The People of the Blue Mountains
H.P. Blavatsky
Contents
Chapter I............ Page 7
Chapter II ............... 59
Chapter III ............. 107
Chapter IV ............. 149
Chapter V ............. 183
Chapter VI ............ 213
CHAPTER V
As far as we have been able to see, the Todds have
no conception of divinity and deny even the devas adored by the Baddagues,
their neighbors. That is why there is nothing in this tribe reminding
one of religion; therefore it is very difficult to speak of its religion.
The example of the Buddhists, who also reject the idea of God, can not be
applied to the Todds, for the Buddhists possess a rather complex philosophy,
while that of the Todds, even if they have one, is quite unknown.
What is then the origin of their high conception of
ethics, rare and almost unknown among more civilized people, of their severe
and daily practice of abstract virtues, like the love of truth and justice,
the respect of property rights and the absolute respect of their pledged word?
Must we seriously admit the hypothesis of a missionary that the Todds represent
an antediluvian survival of the family of Enoch?
According to what we were able to learn, the Todds
have the strangest ideas concerning life after death. To the following
question: what becomes of the Todds when their bodies are transformed
into ashes on the pyre? One of the terallis answered:
"Their bodies will grow as grass on these mountains
and will nourish the buffaloes. But the love for the children and the
brothers will change into fire, rise to the sun and will burn there eternally
with a flame which will give heat to other Todds and to the buffaloes."
Asked to explain himself more clearly, the terrali
added:
"The fire of the sun" - he pointed to this heavenly
body - "is composed of the fires of love."
"But, could it be that the love of the Todds is the
only one burning there?" asked his interlocutor.
"Yes," answered the terrali, "the love of the Todds
alone. . . . because each good man, white or black, is a Todd. Wicked
men do not love; that is why they cannot go up into the sun."
Once a year, for three days, at Springtime, the clans
of the Todds make one after another a series of pilgrimages and climb the
peak of Toddabet where are today the ruins of the Temple of Truth.
They accomplish in this sanctuary a sort of public penance and of mutual confession.
The Todds hold council there and confess reciprocally their voluntary and
involuntary sins. It is told that during the first few years of the
arrival of the British, sacrifices were performed there: for the dissimulation
of truth (the direct term of lie is unknown to the Todds); whoever
had sinned gave a small buffalo; for having experienced the sentiment
of anger against a brother, the Todd sacrificed a whole buffalo often wet
with blood from the right hand of the repenting Todd.*
All these peculiar ceremonies, these rites belonging
to a philosophy obviously secret, lead people versed in ancient Chaldean,
Egyptian, and even mediaeval magic, to think that the Todds are cognizant,
even if not of the whole system, at least of a part of the veiled sciences,
or occultism. Only the practice of this system, divided from the remotest
times into white and black magic, can furnish a logical explanation of this
enviable sentiment of respect regarding truth and this high morality lived
by a half-savage tribe, primitive, without religion and having nothing in
common with the other people living on earth. According to us
- and it is our unshakable conviction - the Todds are the disciples
- half unconscious, perhaps, of the antique science of white Magic, while
the Moulou-Kouroumbs remain the odious off-spring of black magic or sorcery.
How did we form this conviction? In this way:
-------------------------
*Captain Harkness describes this fact in his book of
the year 1837. I was unable to find the ruins of this temple;
and Mrs. Morgan thinks that the author confused the Todds with the Baddagues.
-------------------------
It is easy to invoke the testimony of people known
in the history of literature from Pythagoras and Plato to Paracelsus and
Eliphas Levi who, consecrating themselves exclusively to the study of this
antique science, teach that: white or divine magic cannot be accessible
to those who commit sins or even have an inclination toward sin under whatever
form sin may manifest itself. Uprightness, purity of life, absence of
selfishness, love for one's fellowmen, such are the first necessary virtues
of the magi. Only those whose souls are pure "see God," proclaims the
axiom of the Rosicrucians. Besides, magic was never a super-natural
act.
The Todds possess fully this magic science. Sick people
are brought to their terallis - and they are cured. Often they
do not even hide their way of restoring health. The patient is laid
with his back turned toward the sun: he remains in this position for
several hours during which the teralli healer makes passes, outlines incomprehensible
figures, with his little cane, over the different parts of the body, especially
the place affected, and blows upon it. Then the teralli takes a cup
of milk and pronounces magic words; in brief, practices the same ceremonies
used by our healers. Finally he blows upon the milk, then gives it
to the patient to drink. I know of no example of a Todd having consented
to care for some one and not having cured him. But it is only rarely
that he consents. He will never touch a drunkard or a debauched person.
