Gosain

Gosain is the spirit worship of the Paharia hill peoples of the Rajmahal Hills, the Sauria and Mal Paharia. The name belongs to a host of local spirits tied to every part of the world around them, male and female. One is the Gomo Gosain of the house pillar, who gives health.

The chief shrine is the Manjhi Than, where the most important male Gosain lives as five black stones and receives sacrifices twice a year. Female Gosain are fed black fowl and pigs at their own shrines. Ancestors are feasted by the village priest and are held to join the sun god Dharmer Gosain once satisfied.

In the later eighteenth century the Mal Paharia fought the East India Company until the pacification of 1778. From the 1830s Santal settlers moved into their hills.