Badaga.—As the Todas are the pastoral, and the Kotas the artisan tribe of the Nīlgiris, so the agricultural element on these hills is represented by the Badagas (or, as they are sometimes called, Burghers). Their number was returned, at the census, 1901, as 34,178 against 1,267 Kotas, and 807 Todas. Though the primary occupation of the Badagas is agriculture, there are among their community schoolmasters, clerks, public works contractors, bricklayers, painters, carpenters, sawyers, tailors, gardeners, forest guards, barbers, washermen, and scavengers. Many work on tea and coffee estates, and gangs of Badagas can always be seen breaking stones on, and repairing the hill roads. Others are, at the present day, earning good wages in the Cordite Factory near Wellington. Some of the more prosperouspossess tea and coffee estates of their own. The rising generation are, to some extent, learning Tamil and English, in addition to their own language, which is said to resemble old Canarese. And I have heard a youthful Badaga, tending a flock of sheep, address an errant member thereof in very fluent Billingsgate. There were, in 1904–1905, thirty-nine Badaga schools, which were attended by 1,222 pupils. In 1907, one Badaga had passed the Matriculation of the Madras University, and was a clerk in the Sub-judge’s Court at Ootacamund.A newspaper discussion was carried on a few years ago as to the condition of the Badagas, and whether they are a down-trodden tribe, bankrupt and impoverished to such a degree that it is only a short time before something must be done to ameliorate their condition, and save them from extermination by inducing them to emigrate to the Wynād and Vizagapatam. A few have, in recent years, migrated to the Anaimalai hills, to work on the planters’ estates, which have been opened up there. One writer stated that “the tiled houses, costing from Rs. 250 to Rs. 500, certainly point to their prosperity. They may frequently borrow from the Labbai to enable them to build, but, as I do not know of a single case in which the Labbai has ever seized the house and sold it, I believe this debt is soon discharged. The walled-in, terraced fields immediately around their villages, on which they grow their barley and other grains requiring rich cultivation, are well worked, and regularly manured. The coats, good thick blankets, and gold ear-rings, which most Badagas now possess, can only, I think, point to their prosperity, while their constant feasts, and disinclination to work on Sundays, show that the loss of a few days’ pay does not affect them. On the other hand, a former Native official onthe Nīlgiris writes to me that “though the average Badaga is thrifty and hard-working, there is a tendency for him to be lazy when he is sure of his meal. When a person is sick in another village, his relatives make it an excuse to go and see him, and they have to be fed. When the first crop is raised, the idler pretends that ‘worms’ have crept into the crop, and the gods have to be propitiated, and there is a feast. Marriage or death, of course, draws a crowd to be fed or feasted. All this means extra expenditure, and a considerable drain on the slender income of the family. The Rowthan (Muhammadan merchant) from the Tamil country is near at hand to lend money, as he has carried his bazar to the very heart of the Badaga villages. First it is a bag of rāgi (food grain), a piece of cloth to throw on the coffin, or a few rupees worth of rice and curry-stuff doled out by the all-accommodating Rowthan at a price out of all proportion to the market rate, and at a rate ranging from six pies to two annas for the rupee. The ever impecunious Badaga has no means of extricating himself, with a slender income, which leaves no margin for redeeming debts. The bond is renewed every quarter or half year, and the debt grows by leaps and bounds, and consumes all his earthly goods, including lands. The advent of lawyers on the hills has made the Badagas a most litigious people, and they resort to the courts, which means expenditure of money, and neglect of agriculture.” In the funeral song of the Badagas, which has been translated by Mr. Gover,1one of the crimes enumerated, for which atonement must be made, is that of preferring a complaint to the Sirkar (Government), and one of their numerous proverbs embodies the same idea. “If youprefer a complaint to a Magistrate, it is as if you had put poison into your adversary’s food.” But Mr. Grigg writes,2“either the terrors of the Sirkar are not what they were, or this precept is much disregarded, for the Court-house at Ootacamund is constantly thronged with Badagas, and they are now very much given to litigation.”I gather from the notes, which Bishop Whitehead has kindly placed at my disposal, that “when the Badagas wish to take a very solemn oath, they go to the temple of Māriamma at Sigūr, and, after bathing in the stream and putting on only one cloth, offer fruits, cocoanuts, etc., and kill a sheep or fowl. They put the head of the animal on the step of the shrine, and make a line on the ground just in front of it. The person who is taking the oath then walks from seven feet off in seven steps, putting one foot immediately in front of the other, up to the line, crosses it, goes inside the shrine, and puts out a lamp that is burning in front of the image. If the oath is true, the man will walk without any difficulty straight to the shrine. But, if the oath is not true, his eyes will be blinded, and he will not be able to walk straight to the shrine, or see the lamp. It is a common saying among Badagas, when a man tells lies, ‘Will you go to Sigūr, and take an oath?’ Oaths are taken in much the same way at the temple of Māriamma at Ootacamund. When a Hindu gives evidence in the Court at Ootacamund, he is often asked by the Judge whether he will take an oath at the Māriamma temple. If he agrees, he is sent off to the temple with a Court official. The party for whom he gives evidence supplies a goat or sheep, which is killedat the temple, the head and carcase being placed in front of the image. The witness steps over the carcase, and this forms the oath. If the evidence is false, it is believed that some evil will happen to him.”The name Badaga or Vadugan means northerner, and the Badagas are believed to be descended from Canarese colonists from the Mysore country, who migrated to the Nīlgiris three centuries ago owing to famine, political turmoil, or local oppression in their own country. It is worthy of notice, in this connection, that the head of the Badagas, like that of the Todas and Kotas, is dolichocephalic, and not of the mesaticephalic or sub-brachycephalic type, which prevails throughout Mysore, as in other Canarese areas.Average.Cephalic length.Cephalic breadth.Cephalic index.cm.cm.Badaga18.913.671.7Toda19.414.273.3Kota19.214.274.1Of the Mysorean heads, the following are a few typical examples:—Average.Cephalic length.Cephalic breadth.Cephalic index.cm.cm.Ganiga18.514.377.6Bēdar18.314.377.7Holeya17.914.179.1Mandya Brahman18.514.880.2Vakkaliga17.714.581.7Concerning the origin of the Badagas, the following legend is current. Seven brothers and their sisters were living on the Talamalai hills. A Muhammadanruler attempted to ravish the girl, whom the brother saved from him by flight. They settled down near the present village of Bethalhada. After a short stay there, the brothers separated, and settled in different parts of the Nīlgiris, which they peopled. Concerning the second brother, Hethappa, who had two daughters, the story goes that, during his absence on one occasion, two Todas forced their way into his house, ravished his wife, and possessed themselves of hisworldlyeffects. Hearing of what had occurred, Hethappa sought the assistance of two Balayaru in revenging himself on the Todas. They readily consented to help him, in return for a promise that they should marry his daughters. The Todas were killed, and the present inhabitants of the village Hulikallu are supposed to be the descendants of the Balayaru and Badaga girls. The seven brothers are now worshipped under the name Hethappa or Hetha.In connection with the migration of the Badagas to the Nīlgiris, the following note is given in the Gazetteer of the Nīlgiris. “When this flitting took place there is little to show. It must have occurred after the foundation of the Lingāyat creed in the latter half of the twelfth century, as many of the Badagas are Lingāyats by faith, and sometime before the end of the sixteenth century, since in 1602 the Catholic priests from the west coast found them settled on the south of the plateau, and observing much the same relations with the Todas as subsist to this day. The present state of our knowledge does not enable us to fix more nearly the date of the migration. That the language of the Badagas, which is a form of Canarese, should by now have so widely altered from its original as to be classed as a separate dialect argues that the movement took place nearer the twelfth than the sixteenth century. On the other hand, thefact (pointed out by Dr. Rivers3) that the Badagas are not mentioned in a single one of the Todas’ legends about their gods, whereas the Kotas, Kurumbas, and Irulas, each play a part in one or more of these stories, raises the inference that the relations between the Badagas and the Todas are recent as compared with those between the other tribes. A critical study of the Badaga dialect might perhaps serve to fix within closer limits the date of the migration. As now spoken, this tongue contains letters (two forms of r for instance) and numerous words, which are otherwise met with only in ancient books, and which strike most strangely upon the ear of the present generation of Canarese. The date when some of these letters and words became obsolete might possibly be traced, and thus aid in fixing the period when the Badagas left the low country. It is known that the two forms of r, for example, had dropped out of use prior to the time of the grammarian Kēsirāja, who lived in the thirteenth century, and that the word betta (a hill), which the Badagas use in place of the modern bettu, is found in the thirteenth century work Sabdamanidarpana.”It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Nīlgiris, that “Nelliālam, about eight miles north-west of Dēvāla as the crow flies, is the residence of the Nelliālam Arasu (Urs), who has been recognised as the janmi (landlord) of a considerable area in the Munanād amsam, but is in reality a Canarese-speaking Lingāyat of Canarese extraction, who follows the ordinary Hindu law of inheritance, and is not a native of the Wynād or of Malabar. Family tradition, though now somewhat misty, says that in the beginning two brothers named Sadāsiva Rāja Urs and Bhujanga Rāja Urs moved (at some date and forsome reason not stated) from Ummattūr (in the present Chāmarājnagar taluk of Mysore), and settled at Malaikōta, the old fort near Kalhatti. Their family deities were Bhujangēsvara and Ummattūr Urakātti, which are still worshipped as such. They brought with them a following of Bēdars and Badagas, and thereafter always encouraged the immigration to the hills of more Canarese people. The village of Bannimara, a mile west of Kalhatti, is still peopled by Bēdars who are said to be descendants of people of that caste who came with the two brothers; and to this day, when the Badagas of the plateau have disputes of difficulty, they are said to go down to Nelliālam with presents (kānikai) in their hands, and ask the Arasu to settle their differences, while, at the time of their periodical ceremonies (manavalai) to the memory of their ancestors, they send a deputation to Nelliālam to invite representatives of the Arasu to be present.”Close to the village of Bethalhada is a row of cromlechs carved with figures of the sun and moon, human beings, animals, etc., and enclosed within a stone kraal, which the Badagas claim to be the work of their ancestors, to whom periodical offerings are made. At the time of my visit, there were within one of the cromlechs a conch shell, lingam, bell, and flowers. A number of these sculptured cromlechs at Sholūr, Mēlūr, and other spots on the Nīlgiris, are described and figured by Breeks,4who records that the cromlech at Jakata Kambē is interesting as being the place of the yearly sacrifice performed by the Badagas of the Jakanēri grāma (village) by their Kāni Kurumba. And he adds that the Badagas would seem to have usually selected theneighbourhood of these cromlechs for their temples, as for example, at Mēlūr, Kakūsi, H’laiuru, Tudūr, and Jakatāda.Dolmens near Kotagiri.Dolmens near Kotagiri.It is recorded5, in connection with the legends of the Badagas, that “in the heart of the Banagudi shōla, not far from the Doddūru group of cromlechs, is an odd little shrine to Karairāya, consisting of a ruined stone hut surrounded by a low wall, within which are a tiny cromlech, some sacred water-worn stones, and sundry little pottery images representing a tiger, a mounted man, and some dogs. These keep in memory, it is said, a Badaga who was slain in combat with a tiger; and annually a festival is held, at which new images are placed there, and vows are paid. A Kurumba makes fire by friction