can bear no more, and not unfrequently he dies under the ill-treatment he is subjected to or from its effects.
A milder method is, when the person denounced is required to offer sacrifices of animals to appease or drive away the possessing devil; this he dare not refuse to do, and if the sickness thereupon ceases, it is of course concluded that the devil has departed; but if it continue, the sorcerer is turned out of his home and driven from the village, if nothing worse is done to him.
It must not be supposed that these superstitions are confined to the Kols, they are common to all classes of the population of this province. I have noticed in my account of the Agarias their prevalence in the Southern Tributary Mahals, and the alleged existence of secret witch schools, where damsels of true Aryan blood are instructed in the black art, and perfected in it by practice on forest trees. Even Brahmans are sometimes accused. I find in a report by Major Roughsedge, written in 1818, an account of a Brahman lady who was denounced as a witch and tried, and having escaped in the ordeal by water, she was found to be withc, and deprived of her nose.
