Research source

In connection with sorcery among the Oriyas, Mr S

Date of account: Published 1912
Source: Omens and Superstitions of Southern India
Reference: Omens and Superstitions of Southern India · selected passage 73
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-25

Record summary

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

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In connection with sorcery among the Oriyas, Mr S. P. Rice tells us [325] that a girl was suffering from mental disease, and believed to be possessed by a devil. She declared that she was bewitched by a certain man, who had to be cured of his power over her. Accordingly, the friends and relatives of the girl went to this man's house, dragged him out into the road, laid him on his back, and sat on his chest. They then proceeded to extract two of his front teeth with a hammer and pincers. Mr Rice adds that it does not appear how the cure was to work--whether the operators thought that words of cursing or magic, coming through the orifice of the teeth, would be mumbled, and thus lose some of their incisive force, and therefore of their power for evil, or whether it was thought that the devil wanted room to fly out. Attacks upon supposed sorcerers are said to be not uncommon in the Jeypore Agency. In one instance, a wizard's front teeth were pulled out by the local blacksmith, to render him unable to pronounce his spells with the distinctness requisite to real efficiency.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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