"We heal through the love flowing from the sun, and this love will have no
effect upon a wicked man," the Todds claim.
In order to recognize the wicked among the patients
brought to them, the latter are laid down in front of the buffalo-leader;
if the patient must be taken care of, the buffalo examines him, smells him;
if not, the animal becomes furious and the patient is taken away.
Let us also tell this: "The magi, as well as
their pupils, the theurgists, forbade severely the evocation of the souls
of the dead: do not trouble her, do not evoke her [the soul], so that
on her way back she will not carry away something terrestrial," says Psellius
in his Chaldeans Oracles. The Todds believe in a something surviving
the body; in fact, from a confession of the Baddagues, they forbid them to
have anything to do with the bkhoutis (phantoms) and command that they should
avoid them and also the Kouroumbs, who have the reputation of being great
necromancers.
Professor Molitor justly remarks (in his Philosophy
of History and Traditions) that only "the conscientious study of the traditions
of all the peoples and tribes can enable modern science to appreciate antique
sciences at their right value. Magic was a part of this knowledge,
of these mysteries. The prophet Daniel himself examined it deeply;
it was dual: the divine magic and the evil magic or sorcery.
Thanks to the first, man strives to come in contact with the spiritual and
invisible world; by studying the second form of magic, he tries to acquire
domination over the living and the dead. The adept in white magic aspires
to the performance of good acts, for the creation of good; the adept
of the black science desires only diabolical accomplishments, bestial actions."
Here the Honorable Bishop makes a parallel between
the Todds and the Kouroumbs, as between the occultists of all times and
the mediums of today who become unconscious sorcerers and necromancers when
they are not mystifiers and charlatans.
If to please the materialists the hypothesis of white
and black magic is rejected, how can this multitude of manifestations, imperceptible
because of their abstraction, but extraordinarily precise and irrefutable
in fact, which make up the daily relations between the Todds and the Kouroumbs,
be explained? Thus we shall ask why the Todds cure during the day by
the light of the sun, and why the Kouroumbs perform their evil works only
at night by the moonlight? Why do the former restore health and why
do the latter spread illness, and kill? And finally, why does the
Kouroumb fear the Todd? When this repugnant dwarf meets one of these
beings who would not hurt a dog that had just bitten him (if any animal could
bite a Todd), he falls on the ground, a victim of falling sickness.
I am not the only one who has noticed it; many skeptics not believing
in either white or black magic have seen it. Numerous writers have spoken
of it. This is what the missionary Metz says on this subject:
"A certain hostility exists between the Todds and the
Kouroumbs, constraining the latter to obey the Todds against their will.
When he meets them the dwarf falls on the ground a prey to a fit resembling
epilepsy. He twists on the ground like a worm, trembles with fright
and manifests all the symptoms of a fear, moral or mental rather than physical.
Whatever a Kouroumb is doing - and he is rarely occupied in doing good
things - when he sees a Todd approaching, the latter does not even
have to touch him but simply to direct towards him his bamboo cane, and the
Moulou-Kouroumb* flees as fast as he can. But he sometimes falls down
like dead and remains in a kind of dead trance until the Todd has gone, an
occurrence which I witnessed more than once." (Reminiscences of Life Among
Toddas.)
----------------------
*The Kouroumbs are divided into several tribes.
They owe their name to their small size. That is why the Nilguirian
race is called, in order to distinguish it from the others, "Moulou-Kouroumb"
or dwarf bush with bristled thorns (from the words moulou - thorny
bush and kouroumba - dwarf). In fact, they habitually live in
the thickest, the most impassable forests where thorny bushes grow.
-----------------------
Evans, in his journal entitled: "A Veterinary
on the Nilguiri," in speaking about the same subject, completes the picture
described by Metz and adds: "After the Kouroumb has recovered his senses,
he begins to crawl on the ground like a serpent, tearing herbs from the ground
with his mouth, and swallowing them. Then he rubs his face against
the earth, a gesture which contributes little towards the increase of his
natural charms. The ground there is very rich in iron and ochre and
can be removed from the skin only under great difficulties. And our
friend, the Kouroumb, staggering like a drunkard, when getting on his feet
again after the undesired encounter, looked like a circus clown, soiled with
stains and scratches that were blood-red and yellow ......."