and burns incense, throws sanctified water over the numerous goats brought to be sacrificed, to see if they will shiver in the manner always held necessary in sacrificial victims, and then slays, one after the other, those which have shown themselves duly qualified. Hulikal Drūg, usually known as the Drūg, is a precipitous bluff at the very end of the range which borders on the south the great ravine which runs up to Coonoor. It is named from the neighbouring village of Hulikal, or tiger’s stone, and the story goes that this latter is so called because in it a Badaga killed a notorious man-eater which had long been the terror of the country side. The spot where the beast was buried is shown near the Pillaiyar temple to the south of Hulikal village, and is marked by three stones. Burton says there used formerly to be a stone image of the slain tiger thereabouts. Some two miles south-east of Kōnakarai in a place known as Kōttai-hāda, or the fort flat, liethe remains of the old fort Udaiya Rāya Kōta. Badaga tradition gives a fairly detailed account of Udaiya Rāya. It says he was a chief who collected the taxes for the Ummattūr Rājas, and that he had also a fort at Kullanthorai, near Sirumugai, the remains of which are still to be seen. He married a woman of Netlingi hamlet of Nedugula, named Muddu Gavari, but she died by the wrath of the gods because she persuaded him to celebrate the annual fire-walking festival in front of the fort, instead of at the customary spot by the Mahālingasvāmi temple about half a mile off. Ānaikatti is a hamlet situated in the jungle of the Moyar valley. The stream which flows past it tumbles over a pretty fall on the slopes of Bīrmukkū (Bimaka) hill. The Badagas call the spot Kuduraihallo, or the ravine of the horse, and say the name was given it because a Badaga, covered with shame at finding that his wife gave him first sort rice but his brother who lived with them only second sort, committed suicide by jumping his horse down the fall.”Badagas.Badagas.According to Mr. Grigg, the Badagas recognise eighteen different “castes or sects.” These are, however, simplified by Mr. S. M. Natesa Sāstri6into six, “five high castes and one low caste.” They are—1.Udaya.High caste.2.Hāruva.3.Adhikāri.4.Kanaka.5.Badaga.6.ToreyaLow caste.“Udayas are Lingāyats in religion, and carry the Sivalinga—the Siva image—tied round their necks. They claim to be superior to all the other Badagas, andare regarded as such. They are priests to all the Badagas of the Lingāyat class, and are strict vegetarians. They do not intermarry with any of the other high caste Badaga sects. Udaya was, and is the title assumed by the Maisūr Rājas, and those Badagas, by being thus designated as a caste, claim superior blood in their veins.” The Lingāyat Badagas are commonly called Lingakutti. “Next in rank come the Hāruvas. From their name being so closely connected with the Āryas—the respectable—and from their habit of wearing the Brāhmanical thread, we are warranted in believing that they must originally have been the poor Brāhman priests of the Badagas that migrated to this country (the Nīlgiris), though they have now got themselves closely mingled with the Badagas. These Hāruvas are also strict vegetarians, and act as priests.” It has been suggested that the Hāruvas (jumper) derive their name from the fire-walking ceremony, which they perform periodically. A further, and more probable suggestion has been made to me that Hāruva comes from a Canarese word meaning to beg or pray; hence one who begs or prays, and so a Brāhman. The Canarese Basava Purāna frequently uses the word in sense. “The Adhikāris are to a certain extent vegetarians. The other two high castes, and of course the low caste Toreyas also, have no objection of any kind to eating flesh. It is also said that the vegetarian Adhikāri, if he marries into a flesh-eating caste of the Badagas, betakes himself to this latter very readily.” The Kanakas are stated by Mr. Grigg to be the accountants, who were probably introduced when the hills were under the sway of the Tamil chiefs. This would, however, seem to be very improbable. “The Toreyas are regarded as sons and servants to the five high caste Badaga sects—to the Hāruvas especially.They are the lowest in the scale, and they are prohibited from intermarrying with the other or high caste Badagas, as long as they are sons to them.” The Toreya does the menial duties for the tribe. He is the village servant, carries the corpses to the burning-ground, conveys the news of a death from village to village, is the first to get shaved when a death occurs, and is sent along with a woman when she is going to visit her mother or mother-in-law at a distance from her own home. “The Udayas, Adhikāris and Kanakas are Lingāyats in religion, and the other three, the Hāruvas, Badagas, and Toreyas are Saivites.” Of the six divisions referred to, the Udayas and Toreyas are endogamous, but intermarriage is permissible between the other four. At the census, 1891, a large number of Badagas returned as their sub-division Vakkaliga, which means cultivator, and is the name of the great cultivating caste of Mysore.Seven miles west of Coonoor is a village named Athikārihatti, or village of the Athikāri or Adhikāri section of the Badagas. “The story goes that these people, under a leader named Karibetta Rāya, came from Sarigūr in Mysore territory, and settled first at Nelliturai (a short distance south-west of Mēttupālaiyam) and afterwards at Tūdūr (on the plateau west of Kulakambi) and Tadasimarahatti (to the north-west of Mēlūr), and that it was they who erected the sculptured cromlechs of Tūdūr and Mēlūr. Tūdūr and Tadasimarahatti are now both deserted; but in the former a cattle kraal, an old shrine, and a pit for fire-walking may still be seen, and in the latter another kraal, and one of the raised stone platforms called mandaikallu by the Badagas. Tradition says that the Badagas left these places and founded Athikārihatti and its hamlets instead, because the Kurumbas round about continually troubledthem with their magic arts, and indeed killed by sorcery several of their most prominent citizens.”7Badaga Girls.Badaga Girls.Like other Canarese people, the Badagas have exogamous septs or kūlas, of which Māri, Madhave (marriage), Kastūri (musk), and Belli (silver) are examples. A very large number of families belong to the Māri and Madhave septs, which were time after time given as the sept name in reply to my enquiries. It may be noted that Belli occurs as an exogamous sept of the Canarese classes Vakkaliga, Toreya, and Kuruba, and Kastūri is recorded in my notes as a sept of the Vakkaligas and Telugu Kammas.The Badagas dwell in extensive villages, generally situated on the summit of a low hillock, composed of rows of comfortable thatched or tiled houses, and surrounded by the fields, which yield the crops. The houses are not separate tenements, but a line of dwellings under one continuous roof, and divided by party walls. Sometimes there are two or three, or more lines, forming streets. Each house is partitioned off into an outer (edumane) and inner apartment (ozhaga or ōgamane). If the family has cows or buffaloes yielding milk, a portion of the latter is converted into a milk-house (hāgōttu), in which the milk is stored, and which no woman may enter. Even males who are under pollution, from having touched or passed near a Kota or Paraiyan, or other cause, may not enter it until they have had a ceremonial bath. To some houses a loft, made of bamboo posts, is added, to serve as a store-house. In every Badaga village there is a raised platform composed of a single boulder or several stones with an erect stone slab set up thereon, called sūththukallu. There is, further, a platform, made of bricks and mud, called mandhe kallu, whereon the Badagas, when not working, sit at ease. In their folk-tales men seated thereon are made to give information concerning the approach of strangers to the village. Strangers, who are not Badagas, are called Holeya. The Rev. G. Richter gives8Badaga Holeya as a division of the lowly Holeyas, who came to Coorg from the Mysore country. In front of the houses, the operations of drying and threshing grain are carried out. The cattle are kept in stone kraals, or covered sheds close to the habitations, and the litter is kept till it is knee or waist deep, and then carried away as manure for the Badaga’s land, or planters’ estates.“Nobody,” it has been said,9“can beat the Badaga at making mother earth produce to her utmost capacity, unless it be a Chinese gardener. To-day we see a portion of the hill side covered with rocks and boulders. The Badagas become possessed of this scene of chaos, and turn out into the place in hundreds, reducing it, in a few weeks, to neat order. The unwieldy boulders, having been rolled aside, serve their purpose by being turned into a wall to keep out cattle, etc. The soil is pounded and worried until it becomes amenable to reason, and next we see a green crop running in waves over the surface. The Badagas are the most progressive of all the hill tribes, and always willing to test any new method of cultivation, or new crops brought to their notice by the Nilgiri Horticultural Society.”Writing in 1832, Harkness states10that “on leaving his house in the morning the Burgher pays his adorationto the god of day, proceeds to the tu-el or yard, in which the cattle have been confined, and, again addressing the sun as the emblem of Siva, asks his blessing, and liberates the herd. He allows the cattle to stray about in the neighbourhood of the village, on a piece of ground which is always kept for this purpose, and, having performed his morning ablutions, commences the milking. This is also preceded by further salutations and praises to the sun. On entering the house in the evening, the Burgher addresses the lamp, now the only light, or visible emblem of the deity. ‘Thou, creator of this and of all worlds, the greatest of the great, who art with us, as well in the mountain as in the wilderness, who keepeth the wreaths that adorn the head from fading, who guardeth the foot from the thorn, God, among a hundred, may we be prosperous.’”The Badaga understands the rotation of crops well. On his land he cultivates bearded wheat (beer ganji), barley, onions, garlic, potatoes, kīrē (Amarantus), sāmai (Panicum miliare), tenai (Setaria italica), etc.“Among the Badagas,” Mr. Natesa Sastri writes, “the position of the women is somewhat different from what it is among most peoples. Every Badaga has a few acres to cultivate, but he does not mainly occupy himself with them, for his wife does all the out-door farm work, while he is engaged otherwise in earning something in hard cash. To a Badaga, therefore, his wife is his capital. Her labour in the field is considered to be worth one rupee per day, while an average male Badaga earns merely three annas. A Badaga woman, who has not her own acres to cultivate, finds work on some other lands. She thus works hard for her husband and family, and is quite content with the coarsest food—the korali (Setaria italica) flour—leaving thebetter food to the male members of the family. This fact, and the hard work the Badaga women have to perform, may perhaps account to some extent for the slight build of the Badagas as a race. The male Badaga, too, works in the field, or at his own craft if he is not a cultivator, but his love for ready cash is always so great that, even if he had a harvest to gather the next morning, he would run away as a cooly for two annas wages.” Further, Mr. Grigg states that “as the men constantly leave their villages to work on coffee plantations, much of the labour in their own fields, as well as ordinary household work, is performed by the women. They are so industrious, and their services of such value to their husbands, that a Badaga sometimes pays 150 or 200 rupees as dowry for his wife.” In the off season for cultivation, I am informed, the Badaga woman collects faggots for home consumption, and stores them near her house, and the women prepare the fields for cultivation by weeding, breaking the earth, and collecting manure.In his report on the revenue settlement of the Nilgiris (1885), Mr. (now Sir) R. S. Benson notes that “concurrently with the so-called abolition of the bhurty (or shifting) system of cultivation, Mr. Grant abolished the peculiar system in vogue up to that time in Kundahnad, which had been transferred from Malabar to the Nilgiris in 1860. This system was known as erkādu kothukādu. Under it, a tax of Re. 1 to Re. 1–8–0 was levied for the right to use a plough or er, and a tax of from 4 to 8 annas was levied for the right to use a hoe or kothu. The so-called patta issued to the ryot under this system was really no more than a license to use one or more hoes, as the case might be. It merely specified the amount payable for each instrument, but in no caseswas the extent or position of the lands to be cultivated specified. The ryot used his implements whenever and wherever he pleased. No restrictions, even on the felling of forests, were imposed, so that the hill-sides and valleys were cleared at will. The system was abolished in 1862. But, during the settlement, I found this erkādu