Demon Worship In Nepal

Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

Today is the fourteenth day of the dark fortnight of Ashwin in the Nepal calendar. The day is for honoring a demon called Gaatha Muga in the Kathmandu Valley. On the night of this day, farmers send off the demon spirit they have brought in at the beginning of the rice-transplantation season. The rice-plantation season ends in the valley on this day. The night of this day is also the most auspicious for witches to brush up on their skill and for new witches to graduate in witchcrafts. For the rest of the people, the night is for getting rid of evil spirits their homes are infested with.

In the beginning of the rice-transplantation season, every year, farmers invite a demon spirit to come to their help in working at the field. A group of farmers led by a band of musicians goes around the sites where they believe the demon spirit resides. At each site, they stop the playing of music; then one of them offers a handful of cooked rice to the spirit at the site and invites the demon spirit residing there to come to their help in working at the rice fields calling out some mantras that the demon spirit understands.

After the rituals of inviting the demon spirit, farmers store their musical instruments and will not play until they send off the demon spirit. For almost three months, farmers will be busy with the work of the rice-seedling transplantation. They don’t play the musical instruments during this period for the fear of scaring away the demon spirit. In fact, they don’t have time at all to play any musical instruments during the rice-plantation season.

Farmers find that the demon spirit actually comes to help them. Farmers could sense that they have the demon spirit working for them. The higher capacity of plowing the land in preparation of the fields for rice transplantation is the fact that the demon spirit is working in them. They also find that they can eat more than what they regularly eat. This is because they need to feed the demon spirit residing in them.

When the monsoon rains reach the Kathmandu Valley, they fill the plowed land with water. After the monsoon rains have brought sufficient water to their field, and when the water reaches the level required for transplanting the rice seedlings, farmers uproot the seedlings that have been growing for almost a month, and transplant them in the field.

The rice transplantation season ends in the Kathmandu Valley on the fourteenth day of the dark fortnight of the Ashwin in the Nepal calendar. Farmers don’t need the demon spirit any more. They celebrate the send-off of the demon spirit on this day called the day of the demon called Gaatha Muga.

On the eve of the Gaatha Muga day, women folks do the laundry and clean the whole house. For three months, farmers have no time of changing their clothes, and washing their bodies. Their clothes have been soaked in sweat. So, women take the whole day to do the laundry and to clean the house. Members of each household take purification bath to wash themselves all over. They have accumulated mud and dirt during the three months of the rice-transplantation season.

On the Gaatha Muga day, each neighborhood prepares for sending off the demon spirit in an effigy especially in Bhaktapur, as this town is a center of the ancient culture. Volunteers prepare an effigy of Gaatha Muga at each neighborhood, as they are sending off the demon in an effigy. Each neighborhood has its own unique effigy of Gaatha Muga. So, you will find that so many different effigies in Bhaktapur. Each neighborhood competes for making a better effigy of Gaatha Muga the demon.

Youngsters become busy with collecting the toll from the pedestrians, motorcyclists, from the car drivers and any other vehicle drivers, and from the store owners to pay for making an effigy of the demon and then sending him off in an effigy. The ancient rulers had set the tradition of letting the youngsters to collect taxes from the people on this particular day for paying the cost of marking the send-off of the demon spirit in an effigy. Nepalis continue this tradition although laws forbid such tax collection.

Pedestrians see a makeshift effigy made of tripod of wheat straw with a paper mask of the demon on it at every crossroads. Such an effigy stands at each crossroads for a whole day, and goes with the larger effigy in the evening.

Female children sew their dolls they have played with for a year made of cloth into necklaces, and bring them to the effigy standing at the crossroads and put them around the neck of the effigy. They do so to prevent their dolls possessed by evil spirits. They let the dolls go along with the demon in an effigy.

Men and women young and old buy iron rings for themselves and for their family members sold on the sidewalks on this day from the early morning and take these rings to the effigies standing at the crossroads and touch the rings to one of the effigies as a gesture of making offerings to the demon, and take the rings to their homes and distribute those rings to the family members to wear. They wear such rings until the festival of lights held in the dark fortnight of Kartik in the Nepal Calendar, and then take off the rings and tie them to the tail of a cow on the day of worshipping a cow, and let them go. They believe that wearing such iron rings will protect them from evil spirits.

