will begin to be troubled in the same way as his dis-obsessed predecessor was.

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* Tikli is a circular piece of gilt paper which is stuck on between the
eyebrows of the women of the Province as ornament.
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Having thus given some account of the deona, we now come to the bhagat, called by the Hindus sokha and sivnath.  This is the highest grade of all, and, as I ought to have mentioned before, the ’ilm (knowledge) of both the deona and bhagat grades is only to be learned by becoming a regular chela of a practitioner; but I am given to understand that the final initiation is much hastened by a seasonable liberality on the part of the chela.  During the initiation of the sokha certain ceremonies are performed at night by aid of a human corpse, this is one of the things which has led me to think that this part at least of these practices is connected with Tantric black magic.

The bhagat performs two distinct functions:  (1st), a kind of divination called bhao (the same in Hindi), and (2nd), a kind of Shamanism called darasta in Hindi, and bharotan in Horokaji, which, however, is resorted to only on very grave occasions—­as, for instance, when several families think they are bewitched at one time and by the same najo.

The bhao is performed as follows:—­The person having some query to propound, makes a small dish out of a sal leaf and puts in it a little uncooked rice and a few pice; he then proceeds to the bhagat and lays before him the leaf and its contents, propounding at the same time his query.  The bhagat then directs him to go out and gather two golaichi (varieties of Posinia) flowers (such practitioners usually having a golaichi tree close to their abodes); after the flowers are brought the bhagat seats himself with the rice close to the inquirer, and after some consideration selects one of the flowers, and holding it by the stalk at about a foot from his eyes in his left hand twirls it between his thumb and fingers, occasionally with his right hand dropping on it a grain or two of rice.* In a few minutes his eyes close and he begins to talk—­ usually about things having nothing to do with the question in hand, but after a few minutes of this, he suddenly yells out an answer to the question, and without another word retires.  The inquirer takes his meaning as he can from the answer, which, I believe, is always ambiguous.