kothukādu system still in force in the flourishing Badaga village of Kinnakorai, with some fifty houses.”In connection with the local self-government of the Badagas, Mr. A. Rajah Bahadur Mudaliar writes to me as follows. “In former days, the monegar was a great personage, as he formed the unit of the administration. The appointment was more or less hereditary, and it generally fell to the lot of the richest and most well-to-do. All disputes within his jurisdiction were placed before him, and his decision was accepted as final. In simple matters, such as partition of property, disputes between husband and wife, etc., the monegars themselves disposed of them. But, when questions of a complicated nature presented themselves, they took as their colleagues other people of the villages, and the disputes were settled by the collective wisdom of the village elders. They assembled at a place set apart for the purpose beneath a nīm (Melia Azadirachta) or pīpal tree (Ficus religiosa) on a raised platform (ratchai), generally situated at the entrance to the village. The monegar wasex-officiopresident of such councils. He and the committee had power to fine the parties, to excommunicate them, and to readmit them to the caste. Parents resorted to the monegar for counsel in the disposal of their daughters in marriage, and in finding brides for their sons. If any one had the audacity to run counter to the wishes of the monegar in mattersmatrimonial, he had the power to throw obstacles in the way of such marriages taking place. The monegar, in virtue of his position, wielded much power, and ruled the village as he pleased.” In the old days, it is said, when he visited any village within his jurisdiction, the monegar had the privilege of having the best women or maids of the place to share his cot according to his choice. In former times, the monegar used to wear a silver ring as the badge of office, and some Badagas still have in their possession such rings, which are preserved as heirlooms, and worshipped during festivals. The term monegar is, at the present day, used for the village revenue official and munsiff.I gather that each exogamous sept has its headman, called Gouda, who is assisted by a Parpattikāran, and decides tribal matters, such as disputes, divorce, etc. Fines, when inflicted, go towards feasting the tribe, and doing pūja (worship) to the gods. In the case of a dispute between two parties, one challenges the other to take an oath in a temple before the village council. A declaration on oath settles the matter at issue, and the parties agree to abide by it. It is the duty of the Parpattikāran to make arrangements for such events as the Heththeswāmi, Devvē and Bairaganni festivals, and the buffalo sacrificing festival at Konakkore. The Parpattikāran takes part in the purification of excommunicated members of the tribe, when they are received back into it, for example, on release from prison. The tongue of the delinquent is burnt with a hot sandal stick, and a new waist thread put on. He is taken to the temple, where he stands amidst the assembled Badagas, who touch his head with a cane. He then prostrates himself at the feet of the Parpattikāran, who smears his forehead with sacred ashes. It is, further, the duty ofthe Parpattikāran to be present on the occasion of the Kannikattu (pregnancy) ceremony.A quarter of a century ago, a Badaga could be at once picked out from the other tribes of the Nīlgiris by his wearing a turban. But, in the present advanced age, not only does the Toda sometimes appear in the national head-dress, but even Irulas and Kurumbas, who only a short time ago were buried in the jungles, living like pigs and bears on roots, honey and other forest produce, turn up on Sundays in the Kotagiri bazar, clad in turban and coat of English cut. And, as the less civilised tribes don the turban, so the college student abandons this picturesque form of head-gear in favour of the less becoming and less washable porkpie cap, while the Badaga men and youths glory in a knitted night-cap of flaring red or orange hue. The body of the Badaga man is covered by a long body-cloth, sometimes with red and blue stripes, wrapped “so loosely that, as a man works in the fields, he is obliged to stop between every few strokes of his hoe, to gather up his cloth, and throw one end over his shoulder.” Male adornment is limited to gold ear-rings of a special pattern made by Kotas or goldsmiths, a silver waist-thread, silver bangle on the wrist, and silver, copper, or brass rings. The women wear a white body-cloth, a white under-cloth tied round the chest, tightly wrapped square across the breasts, and reaching to the knees, and a white cloth worn like a cap on the head. As types of female jewelry and tattooing, the following examples may be cited:—1. Tattooed on forehead with dashes, circles and crescent; spot on chin; double row of dots on each upper arm over deltoid; and devices and double row of dots on right forearm. Gold ornament in left nostril. Necklets of glass beads and silver links with four-annapiece pendent. Silver armlet above right elbow. Four copper armlets above left elbow. Four silver and seven composition bangles on left forearm. Two silver rings on right ring-finger; two steel rings on left ring-finger.2. Tattooed on forehead; quadruple row of dots over right deltoid; star on right forearm.3. Tattooed like the preceding on forehead and upper arm. Spot on chin; elaborate device on right forearm; rayed star or sun on back of hand.4. Tattooed like the preceding on forehead and arm. Triple row of dots on back and front of left wrist, and double row of dots, with circle surrounded by dots, across chest.Toreya women are only allowed to wear bangles on the wrist.The tattoo marks on the foreheads of Udayar women consist of a crescent and dot, and they have a straight line tattooed at the outer corners of the eyes. Women of the other sub-divisions have on the forehead two circles with two vertical dashes between them, and a horizontal or crescentic dash below. The circles are made by pricking in the pigment over an impression made with a finger ring, or over a black mark made by means of such a ring. The operation is performed either by a Badaga or Korava woman. The former uses as needles the spines ofCarissa spinarum, and a mixture of finely powdered charcoal or lamp-black mixed with rice gruel. The marks on the forehead are made when a girl is about eight or nine years old, and do not, as stated by Mr. Natesa Sastri, proclaim to the whole Badaga world that a girl is of marriageable age.In colour the Badagas are lighter than the other hill tribes, and the comparative pallor of the skin is specially noticeable in the females, whom, with very few exceptions,I was only able to study by surreptitious examination, when we met on the roads. In physique, the typical Badaga man is below middle height, smooth-skinned, of slender build, with narrow chest and shoulders.Badaga men have cicatrices on the shoulder and forearm as the result of branding with a fire-stick when they are lads, with the object, it is said, of giving strength, and preventing pain when milking or churning. In like manner, the Todas have raised cicatrices (keloids) on the shoulder produced by branding with a fire-stick. They believe that the branding enables them to milk the buffaloes with perfect ease.The Badagas have a very extensive repertoire of hora hesaru, or nicknames, of which the following are examples:—One who eats in bed during the night.Snorer.Stupid.Bald head.Brown-eyed.Thin and bony.Big head.Bandy-legged.One who returned alive from the burning ground.Ripe fruit.Big-thighed.Blind.Lame.Big calves.Piles.Liar.Cat-eyed.Fond of pot-herbs.Rheumatic.Bad-tempered.Left-handed.Buffalo grazer.Saliva dribbling.Honey-eater.Black.Spleen.Teeth.Potato-eater.Glutton.Belly.Itch legged.One who was slow in learning to walk.Tall.Thief-eyed.Pustule-bodied.Scarred.Hairy.Weak, like partially baked pots.Strong, like portland cement.Among the Badagas, Konga is used as a term of abuse. Those who made mistakes in matching Holmgren’s wools, with which I tested them, were, always called Konga by the onlookers.When two Badagas meet each other, the elder touches the head of the younger with his right hand. This form of salutation is known as giving the head. A person of the Badaga section gives the head, as it is called, to an Udaiyar, in token of the superiority of the latter. When people belong to the same sept, they say “Ba, anna, appa, thamma, amma, akka” (come, father, brother, mother, sister, etc.). But, if they are of different septs, they will say “Ba, māma, māmi, bava” (come, uncle, aunt, brother-in-law, etc.). “Whenever,” Dr. Rivers writes,11“a Toda meets a Badaga monegar (headman), or an old Badaga with whom he is acquainted, a salutation passes between the two. The Toda stands before the Badaga, inclines his head slightly, and says ‘Madtin pudia.’ (Madtin, you have come). The Badaga replies ‘Buthuk! buthuk!’ (blessing, blessing), and rests his hand on the top of the Toda’s head. This greeting only takes place between Todas and the more important of the Badaga community. It would seem that every Badaga headman may be greeted in this way, but a Toda will only greet other Badaga elders, if he is already acquainted with them. The salutation is made to members of all the various castes of the Badagas, except the Toreyas. It has been held to imply that the Todas regard the Badagas as their superiors, but it is doubtful how far this is the case. The Todas themselves say they follow the custom because the Badagas help to support them. It seems to be a mark of respect paidby the Todas to the elders of a tribe with which they have very close relations, and it is perhaps significant that no similar sign of respect is shown to Toda elders by the Badagas.”Every Badaga family has its Muttu Kota, from whom it gets the agricultural implements, pots, hoes, etc. In return, the Kotas receive an annual present of food-grains, mustard and potatoes. For a Kota funeral, the Badagas have to give five rupees or a quantity of rice, and a buffalo. The pots obtained from the Kotas are not used immediately, but kept for three days in the jungle, or in a bush in some open spot. They are then taken to the outer apartment of the house, and kept there for three days, when they are smeared with the bark ofMeliosma pungens(the tūd tree of the Todas) and culms ofAndropogon Schœnanthus(bzambe hullu). Thus purified, the pots are used for boiling water in for three days, and may then be used for any purpose. The Badagas are said to give a present of grain annually to the Todas. Every Toda mand (or mad) seems to have its own group of Badaga families, who pay them this gudu, as it is called. “There are,” Dr. Rivers writes, “several regulations concerning the food of the palol (dairy man of a Toda sacred dairy). Any grain he eats must be that provided by the Badagas. At the present time more rice is eaten than was formerly the case. This is not grown by the Badagas, but nevertheless the rice for the palol must be obtained through them. The palol wears garments of a dark grey material made in the Coimbatore district. They are brought to the palol by the Badaga called tikelfmav. The earthenware vessels of the inner room (of the ti dairy) are not obtained from the Kotas, like the ordinary vessels, but are made by Hindus, and are procured through the Badagas.”The Badagas live in dread of the Kurumbas, and the Kurumba constantly comes under reference in their folk-stories. The Kurumba is the necromancer of the hills, and believed to be possessed of the power of outraging women, removing their livers, and so causing their death, while the wound heals by magic, so that no trace of the operation is left. He is supposed, too, to have the power of opening the bolts of doors by magic and effecting an entrance into a house at night for some nefarious purpose. The Toda or Badaga requires the services of the Kurumba, when he fancies that any member of his family is possessed of the devil, or when he wants to remove the evil eye, to which he imagines that his children have been subjected. The Kurumba does his best to remove the malady by repeating various mantrams (magical formulæ). If he fails, and if any suspicion is aroused in the mind of the Toda or Badaga that he is allowing the devil to play his pranks instead of loosing his hold on the supposed victim, woe betide him. The wrath of the entire village, or even the whole tribe, is raised against the unhappy Kurumba. His hut is surrounded at night, and the entire household massacred in cold blood, and their huts set on fire. This is very cleverly carried out, and the isolated position of the Kurumba settlements allows of very little clue for identification. In 1835 no less than fifty-eight Kurumbas were thus murdered, and a smaller number in 1875 and 1882. In 1891 the live inmates of a single hut were murdered, and their hut burnt to ashes, because, it was said, one of them who had been treating a sick Badaga child failed to cure it. The crime was traced to some Kotas in conjunction with Badagas, but the District Judge disbelieved the evidence, and all who were charged were acquitted. Every Badaga family pays