- The same system of devil-dancing is prevalent among the tribes
on the Lu-kiang, as described by the R.C. Missionaries. The conjurors are
there called Mumos. (Ann. de la Prop. de la Foi, XXXVI. 323, and
XXXVII. 312-313.)
"Marco's account of the exorcism of evil spirits in cases of obstinate
illness exactly resembles what is done in similar cases by the Burmese,
except that I never saw animals sacrificed on such occasions." (Sir A.
Phayre.)
Mouhot says of the wild people of Cambodia called Stiens: "When any one
is ill they say that the Evil Spirit torments him; and to deliver him they
set up about the patient a dreadful din which does not cease night or day,
until some one among the bystanders falls down as if in a syncope, crying
out, 'I have him, - he is in me, - he is strangling me!' Then they question
the person who has thus become possessed. They ask him what remedies will
save the patient; what remedies does the Evil Spirit require that he may
give up his prey? Sometimes it is an ox or a pig; but too often it is a
human victim." (J.R.G.S. XXXII. 147.)
See also the account of the Samoyede Tadibei or Devil-dancer in
Klaproth's Magasin Asiatique (II. 83).
In fact these strange rites of Shamanism, devil-dancing, or what not, are
found with wonderful identity of character among the non-Caucasian races
over parts of the earth most remote from one another, not only among the
vast variety of Indo-Chinese Tribes, but among the Tamulian tribes of
India, the Veddahs of Ceylon, the races of Siberia, and the red nations of
North and South America. Hinduism has assimilated these "prior
superstitions of the sons of Tur" as Mr. Hodgson calls them, in the form
of Tantrika mysteries, whilst, in the wild performance of the Dancing
Dervishes at Constantinople, we see perhaps again the infection of
Turanian blood breaking out from the very heart of Mussulman orthodoxy.
Dr. Caldwell has given a striking account of the practice of devil-dancing
among the Shanars of Tinnevelly, which forms a perfect parallel in modern
language to our Traveller's description of a scene of which he also had
manifestly been an eye-witness: "When the preparations are completed and
the devil-dance is about to commence, the music is at first comparatively
slow; the dancer seems impassive and sullen, and he either stands still or
moves about in gloomy silence. Gradually, as the music becomes quicker and
louder, his excitement begins to rise. Sometimes, to help him to work
himself up into a frenzy, he uses medicated draughts, cuts and lacerates
himself till the blood flows, lashes himself with a huge whip, presses a
burning torch to his breast, drinks the blood which flows from his own
wounds, or drains the blood of the sacrifice, putting the throat of the
decapitated goat to his mouth. Then, as if he had acquired new life, he
begins to brandish his staff of bells, and to dance with a quick but wild
unsteady step.
