Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/358

 320 Occult Powers of Healing in the Panjab.

•* At Chiniot are a well and chaubachcha (reservoir) before the tomb of/^rBurhan Shah. Children suffering from boils on the head and body are brought on Thursdays and bathed there. The water is drawn from the well by the miijawirP- The patient is cured. No fee is fixed. It depends on the will of the relatives of the patient to give in charity whatever they think fit."

" At the Kacha Lahori gate at the same place is the grave of Mama-Bhanja (uncle and sister's son). Any one suffering from swellings near the ear {kanpera) takes earth from the grave from the hand of the Brahman mujawir, rubs it on the place, and gets cured. No fee is fixed." (Jhang.)

"Children get pani-wata or warts, from birth up to three years of age. There is a grave and well near the Cathedral at Lahore, to which mothers take their children early in the morning, before sunrise. They first salam to the grave, then take some mud and rub it on the body of the child, and then bathe at the well, with the result that the disease is cured. They pay five pice to the fnujdwir. The water of the well is brackish." (Lahore.)

" In the village of Lakra, Tahsil Shakargarh, is the shrine of Haji Shah Fakir, and many Fakirs act as mujawirs at this tomb. Whenever anyone who has been bitten by a mad dog comes there, one of the Fakirs blows on a piece oi gur (raw sugar), and gives it to the patient, who becomes mad when the sugar is given to him, and remains so for a day, but on the following day he recovers his senses. The mujawirs are paid by the patient according to his means, but a lump of gux and one ser (2 lb.) of flour must be given. This is alleged to be a miracle of Haji Shah Fakir, who conferred this power upon the mujawirs of this tomb." (Gurdaspur.)

" In Nathllpura, a village near Atari, is the grave of Pir Dabari. The mujawirs^ both Hindu and Mohammedan, have the power of curing dogbite by giving the patient a morsel of bread. A mantar (charm-formula) is written in Gurmukhi (the sacred script in which Sikhs write Panjabi) on the bread, which is then given to the patient to eat. Each patient is charged As. 1/3 {i.e. five pice)." (Amritsar.)

^^ Mujdwir (vulg. ar), is an Arabic word used for the attendant at a Mohammedan shrine. He ranks below the mddi-7tashin or incumbent. "