Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/489

Rh the gods settle the fate of every one for the next year. To diminish the chance of dying during the year, it is well to keep awake throughout that night. A safer method is to give a piece of reed the length of the width of the palm of your right hand to the maiba, who will pronounce a charm over it, and lay it before the god Hei-pok, saying, "Here is So-and-So's stick; do him no harm." The following morning the stick is returned.

There are various other interesting ceremonies connected with the Chei-tāba, but I must pass on to the Helloi, another class of being. These Helloi are beautiful Sirens who lure young men into waste places, and then disappear and leave their victims in a state of insanity. They are said to have been the seven daughters of a hero who killed the Great Snake; they were so lovely that no names were good enough for them; they were more beautiful than Sorārel's dancers. They asked their father what they were to live on, and he told them to live in waste places; any one meeting them would go mad, and they would live on the offerings given to cure their victims. When a person is thought to be a victim of one of these fair ladies, the village maiba lays out offerings consisting of seven sorts of animals or birds, seven sorts of fruits, and seven sorts of fishes. Formerly the animals and birds were sacrificed, but now a few hairs or feathers are pulled out and given to the Helloi, who are asked to accept them and let the victim go. Some foolish men are said to be able by charms to summon the Helloi and become intimate with them, but such persons do not prosper, and their wives die. Before a Hindu can summon a Helloi in this way, he must take off his sacred thread.

More dreaded than the Helloi are the Hingchābi (hing, alive, chāba, to eat). Of these also there were originally seven, but the number has now increased. Hingchābis, as the termination denotes, are all females. They are spirits which enter into women, and the daughter of one so afflicted