Pretas These Hindu are evil, ghostlike spirits who animate dead bodies and are prone to residing in cemeteries. They are moderately tall and feed only on filth and excrement without ever being satisfied. Some wear pigs' masks for faces, while others vomit fire that burns them away, or cut and slash their flesh with their fingernails. Popular belief has it that avaricious people often became Pretas. Some Pretas assume the shape of formidable giants and are known as Yeaks. All in all there are thirty-six classes of Pretas, some of them appearing only as animated skeletons. The Indian Buddhist tradition depicts them with huge bellies, large mouths and tiny, contracted throats. Some sources disagree with this description, giving the Pretas 'mouths as small as the eye of a needle,' enabling them 'to emit but the weakest and eeriest of whistling sounds.' In any event, they are unable to take in sufficient quantities of food and drink, and are condemned to suffer perpetual thirst and starvation. A number of Pretas reside in hell as servants of Yama, the king of the underworld. Their infernal quarters are 'a hell of deep night, intense cold, absolute silence and continuing hunger.' Others roam the earth, reside in the air, and mix with mankind, although they are visible only at night. Sakyamuni, a great religious leader, instituted the ceremony of feeding the Pretas. He told one of his disciples to make offerings for the benefit of his mother, who had had the misfortune of being reborn as a Preta. Ever since, Hindu Bodhisattvas have taken pride in charitable acts of food offerings to console the famished , whom they see as afflicted souls condemned to err eternally.