Administrative System of the Marathas c19.s9.20

c19.s9.20

³⁷ The published documents do not tell us how wizards were detected in the Peshwa's dominions. A curious mode of trying witches in Behar has been described, in the Annual Asiatic Register (1801), Tracts, pp. 91-92. Jenkins says that the method of detecting witches by the Nagpur Government was as follows: "The usual test by which witches are discovered, is that of plunging them, tied up in a bag, into the water; if they sink, they are innocent, if they swim, guilty; and they are punished sometimes with death, at others their teeth are drawn; they are made to drink the water in which the skins of dead animals have been immersed, are beat with twigs of a particular bush, supposed to have peculiar properties and are turned out of their caste, and sometimes out of the village." Jenkins' Report, p. 60.