And this is what I wish to add: we have already
stated that the Todds possess no weapons to protect them against wild animals,
nor do they keep dogs to warn them of imminent danger. Nevertheless
it is not remembered, even by the oldest inhabitants of Outti, that a Todd
has ever been killed or even hurt by an elephant or a tiger. It very
seldom happened that a little buffalo of the Todds was devoured by a tiger,
and it never occurred that a full-grown buffalo was killed by the wild animals.
Nor had any of the wives or children of the Todds ever become the prey of
these beasts. I request the reader to meditate upon this intangible
immunity which continues until the present day - the year 1883.
On the other hand, the Blue Mountains are crowded with Englishmen and other
colonists and no week passes without some of these men becoming the prey
of wild beasts, while one-third of their herds is regularly condemned to be
carried off by these animals. Coolies, shepherds, children and natives
may always expect a cruel death by a bloodthirsty tiger or a wild elephant.
Only the Todd can remain at the edge of the woods for many hours and sleep
in tranquillity, undisturbed and sure of his complete security.
How then can one explain these facts which are well
known and observed? By chance? - an explanation which is always
given in Europe to that which is inexplicable. Strange chances, indeed,
that have been occurring for more than sixty years in sight of the English!
And though these facts could not be examined and still less proven before
the arrival of the English, they have since been amply verified. Even
the sworn-in statisticians have directed their attention to these facts and
have taken note of them, though with a certain amount of naivete.
In the commentaries accompanying the statistics of
the year of 1881 we read: "The Todds are hardly ever exposed to the
attacks of the wild beasts, undoubtedly owing to a certain specific odor
that emanates from them and which repels the animal." Heavens!
What simplicity of mind! This "probability of a specific odor" is
worth being printed in golden letters. It is evident that this specific
nonsense is more pleasant to the sworn-in skeptics than the irrefutable
fact which is a thorn in their sides.
In this irrefragable reality - which the European
flees like an ostrich with head bent down in the hope that it will not be
seen - is contained the entire enigma of the profound veneration by
the various tribes of the "Blue Mountains" to which the Todds are subject
on the one hand, and the terror which they inspire on the other hand.
The Baddagues adore them - the Moulou-Kouroumbs tremble before them.
On beholding a Todd - who goes serenely on his way, holding in his
hand a simple little cane, which is inoffensive and innocent - the Kouroumb
is terror-stricken, while the Baddague, with knees bent, waits in silence
for his salutation and his blessing. And the Baddague is very happy,
when his Deva, scarcely touching his head with a bare foot, traces an incomprehensible
sign in the air and then slowly goes his way "proud and impassible like a
Greek God" according to the expression of Captain O'Grady.
How do the English look upon the fanatical veneration
of the Todds by the Baddagues and how do they explain it? Very naturally
and very simply. The English reject the tradition, according to which
this relationship was established by the ancestors of these two races, considering
it a stupid fable and interpreting it in their own way, Colonel Marshal writes
in his book as follows:
"This sentiment appears all the more strange as, according
to statistics, the Baddagues have been far more numerous than the Todds.
They number ten thousand while the Todds are seven hundred. Nothing,
however, can remove the superstitious conviction in the Baddagues that the
Todds are supernatural beings. The Todds are giants, compared with
the Baddagues - though these latter are very strong and muscular.
And there we have the secret of the sentiment that the Baddagues have in
regard to the Todds."
This is certainly not the entire secret. The
Kchots and Erroulars are two tribes which are very small and feeble as compared
with the Baddagues. Yet they do not venerate the Todds as much as the
Baddagues do, though they respect them and remain in constant touch with them.
To solve the enigma, it is necessary to know the history of the Baddagues
and to believe them - or at least give credit to their spontaneous reports,
if one does not believe every word of their statements. The essence
of the problem resides, in our opinion, in the fact that the Baddagues are
Brahmans, though at present degenerated, while the Kchots and Erroulars are
only pariahs. And the Baddagues (like the Brahmans of India before the
arrival of the Mussulmans) possess knowledge of many things of which others
are wholly ignorant. What is this knowledge? This will be told
in the following chapter. Let us, at present, speak a little of the
Baddagues and of their religion. As are all other manifestations in
the "Blue Mountains," this religion is distinguished by its originality and
its extraordinary character.
