A pilgrim from Mansarowar Lake—The spirits of the mountains—A safeguard against them—Tibetan encampments—The Rajiwar—A waterfall—Watermills.
HAVING returned to Askote from my excursion, I saw while going round the
town with Jagat Sing, in a low stone shed by the side of the palace, the
tall gaunt figure of a man emerging from a cloud of smoke.
"Who is that?" I inquired of my companion.
"Oh, that is a fakir returning from a pilgrimage to the sacred lake of
Mansarowar in Tibet. Many of these fanatics pass through here during the
summer on their religious journeys."
My curiosity drew me towards the weird individual. He was over six feet
in height, and his slim body had been covered with ashes, giving the dark
skin a tinge of ghastly grey. I asked him to come out into the light. His
masses of long hair had been plaited into small tresses which were wound
round his head in the fashion of a turban—the "Tatta." The hair, too, had been whitened, while the long thin beard had been dyed bright red. His eyes were sunken and, apparently to add to the ghastly and decidedly repulsive effect, his forehead and cheeks were plastered with a thick white paint. He seemed half stupefied, and had very little to say for himself. As can be seen by the illustration, he was scantily clothed, but he wore the Kamarjuri or fakir's chain about his loins, and he had a bead bracelet round his arm above the elbow. His waist was encircled with a belt of wooden beads, and a necklace of plaited hair ornamented his neck. He spent his days rolling himself in ashes and enduring self-imposed bodily privations, with a view to attain a state of sanctification.
Rumours had reached me of some curious superstitions prevalent among
these mountain folk.
"Tell me," I said to Jagat Sing, "are there 'spirits of the mountain' in
these ranges? And do the people really believe in them?"
"Yes, sir," replied the young fellow, "there certainly are a number of
them, and they are often very troublesome, especially to certain people. They are seldom known, however, to kill any one."
"Then they are not quite so bad as some human beings," I replied.
"Well, sir, they are very bad. They seize sleeping people by the throat
with claws like iron, sitting on the chests of their victims."
"Does not that sound more like an attack of indigestion?"
"No, sir. The ghosts of the mountains are the spirits of people that have
not gone to heaven. They are to be found in swarms at night in the
forest. The people are terrified of them. They haunt the mountain-tops
and slopes, and they can assume the semblance of a cat, a mouse, or any
other animal; in fact they are said to frequently change their
appearance. Where no man can tread, among rocks and precipices, or in the
thick jungle, the spirits seek their retreat, but often they abandon
their haunts to seek for men. The person who becomes possessed generally
remains in a semi-conscious condition and ejaculates mad cries and
unintelligible words. There are men who profess to know charms to draw
them out. Some remedies are for that purpose commonly used by the natives
with more or less success. A grass called Bichna (nettles) has the
faculty of frightening the spirits away when applied on the body of the
sufferer, but the most effective remedy is to make pretence to beat with
a red-hot iron the person possessed. The spirits seem to fear that more
than anything else."
"Do the spirits ever speak?" I inquired, interested in the curious
superstitions of these hill men.
"No, sir, not often, nor usually directly, but they do it through people
who are possessed by them. It is they who tell many strange tales of the
spirits. One curious point about them is that they only seize people who
are afraid of them. If defied they vanish."
"Do the natives adopt any special method to protect themselves from these
mountain demons?"
"Fire is the only sure protection. Any one sleeping near a fire is safe, and as long as there is a flame blazing the spirits keep away."
"Do you know any one who has seen them?"