it in the early
morning. A circular pit is dug inside the house, about three feet deep
and as many wide. A she-goat which has borne no young is sacrificed
to the goddess in the house in the same manner as in the sacrifice to
Thakur Deo. The goat is skinned and cut up, the skin, bones and other
refuse being thrown into the hole. The flesh is cooked and eaten
with rice and pulse in the evening, all the family and relatives,
men and women, eating together at the same time. After the meal,
all the remaining food and the water including that used for cooking,
and the new earthen pots used to carry water on that day are thrown
into the pit. The mouth of the pit is then covered with wooden boards
and plastered over with mud with great care to prevent a child falling
into it; as it is held that nothing which has once gone into the pit
may be taken out, even if it were a human being. It is said that
once in the old days a man who happened to fall into the pit was
buried alive, its mouth being covered over with planks of wood; and
he was found alive when the pit was reopened next year. This is an
instance of the sacrificial meal, common to many primitive peoples,
at which the sacred animal was consumed by the worshippers, skin,
bones and all. But now that such a course has become repugnant to
their more civilised digestions, the refuse is considered sacred
and disposed of in some such manner as that described. The goddess
is also known as Rat Devi or the goddess of the night; or Rat Mai,
the night mother. The goddess Maswasi was the mythical ancestress of
the Dhanwars, the wife of Karankot, and also the daughter of Maiya
Andhiyari or Rat Mai. She too is worshipped every third year in the
dark fortnight of the month of Magh on any Tuesday. Her sacrifice is
offered in the morning hours in the forest by men only, and consists
also of a black she-goat. A site is chosen under a tree and cleaned
with cowdung, the bones of animals being placed upon it in a heap
to represent the goddess. The village Baiga kills the goat with an
axe and the body is eaten by the worshippers. Maswasi is invoked by
the Dhanwars before they go hunting, and whenever they kill a wild
boar or a deer they offer it to her. She is thus clearly the goddess
of hunting. The tribe also worship the spirits of hills and woods
and the ghosts of the illustrious dead. The ghosts of dead Baigas
or medicine-men are believed to become spirits attending on Thakur
Deo, and when