On the bare peak of the Rongasouamisk their only and,
today, abandoned temple can be found. The religion of the Baddagues
consists of many ceremonies which have long since lost their meaning.
Two or three times a year they ascend to this temple - their Mecca
- to read their conjurations against most of their own Brahmanic gods.
According to Colonel Octorby, Administrator-General of the Mountains, "the
Baddagues are one of the most timid and superstitious races of India.
They live in constant fear of evil spirits which, they imagine, float always
around them. And they have that same fear of the Kouroumb. As
the Kouroumbs are terror-stricken at the sight of a Todd, so are the Baddagues
terrified by the presences of the Kouroumbs."
Let us read in the learned book of the Colonel what
he has to say of the unfortunate Baddague's superstition:
"Sickness in their homes, epidemics among their cattle,
every trouble, every portentous event in their families, especially bad harvests
which mean their ruin, are immediately ascribed to the evil sorcerers
- the Kouroumbs. Then they rush to the Todd for help by means of his
counteracting power of good. .. . . This ridiculous superstition is so profoundly
rooted in all the tribes of the Nilguiri that we were often compelled to
sentence Baddagues for a general massacre of Kouroumbs or for setting villages,
on fire. . . . Notwithstanding these facts, the Baddagues often have recourse
to the aid of the Kouroumbs, especially in cases of dishonest acquisitions.
They then address themselves, through the intermediary of these dwarfs, to
some imaginary evil spirits at the call of the Kouroumbs." (Statistical records
of Nilguerry.)
"Yet it never happened that the English discovered
a Todd mixed in these foul intrigues. The Baddagues detest the Kouroumbs,
they fear them, and yet call constantly upon their assistance. No sowing
or business is done without the aid of the 'black conjurer.' In the
spring, when the seeds are put into the ground, no work is begun without
a Kouroumb 'blessing' it by sacrifice in the fields of a roebuck or a cock
(always black). He also is the first to throw a handful of seeds while
muttering the habitual conjurations. In order to secure a good harvest
the Baddagues ask the Kouroumb also at the time of reaping to cut down the
first bundle of the crop and to pluck the first fruit."
For the purpose of explaining scientifically this strange
superstition, the author continues:
"The Kouroumb is ridiculously small. His sickly
and ghostly aspect with his wild mass of untidy hair held together in an
enormous bunch or knot on the top of his head, his entire silhouette which
inspires disgust, readily explains the stupid terror of the timid Baddague.
When a Baddague unexpectedly meets a Kouroumb he flees as if running away
from a wild animal.* And if he has not succeeded in avoiding 'the gaze
of the viper' which the sorcerer casts upon him, he rushes to his home in
the desperate certainty of his being condemned to death, submitting to a fate
which, according to him, is inevitable. He performs all kinds of ceremonies,
prescribed by the Chastramis, before the arrival of death. If he has
any riches, such as silver and estate, he distributes them among his relatives.
Then he lies down and awaits death, which (a strange thing when one meditates
on it) comes between the third and thirteenth day after the encounter.
Such is the power of superstitions imagination" (the author explains naively)
"that it almost inevitably kills, at a fixed hour, the unfortunate and stupid
creature."
--------------------
*The author should have said that the Baddagues only
flee from those Kouroumbs who are angry at them; they do not flee
from Kouroumbs otherwise. But if the Kouroumb becomes somebody's enemy,
then - as we are going to prove - he becomes really dangerous.
---------------------
If it is only the deadly power of superstitious imagination,
how can our honorable author explain the following event which took place
quite recently and which all inhabitants of the Blue Mountains recall:
The "Baar-Saabs" (Anglo-Hindus) meet the dirty and
savage Kouroumbs only when hunting rests. That is why the second meeting
between an English official and the Kouroumbs occurred in the woods, and
again on account of an elephant. (The reader will recall the first
encounter with Mr. Betten, told me by Mrs. Morgan.)
The hero of this event was a man of high official rank.
He was known by all as one of the foremost members of English society, and
his family, I think, is still living in Calcutta, where his young widow lives
with an elder brother. She was a very good friend of General Morgan's
wife, and it is for this reason that I cannot mention her real name.
I have promised not to name her, though in the following story it will be
easy for all who have been in Madras to recognize her.
