Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/357

 Ocadt Powers of Healing in the Punjab. 319

patient's legs are first bled. Next, seven &k leaves are besmeared with the blood, and then a tila (wooden stick) is run through them and given to the patient with instructions to keep looking at them and to hang them up in front of the entrance of his house. As the leaves get dried, the patient is cured. One member of this patti must fast on the nauchande (new moon) Sunday." (Gurdaspur.)

Sometimes the healing virtue resides in the place ivhere the cure is performed, not in the healer himself; but on examination these usually prove only to be secondary instances of personal mana. The power of the original healer has passed into his tomb instead of into his descendants, or has been communicated by him to a well instead of to a disciple ; that is all. Contact is still the essential feature of the cure, and the same conditions and ceremonies occur.

"The tomb of Mr Ghazi Sayyid is famous for its cures of chambal {herpes). The patient must go to it on four successive Thursdays, and rub a little of the dust of the tomb on the part." (Locality not stated.)

"In the village called Malak Afghanan in Tahsil Shakargarh is a shrine with ^kachc/ia (mud or adobe) building which contains the tomb of Shah Fath Muhammad Sayyid, in the shape of a heap of mud, and adjoining it is a well. The khdngah (shrine) and tomb have been in existence for the last four or five hundred years. If any one bitten by a snake can get there alive, he is cured and recovers his senses, even if he only reaches the boundary of the village. On arriving at the tomb a Hindu patient himself draws water to drink, but the Fakir of the tomb gives water from the well to a Mohammedan. The Fakir then takes some earth (one tola in weight, i.e. about one rupee) from the south side of the tomb, i.e. the side on which the patient's feet lie and puts It m the water. The patient drinks the water, and the mud which remains at the bottom (of the vessel) is applied to the bite The patient then goes back, either on foot or on horseback, fully cured. No charm is read. This miracle is ascribed to Shah Fath Muhammad." (Gurdaspur.)