an annualtax of four annas to the Kurumbas, and, if a Kurumba comes to a Badaga hatti (village), a subscription is raised as an inducement to him to take his departure. The Kurumba receives a fee for every Badaga funeral, and for the pregnancy ceremony (kannikattu).It is noted by Dr. Rivers that “the Toda sorcerers are not only feared by their fellow Todas, but also by the Badagas, and it is probably largely owing to fear of Toda sorcery that the Badagas continue to pay their tribute of grain. The Badagas may also consult the Toda diviners, and it is probable that the belief of the Badagas in the magical powers of the Todas is turned to good account by the latter. In some cases, Todas, have been killed by Badagas owing to this belief.”Among the Todas, the duties of milking the buffaloes and dairy-work are entrusted to special individuals, whereas any Badaga male may, after initiation, milk the cows and buffaloes, provided that he is free from pollution. Every Badaga boy, when he is about seven or nine years old, is made to milk a cow on an auspicious day, or on new year’s day. The ceremony is thus described by Mr. Natesa Sastri. “Early in the morning of the day appointed for this ceremony, the boy is bathed, and appears in his holiday dress. A she-buffalo, with her calf, stands before his house, waiting to be milked. The parents, or other elder relations of the boy, and those who have been invited to be present on the occasion, or whose duty it is to be present, then conduct the boy to the spot. The father, or some one of the agnatic kindred, gives into the hands of the boy a bamboo vessel called honē, which is already very nearly full of fresh-drawn milk. The boy receives the vessel with both his hands, and is conducted to the buffalo. The elder relations show him the process, and the boy,sitting down, milks a small quantity into the honē. This is his first initiation into the duty of milking, and it is that he may not commit mistakes on the very first day of his milking that the honē is previously filled almost to the brim. The boy takes the vessel filled with milk into his house, and pours some of the sacred fluid into all his household eating vessels—a sign that from that day he has taken up on himself the responsibility of supplying the family with milk. He also throws some milk in the faces of his parents and relatives. They receive it very kindly, and bless him, and request him to continue thus to milk the buffaloes, and bring plenty and prosperity to the house. After this, the boy enters the milk-house (hāgōttu), and places milk in his honē there. From this moment, and all through his life, he may enter into that room, and this is therefore considered a very important ceremony.”A cow or buffalo, which has calved for the first time, has to be treated in a special manner. For three or five days it is not milked. A boy is then selected to milk it. He must not sleep on a mat, or wear a turban, and, instead of tying his cloth round his waist, must wear it loosely over his body. Meat is forbidden, and he must avoid, and not speak to polluting classes, such as Irulas and Kotas, and menstruating women. On the day appointed for milking the animal, the boy bathes, and proceeds to milk it into a new honē purified by smearing a paste ofMeliosma(tūd) leaves and bark over it, and heating it over a fire. The milk is taken to a stream, where three cups are made ofArgyreia(mīnige) leaves, into which a small quantity of the milk is placed. The cups are then put in the water. The remainder of the milk in the honē is also poured into the stream. In some places, especially where a Mādeswara temple isclose at hand, the milk is taken to the temple, and given to the pūjāri. With a portion of the milk some plantain fruits are made into a pulp, and given to an Udaya, who throws them into a stream. The boy is treated with some respect by his family during the period when he milks the animal, and is given food first. This he must eat off a plate made ofArgyreia, or plantain leaves.Besides the hāgōttu within the house, the Badagas have, at certain places, separate dairy-houses near a temple dedicated to Heththeswāmi, of which the one at Bairaganni (or Bērganni) appears to be the most important. The dairy pūjāri is here, like the Toda palol, a celibate. In 1905, he was a young lad, whom my Brāhman assistant set forth to photograph. He was, however, met at a distance from the village by a headman, who assured him that he could not take the photograph without the sanction of fifteen villages. The pūjāri is not allowed to wander freely about the village, or talk to grown-up women. He cooks his own food within the temple grounds, and wears his cloth thrown loosely over his body. Once a year, on the occasion of a festival, he is presented with new cloths and turban, which alone he may wear. He must be a strict vegetarian. A desire to marry and abandon the priesthood is believed to be conveyed in dreams, or through one inspired. Before leaving the temple service, he must train his successor in the duties, and retires with the gains acquired by the sale of the products of the herd and temple offerings. The village of Bairaganni is regarded as sacred, and possesses no holagudi (menstrual hut).Bishop Whitehead adds that “buffaloes are given as offerings to the temple at Bairaganni, and become the property of the pūjāri, who milks them, and uses themilk for his food. All the villagers give him rice every day. He may only eat once a day, at about 3P.M.He cooks the meal himself, and empties the rice from the cooking-pot by turning it over once. If the rice does not come out the first time, he cannot take it at all. When he wants to get married, another boy is appointed in his place. The buffaloes are handed over to his successor.” The following legend in connection with Bairaganni is also recorded by Bishop Whitehead. “There is a village in the Mēkanād division of the Nīlgiris called Nundāla. A man had a daughter. He wanted to marry her to a man in the Paranganād division about a hundred years ago. She did not wish to marry him. The father insisted, but she refused again and again. At last she wished to die, and came near a tank, on the bank of which was a tree. She sat under the tree and washed, and then threw herself into the tank. One of the men of Bairaganni in the Paranganād division saw the woman in a dream. She told him that she was not a human being but a goddess, an incarnation of Parvati. The people of Nundāla built a strong bund (embankment) round the tank, and allow no woman to go on it. Only the pūjāri, and Badagas who have prepared themselves by fasting and ablution, are allowed to go on the bund to offer pūja, which is done by breaking cocoanuts, and offering rice, flowers, and fruits. The woman told the man in his dream to build a temple at Bairaganni, which is now the chief temple of Heththeswāmi.”Concerning the initiation of a Lingāyat Badaga into his religion, which takes place at about his thirteenth birthday, Mr. Natesa Sastri writes as follows. “The priest conducts this ceremony, and the elder relations of the family have only to arrange for the performanceof it. The priests belong to the Udaya sect. They live in their own villages, and are specially sent for, and come to the boy’s village for the occasion. The ceremony is generally done to several boys of about the same age on the same day. On the day appointed, all the people in the Badaga village, where this ceremony is to take place, observe a strict fast. The cows and buffaloes are all milked very early in the morning, and not a drop of the milk thus collected is given out, or taken by even the tenderest children of the village, who may require it very badly. The Udaya priest arrives near the village between 10A.M.and noon on the day appointed. He never goes into the village, but stops near some rivulet adjacent to it. The relations of the boy approach him with a new basket, containing five measures of uncooked rice, pulse, ghī, etc., and a quarter of a rupee—one fanam, as it is generally designated. The priest sits near the water-course, and lights a fire on the bank. Perfumes are thrown profusely into it, and this is almost the only ceremony before the fire. The boys, whose turn it is to receive the linga that day, are all directed to bathe in the river. A plantain leaf, cut into one foot square, is placed in front of the fire towards the east of it. The lingas, kept in readiness by the parents of the boys, are now received by the priest, and placed on the leaves. The boys are asked to wash them—each one the linga meant for his wearing—in water and milk. Then comes the time for the expenditure of all the collected milk of the morning. Profusely the white fluid is poured, till the whole rivulet is nothing but a stream of milk. After the lingas are thus washed, the boys give them to the priest, who places them in his left palm, and, covering them with his right, utters, with all the solemnity due to the occasion, the followingincantation, while the boys and the whole village assembled there listen to it with the most profound respect and veneration ‘Oh! Siva, Hara, Basava, the Lord of all the six thousand and three thousand names and glories, the Lord of one lakh and ninety-six thousand ganas (body-guards of Siva), the donor of water, the daily-to-be worshipped, the husband of Parvati. Oh! Lord, O! Siva Linga, thy feet alone are our resort. Oh! Siva, Siva, Siva, Siva.’ While pronouncing this prayer, the priest now and then removes his right palm, and pours water and milk round the sacred fire, and over the lingas resting in his left palm. He then places each of the lingas in a cloth of one cubit square, rolls it up, and requests the boys to hold out their right palms. The young Badaga receives it, repeats the prayer given about five times, and, during each repetition, the palm holding the linga tied up in the cloth is carried nearer and nearer to his neck. When that is reached (on the fifth utterance of the incantation), the priest ties the ends of the rolled up cloth containing the Siva emblem loosely round the boy’s neck, while the latter is all the while kneeling down, holding with both his hands the feet of the priest. After the linga has been tied, the priest blesses him thus: ‘May one become one thousand to you. May you ever preserve in you the Siva Linga. If you do so, you will have plenty of milk and food, and you will prosper for one thousand years in name and fame, kine and coin.’ If more than one have to receive the linga on the same day, each of them has to undergo this ceremony. After the ceremony is over, the priest returns to his village with the rice, etc., and fees. Every house, in which a boy has received the linga, has to give a grand feast on that day. Even the poorest Badaga must feed at least five other Badagas.”The foregoing account of the investiture with the lingam apparently applies to the Mēkanād Udayas. The following note is based on information supplied by the Udayas of Paranginād. The ceremony of investiture is performed either on new year’s day or Sivarāthri by an Udaya priest in the house of a respected member of the community (doddamane), which is vacated for the occasion. The houses of the boys and girls who are to receive lingams are cleaned, and festoons of tūd and mango leaves, lime fruits, and flowers ofLeucas aspera(thumbē) are tied across the doorways, and in front of the house where the ceremony is to be performed. Until the conclusion thereof, all the people of the village fast. The candidates, with their parents, and the officiating priest repair to the doddamane. The lingams are handed over to the priest, who, taking them up one by one, does pūja to them, and gives them to the children. They in turn do pūja, and the lingams, wrapped in pink silk or cotton cloths, are tied round their necks. The pūja consists of washing the lingams in cow’s urine and milk, smearing them with sandal and turmeric paste, throwing flowers on them, and waving incense and burning camphor before them. After the investiture, the novices are taught a prayer, which is not a stereotyped formula, but varies with the priest and village.Like other Lingayats, the Udayas respect the Jangam, but do not employ the Jangama thirtham (water used for washing the Jangam’s feet) for bathing their lingams. In Udaya villages there is no special menstrual hut (holagudi). Milk is not regarded by them as a sacred product, so there is no hāgōttu in their houses. Nor do they observe the Manavalai festival in honour of ancestors. Other ceremonies are celebrated by them, asby other Badagas, but they do not employ the services of a Kurumba.Important agricultural ceremonies are performed by the Badagas at the time of sowing and harvest. The seed-sowing ceremony takes place in March, and, in some places,e.g., the Mēkanād and Paranginād, a Kurumba plays an important part in it. On an auspicious day—a Tuesday before the crescent moon—a pūjāri of the Devvē temple sets out several hours before dawn with five or seven kinds of grain in a basket and sickle, accompanied by a Kurumba, and leading a pair of bullocks with a plough. On reaching the field selected, the pūjāri pours the grain into the cloth of the Kurumba, and, yoking the animals to the plough, makes three furrows in the soil. The Kurumba, stopping the bullocks, kneels on the ground between the furrows facing east. Removing his turban, he places it on the ground, and, closing his ears with his palms, bawls out “Dho, Dho,” thrice. He then rises, and scatters the grain thrice on the soil. The pūjāri and Kurumba then return to the village, and the former deposits what remains of the grain in the store-room (attu). A new pot, full of water, is placed in the milk-house, and the pūjāri dips his right hand therein, saying “Nerathubitta” (it is full). This ceremony is an important one for the Badagas, as, until it has been performed, sowing may not commence. It is a day of feasting, and, in addition to rice,Dolichos Lablabis cooked.
