A very respectable old gentleman from the Concan, or Malabar coast,[6] told me one day that every man there protects his field of corn and his fruit-tree by dedicating it to one or other of the spirits which there abound, or confiding it to his guardianship.  He sticks up something in the field, or ties on something to the tree, in the name of the said spirit, who from that moment feels himself responsible for its safe keeping.  If any one, without permission from the proprietor, presumes to take either an ear of corn from the field, or fruit from the tree, he is sure to be killed outright, or made extremely ill.  ‘No other protection is required’, said the old gentleman, ’for our fields and fruit-trees in that direction, though whole armies should have to march through them.’  I once saw a man come to the proprietor of a jack-tree,[7] embrace his feet, and in the most piteous manner implore his protection.  He asked what was the matter.  ‘I took’, said the man, ’a jack from your tree yonder three days ago, as I passed at night; and I have been suffering dreadful agony in my stomach ever since.  The spirit of the tree is upon me, and you only can pacify him.’  The proprietor took up a bit of cow-dung, moistened it, and made a mark with it upon the man’s forehead, in the name of the spirit, and put some of it into the knot of hair on the top of his head.  He had no sooner done this than the man’s pains all left him, and he went off, vowing never again to give similar cause of offence to one of these guardian spirits.  ‘Men’, said my old friend, ’do not die there in the same regulated spirit, with their thoughts directed exclusively towards God, as in other parts; and whether a man’s spirit is to haunt the world or not after his death all depends on that.’

Notes: 

1.  December, 1835.

2.  Datiya (Datia, Dutteeah) is a small state, with an area of about 911 square miles, and a cash revenue of about four lakhs of rupees.  On the east it touches the Jhansi district, but in all other directions it is enclosed by the territories of Sindhia, the Maharaja of Gwalior.  The principality was separated from Orchha by a family partition in the seventeenth century.  The first treaty between the Raja and the British Government was concluded on the 15th March, 1804.

3.  The belief that epileptic patients are possessed by devils is, of course, in no wise peculiar to India.  It is almost universal.  Professor Lombroso discusses the belief in diabolical possession in chap. 4 of The Man of Genius (London ed., 1891).

4.  ’The educated European of the nineteenth century cannot realize the dread in which the Hindoo stands of devils.  They haunt his paths from the cradle to the grave.  The Tamil proverb in fact says, “The devil who seizes yon in the cradle, goes with you to the funeral pile".’  The fear and worship of ghosts, demons, and devils are universal throughout India, and the rites practised