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The Slave system
Aka society freely entertains the idea of slavery.
The slaves are known as Khulo. The khulo have to till the soil, look after the palm and the
jhum-field, the cattle and the house hold and do all such menial jobs as their
masters may entrust them.
Ways of punishment
The ordeal
Where
a case of suspected black
magic or murder is brought to
the notice of the village council and where the suspect denies the charges, it
may arrange an ordeal to decide the case. To the Akas, the most common way of practicing
the ordeal is to ask the suspect to put his hands into boiling water. The
village council calls for the chief priest or Mugou to conduct it. The Mugou
performs some ceremonial rites and prays to the Gods to award full justice to
the sufferers and to punish the sorcerer heavily if he has practiced
sorcery.
Water is boiled in a vessel with the head of a snake or piece of skin
of tiger or panther in it. The culprit is then asked to put his hands into the boiling water which might have been poisoned. If the culprit can bring himself out of the ordeal triumphantly,
without injury to his hands, he proves himself
innocent of the crime with which he is charged and is set free from the clutches
of the tribal law. If on the other hand, burns appear on his hand, he is
supposed to have succumbed to be ordeal and thus is proved guilty of
the charge beyond doubt. He is required to abide by the decision of the council
which may require him to pay some adequate compensation to the
sufferer. But in either case he has to give a feast to the village
community.
In the Aka society, there are gods,
deities and spirits who rule
over man kinds. The Aka people periodically worship these super natural
powers and try to appease them by sacrificing pigs, mithuns, chickens etc, in
the form of festival where all the people get together to grace such occasion.
Supreme among the Aka deities is
'Teharo', who looks after the human beings and
protect the cattle. The propitiation of the deity is made at least once in a year
when sacrifices are offered along with the prayers.
Magic
Among most of the tribal communities the initiative magic is
common. The popular method of magic among the Akas is called Shizou. A man who
has a quarrel with some person and is overwhelmed with a feeling of revenge and
if he is a little versed in magical knowledge may take resort
to this form of magic. He may slaughter a dog and take out its blood. He sprinkles the blood up on his enemy without being detected or throw a few
drops of blood into his enemy's house or burn them in his enemy's hearth. If
the magic bears result, the person is supposed to lose his life.
Another common type is
Fakhu-sisto-charsa magic. The man
searches for teeth of any of the wild animals such as tiger, panther, bear or a snake.
The magician may put the teeth over the foot prints of the person on whom
he wishes to aim his black magic. It is supposed that the species of the animal whose teeth may have been used would kill the
person.
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