Badaga.—As the Todas are the pastoral, and the Kotas the artisan tribe of the Nīlgiris, so the agricultural element on these hills is represented by the Badagas (or, as they are sometimes called, Burghers). Their number was returned, at the census, 1901, as 34,178 against 1,267 Kotas, and 807 Todas. Though the primary occupation of the Badagas is agriculture, there are among their community schoolmasters, clerks, public works contractors, bricklayers, painters, carpenters, sawyers, tailors, gardeners, forest guards, barbers, washermen, and scavengers. Many work on tea and coffee estates, and gangs of Badagas can always be seen breaking stones on, and repairing the hill roads. Others are, at the present day, earning good wages in the Cordite Factory near Wellington. Some of the more prosperouspossess tea and coffee estates of their own. The rising generation are, to some extent, learning Tamil and English, in addition to their own language, which is said to resemble old Canarese. And I have heard a youthful Badaga, tending a flock of sheep, address an errant member thereof in very fluent Billingsgate. There were, in 1904–1905, thirty-nine Badaga schools, which were attended by 1,222 pupils. In 1907, one Badaga had passed the Matriculation of the Madras University, and was a clerk in the Sub-judge’s Court at Ootacamund.A newspaper discussion was carried on a few years ago as to the condition of the Badagas, and whether they are a down-trodden tribe, bankrupt and impoverished to such a degree that it is only a short time before something must be done to ameliorate their condition, and save them from extermination by inducing them to emigrate to the Wynād and Vizagapatam. A few have, in recent years, migrated to the Anaimalai hills, to work on the planters’ estates, which have been opened up there. One writer stated that “the tiled houses, costing from Rs. 250 to Rs. 500, certainly point to their prosperity. They may frequently borrow from the Labbai to enable them to build, but, as I do not know of a single case in which the Labbai has ever seized the house and sold it, I believe this debt is soon discharged. The walled-in, terraced fields immediately around their villages, on which they grow their barley and other grains requiring rich cultivation, are well worked, and regularly manured. The coats, good thick blankets, and gold ear-rings, which most Badagas now possess, can only, I think, point to their prosperity, while their constant feasts, and disinclination to work on Sundays, show that the loss of a few days’ pay does not affect them. On the other hand, a former Native official onthe Nīlgiris writes to me that “though the average Badaga is thrifty and hard-working, there is a tendency for him to be lazy when he is sure of his meal. When a person is sick in another village, his relatives make it an excuse to go and see him, and they have to be fed. When the first crop is raised, the idler pretends that ‘worms’ have crept into the crop, and the gods have to be propitiated, and there is a feast. Marriage or death, of course, draws a crowd to be fed or feasted. All this means extra expenditure, and a considerable drain on the slender income of the family. The Rowthan (Muhammadan merchant) from the Tamil country is near at hand to lend money, as he has carried his bazar to the very heart of the Badaga villages. First it is a bag of rāgi (food grain), a piece of cloth to throw on the coffin, or a few rupees worth of rice and curry-stuff doled out by the all-accommodating Rowthan at a price out of all proportion to the market rate, and at a rate ranging from six pies to two annas for the rupee. The ever impecunious Badaga has no means of extricating himself, with a slender income, which leaves no margin for redeeming debts. The bond is renewed every quarter or half year, and the debt grows by leaps and bounds, and consumes all his earthly goods, including lands. The advent of lawyers on the hills has made the Badagas a most litigious people, and they resort to the courts, which means expenditure of money, and neglect of agriculture.” In the funeral song of the Badagas, which has been translated by Mr. Gover,1one of the crimes enumerated, for which atonement must be made, is that of preferring a complaint to the Sirkar (Government), and one of their numerous proverbs embodies the same idea. “If youprefer a complaint to a Magistrate, it is as if you had put poison into your adversary’s food.” But Mr. Grigg writes,2“either the terrors of the Sirkar are not what they were, or this precept is much disregarded, for the Court-house at Ootacamund is constantly thronged with Badagas, and they are now very much given to litigation.”I gather from the notes, which Bishop Whitehead has kindly placed at my disposal, that “when the Badagas wish to take a very solemn oath, they go to the temple of Māriamma at Sigūr, and, after bathing in the stream and putting on only one cloth, offer fruits, cocoanuts, etc., and kill a sheep or fowl. They put the head of the animal on the step of the shrine, and make a line on the ground just in front of it. The person who is taking the oath then walks from seven feet off in seven steps, putting one foot immediately in front of the other, up to the line, crosses it, goes inside the shrine, and puts out a lamp that is burning in front of the image. If the oath is true, the man will walk without any difficulty straight to the shrine. But, if the oath is not true, his eyes will be blinded, and he will not be able to walk straight to the shrine, or see the lamp. It is a common saying among Badagas, when a man tells lies, ‘Will you go to Sigūr, and take an oath?’ Oaths are taken in much the same way at the temple of Māriamma at Ootacamund. When a Hindu gives evidence in the Court at Ootacamund, he is often asked by the Judge whether he will take an oath at the Māriamma temple. If he agrees, he is sent off to the temple with a Court official. The party for whom he gives evidence supplies a goat or sheep, which is killedat the temple, the head and carcase being placed in front of the image. The witness steps over the carcase, and this forms the oath. If the evidence is false, it is believed that some evil will happen to him.”The name Badaga or Vadugan means northerner, and the Badagas are believed to be descended from Canarese colonists from the Mysore country, who migrated to the Nīlgiris three centuries ago owing to famine, political turmoil, or local oppression in their own country. It is worthy of notice, in this connection, that the head of the Badagas, like that of the Todas and Kotas, is dolichocephalic, and not of the mesaticephalic or sub-brachycephalic type, which prevails throughout Mysore, as in other Canarese areas.Average.Cephalic length.Cephalic breadth.Cephalic index.cm.cm.Badaga18.913.671.7Toda19.414.273.3Kota19.214.274.1Of the Mysorean heads, the following are a few typical examples:—Average.Cephalic length.Cephalic breadth.Cephalic index.cm.cm.Ganiga18.514.377.6Bēdar18.314.377.7Holeya17.914.179.1Mandya Brahman18.514.880.2Vakkaliga17.714.581.7Concerning the origin of the Badagas, the following legend is current. Seven brothers and their sisters were living on the Talamalai hills. A Muhammadanruler attempted to ravish the girl, whom the brother saved from him by flight. They settled down near the present village of Bethalhada. After a short stay there, the brothers separated, and settled in different parts of the Nīlgiris, which they peopled. Concerning the second brother, Hethappa, who had two daughters, the story goes that, during his absence on one occasion, two Todas forced their way into his house, ravished his wife, and possessed themselves of hisworldlyeffects. Hearing of what had occurred, Hethappa sought the assistance of two Balayaru in revenging himself on the Todas. They readily consented to help him, in return for a promise that they should marry his daughters. The Todas were killed, and the present inhabitants of the village Hulikallu are supposed to be the descendants of the Balayaru and Badaga girls. The seven brothers are now worshipped under the name Hethappa or Hetha.In connection with the migration of the Badagas to the Nīlgiris, the following note is given in the Gazetteer of the Nīlgiris. “When this flitting took place there is little to show. It must have occurred after the foundation of the Lingāyat creed in the latter half of the twelfth century, as many of the Badagas are Lingāyats by faith, and sometime before the end of the sixteenth century, since in 1602 the Catholic priests from the west coast found them settled on the south of the plateau, and observing much the same relations with the Todas as subsist to this day. The present state of our knowledge does not enable us to fix more nearly the date of the migration. That the language of the Badagas, which is a form of Canarese, should by now have so widely altered from its original as to be classed as a separate dialect argues that the movement took place nearer the twelfth than the sixteenth century. On the other hand, thefact (pointed out by Dr. Rivers3) that the Badagas are not mentioned in a single one of the Todas’ legends about their gods, whereas the Kotas, Kurumbas, and Irulas, each play a part in one or more of these stories, raises the inference that the relations between the Badagas and the Todas are recent as compared with those between the other tribes. A critical study of the Badaga dialect might perhaps serve to fix within closer limits the date of the migration. As now spoken, this tongue contains letters (two forms of r for instance) and numerous words, which are otherwise met with only in ancient books, and which strike most strangely upon the ear of the present generation of Canarese. The date when some of these letters and words became obsolete might possibly be traced, and thus aid in fixing the period when the Badagas left the low country. It is known that the two forms of r, for example, had dropped out of use prior to the time of the grammarian Kēsirāja, who lived in the thirteenth century, and that the word betta (a hill), which the Badagas use in place of the modern bettu, is found in the thirteenth century work Sabdamanidarpana.”It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Nīlgiris, that “Nelliālam, about eight miles north-west of Dēvāla as the crow flies, is the residence of the Nelliālam Arasu (Urs), who has been recognised as the janmi (landlord) of a considerable area in the Munanād amsam, but is in reality a Canarese-speaking Lingāyat of Canarese extraction, who follows the ordinary Hindu law of inheritance, and is not a native of the Wynād or of Malabar. Family tradition, though now somewhat misty, says that in the beginning two brothers named Sadāsiva Rāja Urs and Bhujanga Rāja Urs moved (at some date and forsome reason not stated) from Ummattūr (in the present Chāmarājnagar taluk of Mysore), and settled at Malaikōta, the old fort near Kalhatti. Their family deities were Bhujangēsvara and Ummattūr Urakātti, which are still worshipped as such. They brought with them a following of Bēdars and Badagas, and thereafter always encouraged the immigration to the hills of more Canarese people. The village of Bannimara, a mile west of Kalhatti, is still peopled by Bēdars who are said to be descendants of people of that caste who came with the two brothers; and to this day, when the Badagas of the plateau have disputes of difficulty, they are said to go down to Nelliālam with presents (kānikai) in their hands, and ask the Arasu to settle their differences, while, at the time of their periodical ceremonies (manavalai) to the memory of their ancestors, they send a deputation to Nelliālam to invite representatives of the Arasu to be present.”Close to the village of Bethalhada is a row of cromlechs carved with figures of the sun and moon, human beings, animals, etc., and enclosed within a stone kraal, which the Badagas claim to be the work of their ancestors, to whom periodical offerings are made. At the time of my visit, there were within one of the cromlechs a conch shell, lingam, bell, and flowers. A number of these sculptured cromlechs at Sholūr, Mēlūr, and other spots on the Nīlgiris, are described and figured by Breeks,4who records that the cromlech at Jakata Kambē is interesting as being the place of the yearly sacrifice performed by the Badagas of the Jakanēri grāma (village) by their Kāni Kurumba. And he adds that the Badagas would seem to have usually