The Dead

: Part V.
: Folklore Of The Santal Parganas

Santals are very much afraid of burial grounds; for dead men become

bongas and bongas eat men. If a man meet such a bonga in a

burial ground it is of little use to fight for the bonga keeps on

changing his shape. He may first appear as a man and then change into

a leopard or a bear or a pig or a cat: very few escape when attacked

by such a being.



It is said that the spirits of young children become bhuts and those

of grown-up people bongas and those of pregnant women churins.



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