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It is a custom in certain families in Bengal that in connection with the Durga pooja black-male goats are offered as a sacrifice.

In certain other families strictly vegetarian offerings are made.

The mode of sacrificing the goat is well known to some readers, and will not interest those who do not know the custom.  The fact remains that millions of goats are sacrificed all over Bengal during the three days of the Durga pooja and on the Shyama pooja night, (i.e. Diwali or Dipavali).

There is however nothing ominous in all this, except when the “sacrificial sword” fails to sever the head of the goat from the trunk at one deadly stroke.  As this bodes ill the householder to appease the deity, to whose wrath such failure is imputed, sacrifices another goat then and there and further offers to do penance by sacrificing double the number of goats next year.

But what is more pertinent to the subject I am dealing with is the sacrificing of goats under peculiar circumstances.  Thus when an epidemic (such as cholera, small pox and now probably plague) breaks out in a village in Bengal all the principal residents of the place in order to propitiate the deity to whose curse or ire the visitation is supposed to be due, raise a sufficient amount by subscription for worshipping the irate Goddess.  The black he-goat that is offered as a sacrifice on such an occasion is not actually slain, but being besmeared with “Sindur” (red oxide of mercury) and generally having one of the ears cropped or bored is let loose, i.e. allowed to roam about until clandestinely passed on to some neighbouring village to which, the goat is credited with the virtue of transferring the epidemic from the village originally infected.  The goats thus marked are not looked upon with particular favour in the villages.  They are generally not ill-treated by the villagers, and when they eat up the cabbages, etc. all that the poor villagers can do is to curse them and drive them away—­but they return as soon as the poor owner of the garden has moved away.  Such goats become, in consequence, very bold and give a lot of trouble.

When, therefore, such a billy-goat appears in a village what the villagers generally do is to hire a boat, carry the goat a long distance along the river, say 20 or 25 miles and leave him there.  Now the villagers of the place where such a goat is left play the same trick, so it sometimes happens that the goat comes back after a week or so.

Once it so happened that a dedicated goat made his unwelcome appearance in a certain village in Bengal.

The villagers hired a boat and carried him about 20 miles up the river and left him there.  The goat came back after a week.  Then they left him at a place 20 miles down the river and he came back again.  Afterwards they took the goat 50 miles up and down the river but each time the goat returned like the proverbial bad penny.