THE YAKHA: CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN ...

Wider-Ranging Spiri ts
Some spirits were more wide-ranging in their origins and
destinations, and like soghek appeared to be shared with other groups.
An example of such a spiri t was Saguni:
At Sabha Pokhari [which contributes to the name of present
day Sankhuwasabha District] 1 ived a man and his two wives,
They made muDB [ wickerwork stools1 and were Marapace Sunuwars.
They were all dhdmis. From here, the man and his first wife
sped all round the world. They reached Athpare-Ghangare in
Dhankuta. There they found an Athpare [a Rai tribe also known
as Athpahariyal orphan which they adopted and took back to
Sabha Pokhar i .
The younger wife did not 1 ike the baby and dropped it in a
pot of boiling milk, She then ran off to Gahiri Pokhari and
hid. The older wife wondered where she was, She performed an
augury in which she saw her and sent a mental attack which
killed her-# Then the older wife hid in a cil6une [Schima
wallichil tree because she had killed someone. But a
thunderbolt hit the tree and killed her, Her husband
committed suicide by stabbing himself with a drumstick. After
this his m a relation, a damai called Rikh Bahadur Barakote,
jumped into Gahiri Pokhari and drowned. Five people were all
dead. After that they wandered a1 1 over the kingdom and
reached Dhul i kel C over 1 ook ing the Kathmandu va 1 1 eyl one
morn i ng .
The king was bathing at SundhBra [a Kathmandu water
fountain next to the current General Post Office1 one morning,
by the Dharahara (Bhimsen Tower). The five came near. Seeing
them, the king became blind. He called his army.
"Five spirits have attacked me. You must attack them",
From the king this order came. So they went to war, but all
became blind and paralyzed, The king was distressed. He
asked if anyone in the army was a dhdmi. One Magar was a
dhami, and he saw the spirits in an augury, The dhami asked
and the five said "We are saguni. We want sindur [red
powderl. Wednesday and Sunday are the days we were formed.
The leaves of sixteen different types of trees are needed to
make leaf plates [ for us1 . You must give camre [boiled rice
fried with ghee, garlic and turmericl, an egg and a ngn.10
[winnowing basketl".
[The story at this point became like a litany of the type
which would be used to treat the problems caused by saguni and
which I have not includedl.
Two types of incense are used for the u, madesh ko
titeptiti [Tarai mugwort, presumably Artemesia vulgaris from
the Tarai rather than a separate species1 and bhaira-R ptite
[Potenilla fructicosa, which we were told comes from the high
mountainsl, Saguni is in a crowd with other cydo including
Ai tabare, Cugbagsi t6re, PB-cthareni, Je1 i jemta, Maburu'hat~ma