All the gates of
the village, except one, are closed; every voice is raised, every
gong and drum beaten, every sword brandished. Thus the devils are
driven out and the last gate is shut behind them. For eight days
thereafter the village is in a state of siege, no one being allowed
to enter it.
When cholera has broken out in a Burmese village the able-bodied men
scramble on the roofs and lay about them with bamboos and billets of
wood, while all the rest of the population, old and young, stand
below and thump drums, blow trumpets, yell, scream, beat floors,
walls, tin pans, everything to make a din. This uproar, repeated on
three successive nights, is thought to be very effective in driving
away the cholera demons. When smallpox first appeared amongst the
Kumis of South-Eastern India, they thought it was a devil come from
Aracan. The villages were placed in a state of siege, no one being
allowed to leave or enter them. A monkey was killed by being dashed
on the ground, and its body was hung at the village gate. Its blood,
mixed with small river pebbles, was sprinkled on the houses, the
threshold of every house was swept with the monkey's tail, and the
fiend was adjured to depart.
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