33. “The Magahiyas naturally believe in ghosts and spirits. When a man dies, my informant told me, he turns into an evil spirit (shaitân). The godlings (deota) also, he added, were innumerable. In most villages of this district there is a special altar for all the local ghosts and deities, which may reside within the village boundaries, and the Magahiyas are always ready to share in the sacrifices of the villagers to them. They also reverence trees and platforms consecrated by Hindus in passing, but pay no further homage. They acknowledge the village Kâli and sometimes sacrifice to her; but the sacrifices do not differ from those of the Hindus. They do not acknowledge Mahâdeva or any other divinity, but they share the general Hindu belief in Parameswar, the giver and destroyer of life and the author of good and evil. He created the Magahiyas, they say, and ordered them to be filth and outcasts among the Hindus. They somehow resort to a Brâhman for the reading of the Vedas (katha). My informant had given a katha in this way on the last occasion of his release from jail. In these cases the Magahiyas go to the Brâhman’s house, but I could not find any other trace of special reverence for the Brâhmans, nor have they any necessity for them.” 34. In Mirzapur Doms of the better class worship Bhawâni, to whom at the Naurâtra of Chait they make an offering of hogs, cakes (pûri), gruel (lapsi), and wreaths of flowers. The Bhawâni, if appeased, keeps off illness from her votaries. They have a vague idea of an all-powerful deity, Parameswar, who punishes the guilty, and of a hell, but what it is and how sinners are punished they know not. The scavenger Doms, like the Jallâd, have a special female deity called Kukarmari, “the killer of dogs,” to whom a sacrifice of a young pig and some spirits is offered outside the village as a propitiation for the death of these animals. In the same way when a Dom hangman is tying the rope round the neck of a criminal, he shouts out Dohâi Mahârâni, Dohâi Sarkâr, Dohâi Judge Sâhib. “Help O great Queen! Help O Government! Help Mr. Judge!” in order to free himself from any guilt attaching to the death. They worship the collective local gods (deohâr) at marriages; but the wandering, vagrant habits of the tribe prevent them possessing any real respect for the village deities. Women have no worship special to themselves. On the last day of the first fortnight of Kuâr they make ten lumps (pinda) of flour and throw them into a river, and when they come home they put some cakes and sweetened rice on a leaf-platter, and lay it in a field to propitiate the dead. Some fast on Sunday in the name of the Sun god Sûraj Nârâyan, but these practises prevail only among the more Hinduised Doms in the neighbourhood of towns.