Mr. K. and some of his friends went hunting accompanied
by chicaris and numerous servants. An elephant was killed and it was
only at that moment that Mr. K. realized that he had forgotten the special
knife necessary for cutting the tusks of the elephant. The English
decided to leave the elephant under the keeping of four Baddague hunters,
so that they might protect it against the wild beasts. Then they went
to lunch at a neighboring plantation. K. was to come back two hours
later to take the tusks.
This program was apparently easy to accomplish.
However, when Mr. K. returned he found himself facing an unforeseen obstacle.
About ten Kouroumbs were seated on the elephant, working hard at the removal
of the tusks. Disregarding the words of the high dignitary, the Kouroumbs
coldly declared that the elephant had been killed on their territory, and
that they considered him and his tusks their property. Their huts,
indeed, were visible a few feet distant.
The reader will easily imagine the anger which this
insolence provoked in the haughty Englishman. He commanded them to
get away at once, as otherwise he would order his men to chase them away
with whips. The Kouroumbs burst into laughter and continued their work
without even looking at the Baar-Saab.
Mr. K. then ordered his servants to disperse the Kouroumbs
by force. Twenty armed hunters followed him. Mr. K. himself was
a good looking, tall, and well-set man of about thirty-five years of age,
known for his excellent health and strength as well as for his irascibility.
The Kouroumbs were ten in number, almost naked and without arms. The
four Baddagues who had been left with the elephant, fled of course, as soon
as the Kouroumbs told them to go. Three hunters would have been sufficient
to drive away the poor little dwarfs. However, the shouting of Mr.
K. produced no effect; nobody moved - all were deadly pale, bent
their heads and trembled with fear. Several men, among whom were the
Baddagues who had hid themselves in the thicket, rushed madly away and disappeared.
The Moulou-Kouroumbs sitting on the elephant, looked
hard at the Englishman, showed their teeth and took an altogether provocative
attitude.
Mr. K. lost all mastery of himself. "Cowards:
are you going to chase these bandits away, or not?" he howled.
"Impossible," declared a chicari with a white beard,
"impossible. It would mean our certain death. The Kouroumbs
are on their own ground."
Mr. K. leaped from his horse. At that moment
the chief of the Kouroumbs - as ugly as sin incarnate - brusquely
jumped on the head of the elephant and began to bounce on it, making faces
and grating his teeth like a jackal. Then shaking his horrible head
and brandishing his fists, he sat up and cast a glance at the persons present,
saying:
"Whosoever first touches our elephant will soon remember
us at the day of his death. He will not see the new moon again . .
. ... The threat seemed superfluous. The servants of the official seemingly
were transformed into statues.
Mr. K. was furious, and his big whip hit the guilty
as well as the innocent, after which he seized the chief of the Kouroumbs
by his hair and flung him to the ground some distance away. Then, still
using his whip, he unmercifully beat the other Kouroumbs who tried to resist
him by holding to the ears and tusks of the animal. He finally put
them to flight.
But they all stopped about ten feet from Mr. K. who
had begun to cut off the tusks. During the entire operation -
according to the testimony of the servants - the Kouroumbs never took
their eyes from Mr. K.
Mr. K., having finished his work, banded the tusks
to his men with the order to carry them to his house. He was just
going to mount his horse when his eyes met those of the chief of the Kouroumbs
over whom he had been victorious.
"The eyes of this monster produced on me the same effect
as the look of a horrible toad.... I felt nauseated," Mr. K. told his
friends who were dining with him that same evening. "I could not hold
myself back," he added, with a voice still trembling with disgust.
"I hit him again with my whip. The dwarf, lying motionless on the ground
where I had thrown him, suddenly jumped up, but did not flee, to my great
surprise. He simply went several steps backward and continued to look
fixedly at me."
"Perhaps you would have done better to control yourself,"
somebody remarked. "These creatures are horrible and seldom forgive."
Mr. K. burst out in laughter.
"The chicaris told me the same thing. They returned
to their homes like men sentenced to death. . . . They are afraid of the
eye! Stupid and superstitious people! They should have been enlightened
long ago on the subject of the evil eye. The famous 'look of the serpent'
has only increased my appetite."
And Mr. K. continued to mock at the superstitious Hindus.
The next morning, under the pretext of being very tired
from the evening before, Mr. K. slept very late and only awoke in the afternoon,
while he usually got up very early, like everybody else in India. In
the evening he felt a pain in his right arm.
