Conclusion
Various national Governments in different parts of the world have enacted various antiblack-magic laws (in some of the African States). In India legislation at the Central as well as at State level has been enacted.
The states of Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, and a few others have enacted legislation for the prevention and eradication of superstitious practices like sorcery. In spite of all of these endeavours, the harmful practices of sorcery and black magic are eating into the souls of poor tribal peoples in many places. It is, therefore, suggested that along with the promulgation of legislation, awareness programmes, and mass movements against the ill effects of such practices need to be organised at the governmental and non-governmental levels. Alongside the enactment of laws for the prevention of sorcery and mass awareness programmes, issues like the economic conditions and educational status of the people, the tribal Sabars, the subject of the study, are also to be addressed.Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to Ratna Mondal and Soumen Halder who encouraged me to pen this chapter. I am grateful to Lalu Sabar, the sorcerer of the village of study, for without his active support and help this work could never have been completed. I am also grateful to the villagers, who shared their memories and lived experiences. For obvious reasons pseudonyms have been used.
Notes
1 ‘Mayong’ is the name of the village situated in the Morigaon District of Assam. The inhabitants of this village designated sorcery as Mayong tradition as the village has a remarkable age-old tradition of tantra and black magic as well. Mayong is used to denote the name of sorcery after the name of the village.
2 After the death of Krishna, as the story goes, his soul transformed into a small stone, which was traced out by tribal chieftain Vishwavasu; and he started worshipping him in a cave.
The auspicious stone is named as Nilmadhav. Neel means blue and Madhav is one of the names of Lord Bishnu. After knowing the story of greatness about Nilmadhav from pilgrims, king Indradyumna of Lunar dynasty of Udra Pradesh (present Odisha) met with Vishwavasu and later established an idol in a newly built temple at Puri.3 Sabar people have shared their own words with several Bengali terms. During fieldwork it has been observed that they mostly use Bengali words even when they communicate among themselves.
4 Chalua, Bourdia, and Khatua are different types of rat (their specific local names) which they preferred to eat on any normal day.
5 Oriental rat snake or Indian rat snake (Ptyas mucosa), non-venomous in nature. Locally known as jamru saap.
6 It is a bathing ritual of a baby among the Sabar.
7 Amulet provided by a sorcerer which contains a piece of root (name of the root was not disclosed to the first author).
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