Closely allied to the virgins are sundry village deities, mostly shrineless, the most irnportant of • whom are Mariammen, Bhagavati, Chakkammal, Muttaramman, and Dhwarapati.
The principal demons employed by wizards and necromancers are Karuppan, Maden, Patchee, and Irulappen. These assume any shape or colour, according to their masters' orders ; and, most frequently, are cairied from one place to another, attached to a magical ring, a tuft of hair, or to a baby's scull secreted in the wizard's bag. Some times they scour the country at night in quest of their victiin, who is generally a rival magician, or one who has by word or deed incurred their master's displeasure. The demon is now a tiger, tearing the entrails of the hated victim ; now an incendiary, setting houses on fire ; and very rarely does it appear in monstrous human shape to kill or fiighten or perform any other mischief. But if the pursued man possess a mightier demon, and the assailants be defeated, the latter vent their baffled rage and fury on their master himself. A few demons are so voracious that they snatch up with avidity balls of rice and curry thrown into the air ; some so lascivious as to have human mistresses and concubines, and even to outrage the modesty of their occasional fair worshippers. At Bodinaikenur, in the Isladura district, a Chetty bought of a magician a Malabar demon, for Rs. 90, it is said ; but ere a day had passed since the transfer, the undutiful spirit fell in love with his master's wife, and succeeded in its nefarious purpose.
The European will-o'-the-wisp is the Tamil Kollevai Pai. Modern science calls them phos phorated hydrogen gas rising from dead animal matter in different stages of putrefaction, but the Hindu persists in calling them devils of a most nialignant type. The explosive nature of the gas, before it has time to ascend higher than one's knees, gives it the appearance of jumping. In the middle of rice-fields, by the side of stagnant pools, and especially in burial-grounds, do these spirits sing and dance and engage in their mid night orgies, to the no small terror aud con sternation of the simple village folks.
There are many more classes of demons, more or less violent, snch as Khattarie, Bhudarn, Pesasarn, Mohinee or sirens, Jadamuni, and Etchilpai. Of the last two, the former occupies perhaps the highest, and the latter the lowest stratum o,f spirit life in the unseen world. The Jadamuni, as their name indicates, are the spirits of human sages, who, by dint of extraordinary penance, were enrolled as an inferior set of gods. At mid night, when not a sound of man, beast, or bird disturbs the calm, still air, these assume their human shape. With their crests touching the skies, and their feet a few feet above the ground, they present a sufficiently hideous aspect, rendered still more horrible by long tresses of hair floating like serpents, tongues dripping with gore, and eyes like glaring orbs, darting forth the intensest hatred and revenge towards the poor, hapless wayfarer who may hapj en to cross their custom ary beat. The Etchilpai are hungry as wolves, and yet without the power of obtaining food ; they pick up the gutty piling of boiled rice in Hindu kitchens, or snatch off morsels of food from people's heads, if they happen to carry it at tight.
In the south of the Madras Presidency, local ized (lemons have exercised a mysterious power for centuries. A man dies under the slightest .,xecptioaal circumstauces,—and lo ! his spirit goes ibroad I It lurks in yonder hut, it crouches miler yonderbanyan tree. It must be propitiated with plantains or fruit, rice, or sweet toddy. rhere is an English ghost in Tinnevelly. It is the ghost of a Captain Pole, who died in the 4orming of the Travancore lines early in the tineteenth century. Mortally wounded, and re !reating to the northward, he was left behind by his servants, and he breathed his last near a village in which, latterly, a mission of the C.M.S. atts been established, and which is called Gospel rown, Suviseshapuram. After his death, he was killed by the simple instincts of the neighbouring Shanars. He has a rude hut to his honour ; and the offerings which appease him are brandy and eheroots. He may be invoked. His opinion may be elicited.