"Old rheumatism," he remarked. "It will pass
away in a few days."
But the second day he felt such a weakness that he
could hardly walk. The third day he had to stay in bed. His
temperature was normal. He only felt an inexplicable weakness in all
his limbs and a strange lassitude.
"It seems as if the blood in my veins has been replaced
by lead," he said to his friends. His appetite which, according to
his statement, had been stimulated by the "look of the viper" suddenly disappeared;
he became a victim of insomnia. No narcotic had any effect. Mr.
K., who had always been in good health, strong, ruddy and muscular, looked
- after four days - like a skeleton. The fifth night after the
hunting Mr. K., who had never closed his eyes, awakened his family and the
doctor who slept in the room next to him, shouting like one possessed:
"Chase this filthy monster away," he screamed.
Who let this beast enter my room?...... What does he want? . . . Why does
he look at me like that?" With his last strength he grasped a heavy
candlestick and threw it in the direction of some invisible object.
The doctor concluded that his patient was in a state
of delirium. Mr. K. did not cease to scream and moan until morning,
maintaining that he saw near his bed the Kouroumb whom he had beaten.
The vision disappeared in the morning. Mr. K., nevertheless, maintained
his statement.
"This was no delirium," he stammered, with difficulty.
"The dwarf must have sneaked in - I don't know how - I have seen
him in the flesh, and not in imagination."
The following night, though his condition became worse,
he did not see the Kouroumb. The doctors understood nothing and diagnosticated
a case of "jungle fever."
The ninth day Mr. K. lost the power of speech;
he died the thirteenth day.
If the power of superstitious imagination killed at
a fixed date "an unfortunate and stupid creature," what power was it that
killed a rich and cultivated gentleman who believed in nothing? "Strange
coincidence" - we will be told - "simple chance." All is
possible. But then the coincidences are innumerable in the annals of
the "Blue Mountains" and they would in themselves present a phenomenon more
strange even than the truth.
The English admit that it never happened that a native
who had become the prey of the "serpent's look " of an angry Kouroumb, escaped
their fate. And the same English declare that the only salvation from
it is the following: to betake one's self, during the first three hours
after the encounter, to the Todds to ask their help. If the Teralli
consents, any Todd can easily remove the poison put in the man by the evil
eye. "But woe unto him who, having been poisoned by this look, finds
himself at too great a distance from the Todds to be there within the necessary
time; and woe unto him who has become subject to this fatality and
whom the Todd, after having looked at him, refuses to cure. The patient
then is condemned to a certain death."
There occur many phenomena in the world. There
are many inexplicable truths, or rather truths which our savants cannot
explain. The press often turns away with disgust from these strange
facts and flees, like the powers of impurity chased away by incense.
However, there are sometimes happenings which the sarcastic press is obliged
to take note of and to investigate. This takes place every time that
- in consequence of the superstitious terror provoked by acts of sorcery
- the inhabitants of a village prepare themselves to burn the author of these
misdeeds. Then, in the name of lawfulness, and in order to satisfy the
curiosity of the public, the newspapers consider at large "the saddening manifestations
of the incomprehensible superstition of the people."
A similar thing happened in Russia, about three or
four years ago, when an entire village (sixty men, if I am not mistaken)
were tried and acquitted for having burned an old and half-crazy woman who,
by her neighbors, the moujiks, had been elevated to the dignity of a sorceress.
The press of Madras saw itself recently constrained to broach the same subject
under almost identical conditions. Only our humanitarian friends, the
British, proved to be less indulgent than the Russian judges; forty
men, Kouroumbs and Baddagues, were hanged last year "sans bruit ni trompette
" (without noise or trumpets).
All will recall the terrible tragedy that took place
not long ago in the Blue Mountains, in the village of Ebonaoud, several
miles from Outtakamand. The mayor of the town had a child. The
child fell suddenly ill and lingered in a slow agony. As several mysterious
deaths had occurred during the preceding month the Baddagues at once attributed
this case to the "eye of the viper" of the Kouroumbs. In despair, the
father threw himself at the feet of the judge; in other words, he
went to lodge a complaint. The Anglo-Hindus did nothing but laugh at
him, until after three days of useless effort the Monegar was brutally driven
away. The Baddagues then decided to take justice into their own hands;
they decided to burn down an entire village of the Kouroumbs, to the very
last man, and for this purpose requested a Todd to go with them; without
a Todd no Kouroumb could have been burnt by fire nor drowned by water.