selected theneighbourhood of these cromlechs for their temples, as for example, at Mēlūr, Kakūsi, H’laiuru, Tudūr, and Jakatāda.Dolmens near Kotagiri.Dolmens near Kotagiri.It is recorded5, in connection with the legends of the Badagas, that “in the heart of the Banagudi shōla, not far from the Doddūru group of cromlechs, is an odd little shrine to Karairāya, consisting of a ruined stone hut surrounded by a low wall, within which are a tiny cromlech, some sacred water-worn stones, and sundry little pottery images representing a tiger, a mounted man, and some dogs. These keep in memory, it is said, a Badaga who was slain in combat with a tiger; and annually a festival is held, at which new images are placed there, and vows are paid. A Kurumba makes fire by friction and burns incense, throws sanctified water over the numerous goats brought to be sacrificed, to see if they will shiver in the manner always held necessary in sacrificial victims, and then slays, one after the other, those which have shown themselves duly qualified. Hulikal Drūg, usually known as the Drūg, is a precipitous bluff at the very end of the range which borders on the south the great ravine which runs up to Coonoor. It is named from the neighbouring village of Hulikal, or tiger’s stone, and the story goes that this latter is so called because in it a Badaga killed a notorious man-eater which had long been the terror of the country side. The spot where the beast was buried is shown near the Pillaiyar temple to the south of Hulikal village, and is marked by three stones. Burton says there used formerly to be a stone image of the slain tiger thereabouts. Some two miles south-east of Kōnakarai in a place known as Kōttai-hāda, or the fort flat, liethe remains of the old fort Udaiya Rāya Kōta. Badaga tradition gives a fairly detailed account of Udaiya Rāya. It says he was a chief who collected the taxes for the Ummattūr Rājas, and that he had also a fort at Kullanthorai, near Sirumugai, the remains of which are still to be seen. He married a woman of Netlingi hamlet of Nedugula, named Muddu Gavari, but she died by the wrath of the gods because she persuaded him to celebrate the annual fire-walking festival in front of the fort, instead of at the customary spot by the Mahālingasvāmi temple about half a mile off. Ānaikatti is a hamlet situated in the jungle of the Moyar valley. The stream which flows past it tumbles over a pretty fall on the slopes of Bīrmukkū (Bimaka) hill. The Badagas call the spot Kuduraihallo, or the ravine of the horse, and say the name was given it because a Badaga, covered with shame at finding that his wife gave him first sort rice but his brother who lived with them only second sort, committed suicide by jumping his horse down the fall.”Badagas.Badagas.According to Mr. Grigg, the Badagas recognise eighteen different “castes or sects.” These are, however, simplified by Mr. S. M. Natesa Sāstri6into six, “five high castes and one low caste.” They are—1.Udaya.High caste.2.Hāruva.3.Adhikāri.4.Kanaka.5.Badaga.6.ToreyaLow caste.“Udayas are Lingāyats in religion, and carry the Sivalinga—the Siva image—tied round their necks. They claim to be superior to all the other Badagas, andare regarded as such. They are priests to all the Badagas of the Lingāyat class, and are strict vegetarians. They do not intermarry with any of the other high caste Badaga sects. Udaya was, and is the title assumed by the Maisūr Rājas, and those Badagas, by being thus designated as a caste, claim superior blood in their veins.” The Lingāyat Badagas are commonly called Lingakutti. “Next in rank come the Hāruvas. From their name being so closely connected with the Āryas—the respectable—and from their habit of wearing the Brāhmanical thread, we are warranted in believing that they must originally have been the poor Brāhman priests of the Badagas that migrated to this country (the Nīlgiris), though they have now got themselves closely mingled with the Badagas. These Hāruvas are also strict vegetarians, and act as priests.” It has been suggested that the Hāruvas (jumper) derive their name from the fire-walking ceremony, which they perform periodically. A further, and more probable suggestion has been made to me that Hāruva comes from a Canarese word meaning to beg or pray; hence one who begs or prays, and so a Brāhman. The Canarese Basava Purāna frequently uses the word in sense. “The Adhikāris are to a certain extent vegetarians. The other two high castes, and of course the low caste Toreyas also, have no objection of any kind to eating flesh. It is also said that the vegetarian Adhikāri, if he marries into a flesh-eating caste of the Badagas, betakes himself to this latter very readily.” The Kanakas are stated by Mr. Grigg to be the accountants, who were probably introduced when the hills were under the sway of the Tamil chiefs. This would, however, seem to be very improbable. “The Toreyas are regarded as sons and servants to the five high caste Badaga sects—to the Hāruvas especially.They are the lowest in the scale, and they are prohibited from intermarrying with the other or high caste Badagas, as long as they are sons to them.” The Toreya does the menial duties for the tribe. He is the village servant, carries the corpses to the burning-ground, conveys the news of a death from village to village, is the first to get shaved when a death occurs, and is sent along with a woman when she is going to visit her mother or mother-in-law at a distance from her own home. “The Udayas, Adhikāris and Kanakas are Lingāyats in religion, and the other three, the Hāruvas, Badagas, and Toreyas are Saivites.” Of the six divisions referred to, the Udayas and Toreyas are endogamous, but intermarriage is permissible between the other four. At the census, 1891, a large number of Badagas returned as their sub-division Vakkaliga, which means cultivator, and is the name of the great cultivating caste of Mysore.Seven miles west of Coonoor is a village named Athikārihatti, or village of the Athikāri or Adhikāri section of the Badagas. “The story goes that these people, under a leader named Karibetta Rāya, came from Sarigūr in Mysore territory, and settled first at Nelliturai (a short distance south-west of Mēttupālaiyam) and afterwards at Tūdūr (on the plateau west of Kulakambi) and Tadasimarahatti (to the north-west of Mēlūr), and that it was they who erected the sculptured cromlechs of Tūdūr and Mēlūr. Tūdūr and Tadasimarahatti are now both deserted; but in the former a cattle kraal, an old shrine, and a pit for fire-walking may still be seen, and in the latter another kraal, and one of the raised stone platforms called mandaikallu by the Badagas. Tradition says that the Badagas left these places and founded Athikārihatti and its hamlets instead, because the Kurumbas round about continually troubledthem with their magic arts, and indeed killed by sorcery several of their most prominent citizens.”7Badaga Girls.Badaga Girls.Like other Canarese people, the Badagas have exogamous septs or kūlas, of which Māri, Madhave (marriage), Kastūri (musk), and Belli (silver) are examples. A very large number of families belong to the Māri and Madhave septs, which were time after time given as the sept name in reply to my enquiries. It may be noted that Belli occurs as an exogamous sept of the Canarese classes Vakkaliga, Toreya, and Kuruba, and Kastūri is recorded in my notes as a sept of the Vakkaligas and Telugu Kammas.The Badagas dwell in extensive villages, generally situated on the summit of a low hillock, composed of rows of comfortable thatched or tiled houses, and surrounded by the fields, which yield the crops. The houses are not separate tenements, but a line of dwellings under one continuous roof, and divided by party walls. Sometimes there are two or three, or more lines, forming streets. Each house is partitioned off into an outer (edumane) and inner apartment (ozhaga or ōgamane). If the family has cows or buffaloes yielding milk, a portion of the latter is converted into a milk-house (hāgōttu), in which the milk is stored, and which no woman may enter. Even males who are under pollution, from having touched or passed near a Kota or Paraiyan, or other cause, may not enter it until they have had a ceremonial bath. To some houses a loft, made of bamboo posts, is added, to serve as a store-house. In every Badaga village there is a raised platform composed of a single boulder or several stones with an erect stone slab set up thereon, called sūththukallu. There is, further, a platform, made of bricks and mud, called mandhe kallu, whereon the Badagas, when not working, sit at ease. In their folk-tales men seated thereon are made to give information concerning the approach of strangers to the village. Strangers, who are not Badagas, are called Holeya. The Rev. G. Richter gives8Badaga Holeya as a division of the lowly Holeyas, who came to Coorg from the Mysore country. In front of the houses, the operations of drying and threshing grain are carried out. The cattle are kept in stone kraals, or covered sheds close to the habitations, and the litter is kept till it is knee or waist deep, and then carried away as manure for the Badaga’s land, or planters’ estates.“Nobody,” it has been said,9“can beat the Badaga at making mother earth produce to her utmost capacity, unless it be a Chinese gardener. To-day we see a portion of the hill side covered with rocks and boulders. The Badagas become possessed of this scene of chaos, and turn out into the place in hundreds, reducing it, in a few weeks, to neat order. The unwieldy boulders, having been rolled aside, serve their purpose by being turned into a wall to keep out cattle, etc. The soil is pounded and worried until it becomes amenable to reason, and next we see a green crop running in waves over the surface. The Badagas are the most progressive of all the hill tribes, and always willing to test any new method of cultivation, or new crops brought to their notice by the Nilgiri Horticultural Society.”Writing in 1832, Harkness states10that “on leaving his house in the morning the Burgher pays his adorationto the god of day, proceeds to the tu-el or yard, in which the cattle have been confined, and, again addressing the sun as the emblem of Siva, asks his blessing, and liberates the herd. He allows the cattle to stray about in the neighbourhood of the village, on a piece of ground which is always kept for this purpose, and, having performed his morning ablutions, commences the milking. This is also preceded by further salutations and praises to the sun. On entering the house in the evening, the Burgher addresses the lamp, now the only light, or visible emblem of the deity. ‘Thou, creator of this and of all worlds, the greatest of the great, who art with us, as well in the mountain as in the wilderness, who keepeth the wreaths that adorn the head from fading, who guardeth the foot from the thorn, God, among a hundred, may we be prosperous.’”The Badaga understands the rotation of crops well. On his land he cultivates bearded wheat (beer ganji), barley, onions, garlic, potatoes, kīrē (Amarantus), sāmai (Panicum miliare), tenai (Setaria italica), etc.“Among the Badagas,” Mr. Natesa Sastri writes, “the position of the women is somewhat different from what it is among most peoples. Every Badaga has a few acres to cultivate, but he does not mainly occupy himself with them, for his wife does all the out-door farm work, while he is engaged otherwise in earning something in hard cash. To a Badaga, therefore, his wife is his capital. Her labour in the field is considered to be worth one rupee per day, while an average male Badaga earns merely three annas. A Badaga woman, who has not her own acres to cultivate, finds work on some other lands. She thus works hard for her husband and family, and is quite content with the coarsest food—the korali (Setaria italica) flour—leaving thebetter food to the male members of the family. This fact, and the hard work the Badaga women have to perform, may perhaps account to some extent for the slight build of the Badagas as a race. The male Badaga, too, works in the field, or at his own craft if he is not a cultivator, but his love for ready cash is always so great that, even if he had a harvest to gather the next morning, he would run away as a cooly for two annas wages.” Further, Mr. Grigg states that “as the men constantly leave their villages to work on coffee plantations, much of the labour in their own fields, as well as ordinary household work, is performed by the women. They are so industrious, and their services of such value to their husbands, that a Badaga sometimes pays 150 or 200 rupees as dowry for his wife.” In the off season for cultivation, I am informed, the Badaga woman collects faggots for home consumption, and stores them near her house, and the women prepare the fields for cultivation by weeding, breaking the earth, and collecting manure.In his report on the revenue settlement of the Nilgiris (1885), Mr. (now Sir) R. S. Benson notes that “concurrently with the so-called abolition of the bhurty (or shifting) system of cultivation, Mr. Grant abolished the peculiar system in vogue up to that time in Kundahnad, which had been transferred from Malabar to the