In Bhaktapur, volunteers at each neighborhood compete the making of an effigy of Gaatha Muga: the demon. Each effigy differs from others, as each neighborhood has its own way of making an effigy. You will find a very simple effigy made of three bundles of wheat straw bound together in a tripod and a mask of the demon place at the knot of the three bundles. You also will find a large size effigy with a head and a body.

For making a large size effigy, volunteers paint a head of Gaatha Muga on an upturned clay pitcher. Youngsters collect roots of trees to set on the top of the pitcher as the hairs. Then, they set the head on the body made of wheat straw, and keep it on display. In the evening, a man wears the effigy of the demon and carries it to its destination. In the case of a simple effigy, two men carry the effigy made of three bundles of wheat straw on a shoulder pole. Youngsters make the torches of wheat straw and carry such torches to light the way to the demon in an effigy. So, youngsters carrying wheat-straw torches lead it, and some adults follow it calling out various slogans on the way. By then, farmers can bring back the musical instruments they have stored and play them to lead the demon in an effigy to the destination.

At each destination, they place the demon in an effigy and let it stand for some time. Youngsters carrying wheat straw torches surround it and then called out some sorts of slogans for sending off the demon in an effigy. Then, they throw their torches at the effigy and let it burn down.

After sending off the demon in an effigy, all of the men and youngsters take a purification dip in the water of a nearby stream and come back home chanting the names of various deities.

In Kathmandu, they mark the send-off of Gaatha Muga in an effigy in a different way. Kathmanduites use green reeds instead of wheat straw their brethren use in Bhaktapur for making a makeshift effigy of the demon at each crossroads and a large effigy for the evening at each neighborhood. They assign a man to be the living effigy of the demon in the evening. They strip him down to the underwear and draw various male and female organs on his body, feed him on the mixture of flattened rice and yogurt. They let him hold a clay bowl. Youngsters put all the money they have collected during the day in the bowl. They take him around the neighborhood with his bow on his hands for showing the people they have the human effigy of the demon. Some people drop money in the bowl. After going around the neighborhood, they put him on a bundle of the fresh green reeds and youngsters drag him on a bundle of the reeds to the nearby river to dispose of the demon in a human effigy. The man keeps all the money in the bowl.

The night of this day is for getting rid of the evil spirits, too. Most of the households prepare a clay bowl full of foodstuffs evil spirits enjoy. They fill up a clay bowl with the husk of flattened rice, put fresh buffalo blood and liver on the husk, and then insert a small clay bowl with glowing charcoal with the pieces of red pepper on it for making smokes of pepper in the husk. Some Nepalis believe that evil spirits enjoy inhaling the pepper smokes and eating fresh buffalo blood and liver with the flattened rice husk.

A Tantric priest invokes all the evil spirits believed to be the home is infested with into the bowl. Once all the evil spirits are in the bowl then the priest binds them together to the bowl with the Tantric mantras.

One of the men not scare of any evil spirits takes the bowl holding by his two hands to the nearest crossroads and places it there. He returns back home not looking back to the bowl at the crossroads, and cleans his mouth and eyes with water before entering the home. Evil spirits might come back with him if he looks back to the bowl. Cleaning mouth and eyes are necessary to remove any tiny elements of evil spirits possibly attached to these two sense organs. This is done at the early night.

Witches brush up on their witchcraft, and new witches graduate on the night of this day making offerings to the witch deity. For them, this night is the most auspicious for learning the witchcraft. Nepalese witches manage to hold everything they need in a small wicker container. They hold even a buffalo in such a container and everything they need to satisfy the evil spirits that stand in their way to the deity of witchcraft. They go with such a small wicker basket to make offerings to the deity at the midnight to brush up on their witchcraft.

Students of witchcrafts graduate on the night of this day. They follow their witch teacher to the deity to make offerings of graduating the witchcrafts. Thereafter, they become new witches and can practice the witchcrafts. New graduates of witchcrafts keep the contacts with their teachers in case they need help in practicing the witchcrafts.

August 8, 2010