roceedings are as
follows. The deona taking the oil brought, lights a small lamp and
seats himself beside it with the rice in a surpa (winnower) in his
hands. After looking intently at the lamp flame for a few minutes, he
begins to sing a sort of chant of invocation in which all the spirits
are named, and at the name of each spirit a few grains of rice are
thrown into the lamp. When the flame at any particular name gives a
jump and flares up high, the spirit concerned in the mischief is
indicated. Then the deona takes a small portion of the rice wrapped up
in a sal (Shorea robusta) leaf and proceeds to the nearest new white-ant
nest from which he cuts the top off and lays the little bundle, half in
and half out of the cavity. Having retired, he returns in about an hour
to see if the rice is consumed, and according to the rapidity with which
it is eaten he predicts the sacrifice which will appease the spirit.
This ranges from a fowl to a buffalo, but whatever it may include, the
pouring out of blood is an essential. It must be noted, however, that
the mati never tells who the najo is who has excited the malignity of
the spirit.

But the most important and lucrative part of a deona's business is the
casting out of evil spirits, which operation is known variously as ashab
and langhan. The sign of obsession is generally some mental alienation
accompanied (in bad cases) by a combined trembling and restlessness of
limbs, or an unaccountable swelling up of the body. Whatever the
symptoms may be the mode of cure appears to be much the same. On such
symptoms declaring themselves, the deona is brought to the house and is
in the presence of the sick man and his friends provided with some rice
in a surpa, some oil, a little vermilion, and the deona produces from
his own person a little powdered sulphur and an iron tube about four
inches long and two tikli.* Before the proceedings begin all the things
mentioned are touched with vermilion, a small quantity of which is also
mixed with the rice. Three or four grains of rice and one of the tikli
being put into the tube, a lamp is then lighted beside the sick man and
the deona begins his chant, throwing grains of rice at each name, and
when the flame flares up, a little of the powdered sulphur is thrown
into the lamp and a little on the sick man, who thereupon becomes
convulsed, is shaken all over and talks deliriously, the deona's chant
growing louder all the while. Suddenly