It would not suit him to have the local ghosts brought under any control, because he makes his living by doing…
- Date of account
- Second edition published 1896
- Source
- The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 1 (of 2)
- Reference
- The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 1 (of 2) · selected passage 38
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
It would not suit him to have the local ghosts brought under any control, because he makes his living by doing the periodical services to propitiate them
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
Source text · mention onlyIt would not suit him to have the local ghosts brought under any control, because he makes his living by doing the periodical services to propitiate them. Nowadays he believes fully in the influence of the magic circle and of spirituous liquor as ghost scarers. Both these principles will be discussed elsewhere. So he is supposed once a year at least, or oftener in case of pestilence or other trouble, to perambulate all round the village boundary, sprinkling a line of spirits as he walks. The idea is to form a magic circle impervious to strange and, in the nature of the case, necessarily malignant ghosts, who might wish to intrude from outside; and to control the resident local deities, and prevent them from contracting evil habits of mischief by wandering beyond their prescribed domains.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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