Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/112

 84 exercise it by waving a wooden spoon over the patient. Others cure pains in the side by drawing lines with a knife on the ground near the sick man, who is ordered in return for the cure to dig a certain amount of earth out of the bed of the village tank, and to distribute sweetmeats as a thankoffering. Children in both the Rohtak and Gurgaon Districts are said to suffer from a mysterious disease attributed to displacement of the rib bones. The healer cures this malady either by an application of charmed ashes, or he sucks the affected part,—with the result that blood and pus flow from his mouth, though no wound is visible on the body of the patient.

In the Rohtak District a Brahman cures pains, apparently rheumatic, in the following way. He takes the sufferer outside the village, heats three or four iron scythes in the fire, dips them in oil, and then flings them aside. On this the patient is directed to run away, without looking back, until he reaches the boundary of the village, when the pain disappears.

In the Gurgaon District boils on the leg joints are cured by touching them with the toe of a child born by the foot presentation. Both sexes possess this power, but it can be exercised only on Saturday or Sunday. Enlargement of the spleen is cured by laying the patient on the ground, where he is held by four persons and prevented from moving. Several layers of coarse cloth are placed over the spleen, and on this a lump of clay upon which fire is placed. The clay is sometimes replaced by a thin wooden board which is rubbed with a blazing stick so as to be slightly marked. After the recital of a charm a small boil appears on the diseased part, and a cure is effected. This prescription is said to have been given by a Fakír long ago. One form of cattle plague, known as Chhabka, is cured by catching an insect of the same name. The healer makes a small cut in one of his fingers, rubs the insect on the wound, and thus gains the faculty of healing by touch. It is a condition of working these charms that the practitioner should receive no remuneration.

In the Hissár District diseases are cured by what is known as jhárá ("blowing of spells"). A brass pan containing a little oil and one and a quarter pice (small copper coins) is placed