| At about this time
there was a class of persons called Bhogis, who were voluntary victims of a
Goddes’s named Ai who dwelt in a cave and announced from time to time that the
Goddess had called them. When She did so, they were treated as Privileged persons
and were allowed to (to whatever they liked. Every woman was at their command. But they
were killed when the annual festival came round."12 As
a frontier region Assam appears to be a veritable asylum for all kinds of uncanny beliefs
and superstitions. Since early times the province happened to be a meeting ground of the
Austria, Dravidian, Aryan, and Sino-Tibetan speakers, and thus the aboriginal beliefs,
cults, and myths of these races and tribes mingled together as if in a witch cauldron and
formed the foundation of the orthodox religion of the Tantras. |