Such is the belief of the Baddagues, and nothing can convince them of the
contrary. The Todds held council and finally gave their consent.
No doubt "the buffaloes had decided that it should be so." Accompanied
by a Todd, the Baddagues started out on a dark, stormy night, and in no
time had set fire to all the huts of the Kouroumbs. With one exception,
no Kouroumb escaped. As soon as one of them left his cabin the Baddagues
threw him back into the flames or killed him with an axe. Only an
old woman managed to bide herself in the bushes and to escape. She
denounced the incendiaries and many of the Baddagues were arrested.
There was also a Todd among them. He was the only criminal of his
tribe imprisoned by the English since the foundation of Outtakamand.
But the English did not succeed in hanging him; the very evening on
which he was to undergo capital punishment, he disappeared in an incomprehensible
way, while twenty Baddagues, with stomachs swollen, had already died in
prison.
This took place only a few months ago. Three
years before this event the same drama had occurred at Kataguiri.
In vain the lawyers and even the State's attorney had insisted upon considering
extenuating circumstances, pleading that the cause was indeed only the profoundly
rooted belief of the natives in the sorcery of the Kouroumbs and the evil
that they could do without being punished. All advocates demanded
- if not pardon - at least the non-application of capital punishment.
Their efforts were useless. If the English scientists are capable of
believing in the "evil eye" by giving it a more scientific term, the English
tribunals will never do so. However, the law, which two hundred years
ago annually condemned thousands of male and female sorcerers to torture and
death at the stake, is still in force in England. It has not been abrogated.
When necessity presents itself under the form of the desire of stupid crowds,
the bigots and the atheists, such as Professor Lancaster who induced the
punishment of the American medium, Mr. Sleed - this ancient law is
withdrawn from the dust of forgetfulness and is applied to a man whose only
fault is to be unpopular. In India this law is useless and can even
become dangerous, as it might teach the natives that their masters, at a
certain time, share their "superstition." But in England public opinion
is so strong that even law gives way to it.
Being secretary of a society whose aim it is to study
as thoroughly as possible all psychological problems, I would like to prove
that there is no "superstition" in the world which has not truth as its origin.
Our Theosophical Society should really have called itself - in the
name of this Truth - "Society of Those Dissatisfied with Contemporary
Materialistic Sciences." We are the
living protest against the gross materialism of our day, as well as against
the unreasonable beliefs which are too much limited by the narrow frame of
sentimentality; the belief in the "spirits" of the dead and the direct
communication between the Beyond and our world. We affirm nothing,
and we deny nothing. And as our society, in its greatest part, comprises
the pick of Europe, counting among its members many whose names are well
known in the world of science and literature, we dare to dispense with the
approval of the official scientific organizations. We prefer to "wait
and see," without, however, losing a single opportunity to profit by every
fact that escapes the attention of material science, in order to make it an
object of meditation to the public. We want to make these facts a living
reproach to the inactivity of the masters of natural science who, satisfied
with their routine, do not move one finger to elucidate the problem of the
mysterious forces of nature. We are not only searching for material
and irrefutable proofs of the very essence of those manifestations which have
been baptized by the names of "sorcery," the "art of Healing," "evil eye,"
and which, by cultivated mystics, are called "spiritualistic phenomena,"
"mesmerism," or simply " magic" - we desire to penetrate to the very
causes of these beliefs, to the source of this psychic power which physical
science continues to sneer at and to deny with an extraordinary obstinacy.
But how explain these beliefs? To what can we attribute this strange
fact that the savage tribes of the Blue Mountains, who have never heard of
our Russian sorcerers and the belief in "sorcery" which is found in the Russian
villages, have the very same belief in all its details, from the conjuration
of the healers to their special pharmaceutics, the composition of herbs and
other procedure of the same kind? And these same "superstitions," in
the letter as well as in spirit, exist with the English, French, German, Italian,
Spanish and Slav peoples. The Latins unite with the Slavs, the Aryans
and Touranians with the Semitics in their common belief in magic, witchcraft,
clairvoyance, and manifestation of good and evil spirits. There is
"identity" in faith, not in its relative sense, but in the literal acceptance
of the term. This is no mere "super-stition," but an international science
with its laws, its invariable formulas, and its same applications.
To Chapter 6
More by H.P. Blavatsky