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.