The son-in-law of Surai of Karmatane village, named Khade, died from meeting witches; he told us all about it as he lay dying.  He was coming home with some other men:  they had all had a little too much to drink and so they got separated.  Khade was coming along alone and had nearly reached his house when he saw a crowd of witches under a tree.  He went up and asked who they were.  Thereupon they turned on him and seized him and dragged him away towards Maluncha.  There they did something to him and let him go.  Next morning he was seized with purging and by mistake some of the witches’ vengeance fell also on the other men and they were taken ill too.  They however recovered, but Khade died.  If you meet witches you die, but not of course if they take you with them of their own will and teach you their craft.

CLXXVII.  Witchcraft.

Girls are taught witchcraft when they are young and are married to a bonga husband.  Afterwards when they marry a man they still go away and visit the bonga and when they do so they send in their place a bonga woman exactly like them in appearance and voice; so that the husband cannot tell that it is not his real wife.  There is however a way of discovering the substitution; for if the man takes a brand from the fire and burns the woman with it, then if it is really a bonga and not his wife she will fly away in a flame of fire.

CLXXVIII.  Witch Stories.

I will now tell you something I have seen with my own eyes.  In the village of Dhubia next to mine the only son of the Paranik lay ill for a whole year.  One day I went out to look at my rahar crop which was nearly ripe and as I stood under a mowah tree I heard a voice whispering.  I stooped down to try and see through the rahar who was there but the crop was so thick that I could see nothing; so I climbed up the mowah tree to look.  Glancing towards Dhubia village I saw the third daughter of the Paranik come out of her house and walk towards me.  When about fifty yards from me she climbed a big rock and waited.  Presently an old aunt of hers came out of the village and joined her.  Then the old woman went back to her house and returned with a lota of water.  Meanwhile the girl had come down from the rock and sat at its foot near a thicket of dhela trees.  The old woman caused the girl to become possessed (rum) and they had some conversation which I could not hear, Then they poured out the water from the lota and went home.

On my way home I met a young fellow of the village and found that he had also seen what the two women did.  We went together to the place and found the mark of the water spilled on the ground and two leaves which had been used as wrappers and one of which was smeared with vermilion and adwa rice had been scattered about.  We decided to tell no one till we saw whether what had been done was meant to benefit or injure the sick boy.  Fifteen days later the boy died:  and when his parents consulted a jan he named a young woman of the village as the cause of the boy’s death and she was taken and punished severely by the villagers.