Dordzhi Nandyshev, About Witches and Other Malevolent Beings

Abstract

Dordzhi relays two stories about malevolent beings. Here are his stories: In our clan we had a man who always fought with malevolent forces. We had a kolkhoz in our land. At lunch break that man used to say to his colleagues: ‘Hey, men, go out. Something is coming towards me’. Since they all knew about him, they would leave him alone. That man then would make movements as if he was fighting with something invisible. I do not know whether it is true or not, but people say that he fought with a witch. My parents told me that that man beat the witch by pulling off her hair. It turns out that if you pull off hair from the head of a witch and comb it, the witch loses her power. She follows you in order to get her hair back. In the past, not far from Ketchenery there was a Buddhist academy on a hill. My mother said to me that the academy was built in the wrong place. The builders did not listen to a lama who showed them the right place. Because it was in the wrong place, the academy was haunted by malevolent forces that knocked on its walls and produced various sounds. Although lamas read prayers, nothing helped. One day a lama arrived from Tibet. He sat down and started to read prayers. As he was reading, all the evil that had been hiding there crawled out one by one. After a while the same Tibetan lama was again invited to perform a ritual. He said: ‘On that road dig 3 triangular holes’. When the holes were ready he sat down nearby and started to read prayers. Evil beings also have their hierarchy, some are inferior, others superior. So, the evil beings came out and started to throw each other into the holes according to seniority. The most powerful evil being threw itself into the hole the last. After that, evil beings did not return.