Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/204

NAMBUTIRI BRAHMAN say that they have seen him, vis-à-vis, having a forelock. The nature and extent of its capacity for evil almost beggar description. There are Nambūtiris, to whom these are so many missiles, which they throw at anybody they choose. They are, like Ariel, little active things, and most willing slaves of the master under whom they happen to be placed. Their victim suffers from unbearable agony. His clothes take fire, his food turns into ordure, his beverages become urine, stones fall in showers on all sides of him, but curiously not on him, and his bed becomes a literal bed of thorns. He feels like a lost man. In this way, with grim delight, the spirit continues to torment his victim by day as well as by night. But, with all this annoying mischief, Kuttichchāttan, or Boy Satan, does no serious harm. He oppresses and harasses, but never injures. A celebrated Brāhman of Changanacheri is said to own more than a hundred of these Chāttans. Household articles and jewelry of value can be left on the premises of the homes guarded by Chāttan, and no thief dares to lay his hands on them. The invisible sentry keeps diligent watch over his master's property, and has unchecked powers of movement in any medium. As remuneration for all these services, the Chāttan demands nothing but food, but that on a large scale. If starved, the Chāttans would not hesitate to remind the master of their power; but, if ordinarily cared for, they would be his most willing drudges. By nature Chāattan is more than a malevolent spirit. As a safeguard against the infinite power secured for the master by the Kuttichchāttan, it is laid down that malign acts committed through his instrumentality recoil on the prompter, who either dies childless, or after frightful physical and mental agony. Another method of oppressing humanity, believed to be in the power of sorcerers,