ABSTRACT
Choti and Sona, both widows who could be classified as illiterateagricultural labour, retaliate against being branded witches by going to the panchayat or the police. Soha is now a construction worker. This does not stop her from going to the courts in Dumka to fight her case, or coming to the village to assert her claims locally. She may not have money, but when I visited her in her husband’s village, she was generous in her hospitality. She was touched that I had sought her out, as a person, a woman, interested in the story she had to tell.
