e would not leave till he obtained his bride. So at last
the Chamar called in his castefellows and relations to advise him
whether he would be guilty of any sin in yielding to the proposal of
the Brahman; and they called into council the principal villagers of
all the other castes and after fully questioning the Chamar and the
Brahman the judgment of the villagers was that the marriage should
take place and they would take the responsibility. Then the Brahman
was made to give a full account of himself and where he had come from,
and when this was found to be true, the bride price was fixed and
paid and the marriage took place and the Brahman became a Chamar.

CLXV. The Next World.

This is what the Santals say about the next world. After death men
have a very hard time of it in the next world. _Chando bonga_ makes
them work terribly hard; the woman have to pound the fruit of the
castor oil plant with a pestle; and from the seeds Chando bonga makes
human beings. All day long they have to work; those women who have
babies get a little respite on the excuse of suckling their babies;
but those who have no children get no rest at all; and the men are
allowed to break off to chew tobacco but those who have not learnt to
chew have to work without stopping from morning to night. And this is
the reason why Santals learn to chew tobacco when they are alive; for
it is of no use to merely smoke a _huka_: in the next world we shall
not be allowed to knock off work in order to smoke. In the next world
also it is very difficult to get water to drink. There are frogs who
stand on guard and drive away any who comes to the water to drink;
and so when Satals die we send drinking vessels with them so that
they may be able to run quickly to the water and fill the vessels
and get away before they are stopped. And it is said that if a man
during his lifetime has planted a peepul tree he gets abused for it
in the next world and is told to go and pick the leaves out of the
water which have fallen into it and are spoiling it and such a man is
able to get water to drink while he is picking the leaves out of it;
but whether this is all true I cannot say.

CLXVI. After Death.

When grown-up people die they become ancestral _bongas_ and sacrifices
are offered to them at the Flower and Sohrai festivals; and when
children die they become _bhuts_. When a pregnant woman dies, they
drive long thorns into the soles of the feet before the b