A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

Attracted by Baijal’s flute, a bonga appears as a young woman and becomes his partner. In her underwater household snakes serve as seats and tigers as hunting dogs. Baijal avoids killing a human whom her relatives call a peacock, instead warning him in time to kill the pursuing tiger.

The couple have two children. When Baijal tries to force her to live alongside his human wife, she and the children rise in light and leave the village in flame. She had asked him to give a future daughter her name; the tale attributes his later children’s deaths to forgetting that promise, but never prints the name itself. It is therefore not supplied as an invented alias.

Spirit spouse who departs with her children in flameSpecific Santal narrative witness
01

Origins & earliest records

Santal Parganas, eastern India; source-specific Santali storytelling

02

Records & interpretation

Complete Part IV tales CXLVIII–CLIX and preface directly read; exact relevant sections identified.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Folklore of the Santal Parganas

    Cecil Henry Bompas, translator; O. Bodding, collector; Sagram Murmu, principal Santali writer credited in preface · 1909

    CLVI, Baijal and the Bonga, pp. 391–393

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

Primary records and illustrations

Direct primary record

Cecil Henry Bompas, Folklore of the Santal Parganas (1909)

Part IV, bonga narratives. CLVI, Baijal and the Bonga, pp. 391–393

Relevant tales completely read along with Part IV introduction and full preface. Bodding/Murmu/Bompas mediation explicitly retained; original Santali manuscripts not independently inspected. Narrative supernatural claims distinguished from independently verified history or medicine.

Inspect the digitized plate · Source collection manifest

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Historical translation of collected narrativesBompas, Folklore of the Santal Parganas (1909), CLVI, Baijal and the Bonga, pp. 391–393Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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