Nilgiris in 1860. This system was known as erkādu kothukādu. Under it, a tax of Re. 1 to Re. 1–8–0 was levied for the right to use a plough or er, and a tax of from 4 to 8 annas was levied for the right to use a hoe or kothu. The so-called patta issued to the ryot under this system was really no more than a license to use one or more hoes, as the case might be. It merely specified the amount payable for each instrument, but in no caseswas the extent or position of the lands to be cultivated specified. The ryot used his implements whenever and wherever he pleased. No restrictions, even on the felling of forests, were imposed, so that the hill-sides and valleys were cleared at will. The system was abolished in 1862. But, during the settlement, I found this erkādu kothukādu system still in force in the flourishing Badaga village of Kinnakorai, with some fifty houses.”In connection with the local self-government of the Badagas, Mr. A. Rajah Bahadur Mudaliar writes to me as follows. “In former days, the monegar was a great personage, as he formed the unit of the administration. The appointment was more or less hereditary, and it generally fell to the lot of the richest and most well-to-do. All disputes within his jurisdiction were placed before him, and his decision was accepted as final. In simple matters, such as partition of property, disputes between husband and wife, etc., the monegars themselves disposed of them. But, when questions of a complicated nature presented themselves, they took as their colleagues other people of the villages, and the disputes were settled by the collective wisdom of the village elders. They assembled at a place set apart for the purpose beneath a nīm (Melia Azadirachta) or pīpal tree (Ficus religiosa) on a raised platform (ratchai), generally situated at the entrance to the village. The monegar wasex-officiopresident of such councils. He and the committee had power to fine the parties, to excommunicate them, and to readmit them to the caste. Parents resorted to the monegar for counsel in the disposal of their daughters in marriage, and in finding brides for their sons. If any one had the audacity to run counter to the wishes of the monegar in mattersmatrimonial, he had the power to throw obstacles in the way of such marriages taking place. The monegar, in virtue of his position, wielded much power, and ruled the village as he pleased.” In the old days, it is said, when he visited any village within his jurisdiction, the monegar had the privilege of having the best women or maids of the place to share his cot according to his choice. In former times, the monegar used to wear a silver ring as the badge of office, and some Badagas still have in their possession such rings, which are preserved as heirlooms, and worshipped during festivals. The term monegar is, at the present day, used for the village revenue official and munsiff.I gather that each exogamous sept has its headman, called Gouda, who is assisted by a Parpattikāran, and decides tribal matters, such as disputes, divorce, etc. Fines, when inflicted, go towards feasting the tribe, and doing pūja (worship) to the gods. In the case of a dispute between two parties, one challenges the other to take an oath in a temple before the village council. A declaration on oath settles the matter at issue, and the parties agree to abide by it. It is the duty of the Parpattikāran to make arrangements for such events as the Heththeswāmi, Devvē and Bairaganni festivals, and the buffalo sacrificing festival at Konakkore. The Parpattikāran takes part in the purification of excommunicated members of the tribe, when they are received back into it, for example, on release from prison. The tongue of the delinquent is burnt with a hot sandal stick, and a new waist thread put on. He is taken to the temple, where he stands amidst the assembled Badagas, who touch his head with a cane. He then prostrates himself at the feet of the Parpattikāran, who smears his forehead with sacred ashes. It is, further, the duty ofthe Parpattikāran to be present on the occasion of the Kannikattu (pregnancy) ceremony.A quarter of a century ago, a Badaga could be at once picked out from the other tribes of the Nīlgiris by his wearing a turban. But, in the present advanced age, not only does the Toda sometimes appear in the national head-dress, but even Irulas and Kurumbas, who only a short time ago were buried in the jungles, living like pigs and bears on roots, honey and other forest produce, turn up on Sundays in the Kotagiri bazar, clad in turban and coat of English cut. And, as the less civilised tribes don the turban, so the college student abandons this picturesque form of head-gear in favour of the less becoming and less washable porkpie cap, while the Badaga men and youths glory in a knitted night-cap of flaring red or orange hue. The body of the Badaga man is covered by a long body-cloth, sometimes with red and blue stripes, wrapped “so loosely that, as a man works in the fields, he is obliged to stop between every few strokes of his hoe, to gather up his cloth, and throw one end over his shoulder.” Male adornment is limited to gold ear-rings of a special pattern made by Kotas or goldsmiths, a silver waist-thread, silver bangle on the wrist, and silver, copper, or brass rings. The women wear a white body-cloth, a white under-cloth tied round the chest, tightly wrapped square across the breasts, and reaching to the knees, and a white cloth worn like a cap on the head. As types of female jewelry and tattooing, the following examples may be cited:—1. Tattooed on forehead with dashes, circles and crescent; spot on chin; double row of dots on each upper arm over deltoid; and devices and double row of dots on right forearm. Gold ornament in left nostril. Necklets of glass beads and silver links with four-annapiece pendent. Silver armlet above right elbow. Four copper armlets above left elbow. Four silver and seven composition bangles on left forearm. Two silver rings on right ring-finger; two steel rings on left ring-finger.2. Tattooed on forehead; quadruple row of dots over right deltoid; star on right forearm.3. Tattooed like the preceding on forehead and upper arm. Spot on chin; elaborate device on right forearm; rayed star or sun on back of hand.4. Tattooed like the preceding on forehead and arm. Triple row of dots on back and front of left wrist, and double row of dots, with circle surrounded by dots, across chest.Toreya women are only allowed to wear bangles on the wrist.The tattoo marks on the foreheads of Udayar women consist of a crescent and dot, and they have a straight line tattooed at the outer corners of the eyes. Women of the other sub-divisions have on the forehead two circles with two vertical dashes between them, and a horizontal or crescentic dash below. The circles are made by pricking in the pigment over an impression made with a finger ring, or over a black mark made by means of such a ring. The operation is performed either by a Badaga or Korava woman. The former uses as needles the spines ofCarissa spinarum, and a mixture of finely powdered charcoal or lamp-black mixed with rice gruel. The marks on the forehead are made when a girl is about eight or nine years old, and do not, as stated by Mr. Natesa Sastri, proclaim to the whole Badaga world that a girl is of marriageable age.In colour the Badagas are lighter than the other hill tribes, and the comparative pallor of the skin is specially noticeable in the females, whom, with very few exceptions,I was only able to study by surreptitious examination, when we met on the roads. In physique, the typical Badaga man is below middle height, smooth-skinned, of slender build, with narrow chest and shoulders.Badaga men have cicatrices on the shoulder and forearm as the result of branding with a fire-stick when they are lads, with the object, it is said, of giving strength, and preventing pain when milking or churning. In like manner, the Todas have raised cicatrices (keloids) on the shoulder produced by branding with a fire-stick. They believe that the branding enables them to milk the buffaloes with perfect ease.The Badagas have a very extensive repertoire of hora hesaru, or nicknames, of which the following are examples:—One who eats in bed during the night.Snorer.Stupid.Bald head.Brown-eyed.Thin and bony.Big head.Bandy-legged.One who returned alive from the burning ground.Ripe fruit.Big-thighed.Blind.Lame.Big calves.Piles.Liar.Cat-eyed.Fond of pot-herbs.Rheumatic.Bad-tempered.Left-handed.Buffalo grazer.Saliva dribbling.Honey-eater.Black.Spleen.Teeth.Potato-eater.Glutton.Belly.Itch legged.One who was slow in learning to walk.Tall.Thief-eyed.Pustule-bodied.Scarred.Hairy.Weak, like partially baked pots.Strong, like portland cement.Among the Badagas, Konga is used as a term of abuse. Those who made mistakes in matching Holmgren’s wools, with which I tested them, were, always called Konga by the onlookers.When two Badagas meet each other, the elder touches the head of the younger with his right hand. This form of salutation is known as giving the head. A person of the Badaga section gives the head, as it is called, to an Udaiyar, in token of the superiority of the latter. When people belong to the same sept, they say “Ba, anna, appa, thamma, amma, akka” (come, father, brother, mother, sister, etc.). But, if they are of different septs, they will say “Ba, māma, māmi, bava” (come, uncle, aunt, brother-in-law, etc.). “Whenever,” Dr. Rivers writes,11“a Toda meets a Badaga monegar (headman), or an old Badaga with whom he is acquainted, a salutation passes between the two. The Toda stands before the Badaga, inclines his head slightly, and says ‘Madtin pudia.’ (Madtin, you have come). The Badaga replies ‘Buthuk! buthuk!’ (blessing, blessing), and rests his hand on the top of the Toda’s head. This greeting only takes place between Todas and the more important of the Badaga community. It would seem that every Badaga headman may be greeted in this way, but a Toda will only greet other Badaga elders, if he is already acquainted with them. The salutation is made to members of all the various castes of the Badagas, except the Toreyas. It has been held to imply that the Todas regard the Badagas as their superiors, but it is doubtful how far this is the case. The Todas themselves say they follow the custom because the Badagas help to support them. It seems to be a mark of respect paidby the Todas to the elders of a tribe with which they have very close relations, and it is perhaps significant that no similar sign of respect is shown to Toda elders by the Badagas.”Every Badaga family has its Muttu Kota, from whom it gets the agricultural implements, pots, hoes, etc. In return, the Kotas receive an annual present of food-grains, mustard and potatoes. For a Kota funeral, the Badagas have to give five rupees or a quantity of rice, and a buffalo. The pots obtained from the Kotas are not used immediately, but kept for three days in the jungle, or in a bush in some open spot. They are then taken to the outer apartment of the house, and kept there for three days, when they are smeared with the bark ofMeliosma pungens(the tūd tree of the Todas) and culms ofAndropogon Schœnanthus(bzambe hullu). Thus purified, the pots are used for boiling water in for three days, and may then be used for any purpose. The Badagas are said to give a present of grain annually to the Todas. Every Toda mand (or mad) seems to have its own group of Badaga families, who pay them this gudu, as it is called. “There are,” Dr. Rivers writes, “several regulations concerning the food of the palol (dairy man of a Toda sacred dairy). Any grain he eats must be that provided by the Badagas. At the present time more rice is eaten than was formerly the case. This is not grown by the Badagas, but nevertheless the rice for the palol must be obtained through them. The palol wears garments of a dark grey material made in the Coimbatore district. They are brought to the palol by the Badaga called tikelfmav. The earthenware vessels of the inner room (of the ti dairy) are not obtained from the Kotas, like the ordinary vessels, but are made by Hindus, and are procured through the Badagas.”The Badagas live in dread of the Kurumbas, and the Kurumba constantly comes under reference in their folk-stories. The Kurumba is the necromancer of the hills, and believed to be possessed of the power of outraging women, removing their livers, and so causing their death, while the wound heals by magic, so that no trace of the operation is left. He is supposed, too, to have the power of opening the bolts of doors by magic and effecting an entrance into a house at night for some nefarious purpose. The Toda or Badaga requires the services of the Kurumba, when he fancies that any member of his family is possessed of the devil, or when he wants to remove the evil eye, to which he imagines that his children have been subjected. The Kurumba does his best to remove the malady by repeating various mantrams (magical formulæ). If he fails, and if any suspicion is aroused in the mind of the Toda or Badaga that he is allowing the devil to play his pranks instead of loosing his hold on the supposed victim, woe betide him. The wrath of the entire village, or