Mission, and has been translated by Mr. Bompas, who has added in an appendix some tales from the Hos of the Kolhán in the Singhbhúm District. This book contains a large mass of interesting but undigested material. No attempt has been made to compare the tales with those published by Mr. Lai Behari Day in his Folk-tales of Bengal, or with any of the standard classical collections, such as the Játakas or the Katha-sarit-ságara of Somadeva. A record of the names of the tellers of the tales, an abstract or index of the chief incidents, and some notes on Santál religion and custom would have made the book much more useful. The materials have been roughly classified into six divisions: I, General folk-tales; II, Animal tales; III, Anecdotes of Santál social life; IV, Tales relating to Bongas,—a vague term which includes gods, godlings, and other supernatural beings, spirits of ancestors, and of streams and forests, and fairies; V, Creation and other tribal legends; and VI, Witchcraft. Of these the fourth and fifth groups will probably be of the greatest interest.
Bongas take an active part in human affairs; they assume the forms of young men and women who form connections with human beings of the opposite sex; they cause diseases at the bidding of witches, and hound on the tiger to attack men; but they are not always malevolent, and one of them, the Kisar Bonga, resembles our Brownie, who steals food for his master, and, unless he be offended, causes him to grow rich. Once upon a time a man married a Bonga girl, who invited her husband to visit her parents. When he went to spirit-land he found that the house seats were formed of great coiled snakes, beside which tigers and leopards crouched. When he returned to earth, he discovered that the provisions which he had brought back from spirit-land had turned into dry leaves and cow-dung fuel cakes.
In the olden days the Lord, Thákur Bábá, produced the rice ready thrashed, and woven cloth grew on the cotton trees; men's skulls were loose, and they could remove, clean, and replace them. But a dirty servant maid defiled the rice and cloth, on which Thákur Bábá was wroth, and reduced created beings to the state in which we find them now. The sky originally was close to the earth, and Thákur Bábá freely visited mankind.
