all off from the scaffold and
pretend to feel the effects of poison, and cure themselves by their
incantations. But all is mere pretence. The serpents displayed on
the occasion and challenged to do their worst, have passed through a
preparatory state. Their fangs have been carefully extracted from their
jaws. But most of the vulgar spectators easily persuade themselves
to believe that the Mals are the chosen servants of Siva and the
favourites of Manasa. Although their supernatural pretensions are
ridiculous, yet it must be confessed that the Mals have made snakes
the subject of their peculiar study. They are thoroughly acquainted
with their qualities, their dispositions, and their habits. They
will run down a snake into its hole, and bring it out thence by
main force. Even the terrible cobra is cowed down by the controlling
influence of a Mal. When in the act of bringing out snakes from their
subterranean holes, the Mals are in the habit of muttering charms, in
which the names of Manasa and Mahadeva frequently occur; superstition
alone can clothe these unmeaning words with supernatural potency. But
it is not inconsistent with the soundest philosophy to suppose that
there may be some plants whose roots are disagreeable to serpents,
and from which they instinctively turn away. All snake-catchers of
Bengal are provided with a bundle of the roots of some plant which
they carefully carry along with them, when they set out on their
serpent-hunting expeditions. When a serpent, disturbed in its hole,
comes out furiously hissing with rage, with its body coiled, and its
head lifted up, the Mal has only to present before it the bundle of
roots above alluded to, at the sight of which it becomes spiritless
as an eel. This we have ourselves witnessed more than once."

These Mals appear to have been members of the aboriginal Male or Male
Paharia tribe of Bengal.

Nunia

_Nunia, Lunia._ [351]--A mixed occupational caste of salt-makers and
earth-workers, made up of recruits from the different non-Aryan tribes
of northern India. The word _non_ means salt, and is a corruption of
the Sanskrit _lavana_, 'the moist,' which first occurs as a name for
sea-salt in the Atharva Veda. [352] In the oldest prose writings salt
is known as Saindhava or 'that which is brought from the Indus,' this
perhaps being Punjab rock-salt. The Nunias are a fairly large caste in
Bengal and northern India, numbering 800,000 persons, but the Central
Provinces