even the whole tribe, is raised against the unhappy Kurumba. His hut is surrounded at night, and the entire household massacred in cold blood, and their huts set on fire. This is very cleverly carried out, and the isolated position of the Kurumba settlements allows of very little clue for identification. In 1835 no less than fifty-eight Kurumbas were thus murdered, and a smaller number in 1875 and 1882. In 1891 the live inmates of a single hut were murdered, and their hut burnt to ashes, because, it was said, one of them who had been treating a sick Badaga child failed to cure it. The crime was traced to some Kotas in conjunction with Badagas, but the District Judge disbelieved the evidence, and all who were charged were acquitted. Every Badaga family pays an annualtax of four annas to the Kurumbas, and, if a Kurumba comes to a Badaga hatti (village), a subscription is raised as an inducement to him to take his departure. The Kurumba receives a fee for every Badaga funeral, and for the pregnancy ceremony (kannikattu).It is noted by Dr. Rivers that “the Toda sorcerers are not only feared by their fellow Todas, but also by the Badagas, and it is probably largely owing to fear of Toda sorcery that the Badagas continue to pay their tribute of grain. The Badagas may also consult the Toda diviners, and it is probable that the belief of the Badagas in the magical powers of the Todas is turned to good account by the latter. In some cases, Todas, have been killed by Badagas owing to this belief.”Among the Todas, the duties of milking the buffaloes and dairy-work are entrusted to special individuals, whereas any Badaga male may, after initiation, milk the cows and buffaloes, provided that he is free from pollution. Every Badaga boy, when he is about seven or nine years old, is made to milk a cow on an auspicious day, or on new year’s day. The ceremony is thus described by Mr. Natesa Sastri. “Early in the morning of the day appointed for this ceremony, the boy is bathed, and appears in his holiday dress. A she-buffalo, with her calf, stands before his house, waiting to be milked. The parents, or other elder relations of the boy, and those who have been invited to be present on the occasion, or whose duty it is to be present, then conduct the boy to the spot. The father, or some one of the agnatic kindred, gives into the hands of the boy a bamboo vessel called honē, which is already very nearly full of fresh-drawn milk. The boy receives the vessel with both his hands, and is conducted to the buffalo. The elder relations show him the process, and the boy,sitting down, milks a small quantity into the honē. This is his first initiation into the duty of milking, and it is that he may not commit mistakes on the very first day of his milking that the honē is previously filled almost to the brim. The boy takes the vessel filled with milk into his house, and pours some of the sacred fluid into all his household eating vessels—a sign that from that day he has taken up on himself the responsibility of supplying the family with milk. He also throws some milk in the faces of his parents and relatives. They receive it very kindly, and bless him, and request him to continue thus to milk the buffaloes, and bring plenty and prosperity to the house. After this, the boy enters the milk-house (hāgōttu), and places milk in his honē there. From this moment, and all through his life, he may enter into that room, and this is therefore considered a very important ceremony.”A cow or buffalo, which has calved for the first time, has to be treated in a special manner. For three or five days it is not milked. A boy is then selected to milk it. He must not sleep on a mat, or wear a turban, and, instead of tying his cloth round his waist, must wear it loosely over his body. Meat is forbidden, and he must avoid, and not speak to polluting classes, such as Irulas and Kotas, and menstruating women. On the day appointed for milking the animal, the boy bathes, and proceeds to milk it into a new honē purified by smearing a paste ofMeliosma(tūd) leaves and bark over it, and heating it over a fire. The milk is taken to a stream, where three cups are made ofArgyreia(mīnige) leaves, into which a small quantity of the milk is placed. The cups are then put in the water. The remainder of the milk in the honē is also poured into the stream. In some places, especially where a Mādeswara temple isclose at hand, the milk is taken to the temple, and given to the pūjāri. With a portion of the milk some plantain fruits are made into a pulp, and given to an Udaya, who throws them into a stream. The boy is treated with some respect by his family during the period when he milks the animal, and is given food first. This he must eat off a plate made ofArgyreia, or plantain leaves.Besides the hāgōttu within the house, the Badagas have, at certain places, separate dairy-houses near a temple dedicated to Heththeswāmi, of which the one at Bairaganni (or Bērganni) appears to be the most important. The dairy pūjāri is here, like the Toda palol, a celibate. In 1905, he was a young lad, whom my Brāhman assistant set forth to photograph. He was, however, met at a distance from the village by a headman, who assured him that he could not take the photograph without the sanction of fifteen villages. The pūjāri is not allowed to wander freely about the village, or talk to grown-up women. He cooks his own food within the temple grounds, and wears his cloth thrown loosely over his body. Once a year, on the occasion of a festival, he is presented with new cloths and turban, which alone he may wear. He must be a strict vegetarian. A desire to marry and abandon the priesthood is believed to be conveyed in dreams, or through one inspired. Before leaving the temple service, he must train his successor in the duties, and retires with the gains acquired by the sale of the products of the herd and temple offerings. The village of Bairaganni is regarded as sacred, and possesses no holagudi (menstrual hut).Bishop Whitehead adds that “buffaloes are given as offerings to the temple at Bairaganni, and become the property of the pūjāri, who milks them, and uses themilk for his food. All the villagers give him rice every day. He may only eat once a day, at about 3P.M.He cooks the meal himself, and empties the rice from the cooking-pot by turning it over once. If the rice does not come out the first time, he cannot take it at all. When he wants to get married, another boy is appointed in his place. The buffaloes are handed over to his successor.” The following legend in connection with Bairaganni is also recorded by Bishop Whitehead. “There is a village in the Mēkanād division of the Nīlgiris called Nundāla. A man had a daughter. He wanted to marry her to a man in the Paranganād division about a hundred years ago. She did not wish to marry him. The father insisted, but she refused again and again. At last she wished to die, and came near a tank, on the bank of which was a tree. She sat under the tree and washed, and then threw herself into the tank. One of the men of Bairaganni in the Paranganād division saw the woman in a dream. She told him that she was not a human being but a goddess, an incarnation of Parvati. The people of Nundāla built a strong bund (embankment) round the tank, and allow no woman to go on it. Only the pūjāri, and Badagas who have prepared themselves by fasting and ablution, are allowed to go on the bund to offer pūja, which is done by breaking cocoanuts, and offering rice, flowers, and fruits. The woman told the man in his dream to build a temple at Bairaganni, which is now the chief temple of Heththeswāmi.”Concerning the initiation of a Lingāyat Badaga into his religion, which takes place at about his thirteenth birthday, Mr. Natesa Sastri writes as follows. “The priest conducts this ceremony, and the elder relations of the family have only to arrange for the performanceof it. The priests belong to the Udaya sect. They live in their own villages, and are specially sent for, and come to the boy’s village for the occasion. The ceremony is generally done to several boys of about the same age on the same day. On the day appointed, all the people in the Badaga village, where this ceremony is to take place, observe a strict fast. The cows and buffaloes are all milked very early in the morning, and not a drop of the milk thus collected is given out, or taken by even the tenderest children of the village, who may require it very badly. The Udaya priest arrives near the village between 10A.M.and noon on the day appointed. He never goes into the village, but stops near some rivulet adjacent to it. The relations of the boy approach him with a new basket, containing five measures of uncooked rice, pulse, ghī, etc., and a quarter of a rupee—one fanam, as it is generally designated. The priest sits near the water-course, and lights a fire on the bank. Perfumes are thrown profusely into it, and this is almost the only ceremony before the fire. The boys, whose turn it is to receive the linga that day, are all directed to bathe in the river. A plantain leaf, cut into one foot square, is placed in front of the fire towards the east of it. The lingas, kept in readiness by the parents of the boys, are now received by the priest, and placed on the leaves. The boys are asked to wash them—each one the linga meant for his wearing—in water and milk. Then comes the time for the expenditure of all the collected milk of the morning. Profusely the white fluid is poured, till the whole rivulet is nothing but a stream of milk. After the lingas are thus washed, the boys give them to the priest, who places them in his left palm, and, covering them with his right, utters, with all the solemnity due to the occasion, the followingincantation, while the boys and the whole village assembled there listen to it with the most profound respect and veneration ‘Oh! Siva, Hara, Basava, the Lord of all the six thousand and three thousand names and glories, the Lord of one lakh and ninety-six thousand ganas (body-guards of Siva), the donor of water, the daily-to-be worshipped, the husband of Parvati. Oh! Lord, O! Siva Linga, thy feet alone are our resort. Oh! Siva, Siva, Siva, Siva.’ While pronouncing this prayer, the priest now and then removes his right palm, and pours water and milk round the sacred fire, and over the lingas resting in his left palm. He then places each of the lingas in a cloth of one cubit square, rolls it up, and requests the boys to hold out their right palms. The young Badaga receives it, repeats the prayer given about five times, and, during each repetition, the palm holding the linga tied up in the cloth is carried nearer and nearer to his neck. When that is reached (on the fifth utterance of the incantation), the priest ties the ends of the rolled up cloth containing the Siva emblem loosely round the boy’s neck, while the latter is all the while kneeling down, holding with both his hands the feet of the priest. After the linga has been tied, the priest blesses him thus: ‘May one become one thousand to you. May you ever preserve in you the Siva Linga. If you do so, you will have plenty of milk and food, and you will prosper for one thousand years in name and fame, kine and coin.’ If more than one have to receive the linga on the same day, each of them has to undergo this ceremony. After the ceremony is over, the priest returns to his village with the rice, etc., and fees. Every house, in which a boy has received the linga, has to give a grand feast on that day. Even the poorest Badaga must feed at least five other Badagas.”The foregoing account of the investiture with the lingam apparently applies to the Mēkanād Udayas. The following note is based on information supplied by the Udayas of Paranginād. The ceremony of investiture is performed either on new year’s day or Sivarāthri by an Udaya priest in the house of a respected member of the community (doddamane), which is vacated for the occasion. The houses of the boys and girls who are to receive lingams are cleaned, and festoons of tūd and mango leaves, lime fruits, and flowers ofLeucas aspera(thumbē) are tied across the doorways, and in front of the house where the ceremony is to be performed. Until the conclusion thereof, all the people of the village fast. The candidates, with their parents, and the officiating priest repair to the doddamane. The lingams are handed over to the priest, who, taking them up one by one, does pūja to them, and gives them to the children. They in turn do pūja, and the lingams, wrapped in pink silk or cotton cloths, are tied round their necks. The pūja consists of washing the lingams in cow’s urine and milk, smearing them with sandal and turmeric paste, throwing flowers on them, and waving incense and burning camphor before them. After the investiture, the novices are taught a prayer, which is not a stereotyped formula, but varies with the priest and village.Like other Lingayats, the Udayas respect the Jangam, but do not employ the Jangama thirtham (water used for washing the Jangam’s feet) for bathing their lingams. In Udaya villages there is no special menstrual hut (holagudi). Milk is not regarded by them as a sacred product, so there is no hāgōttu in their houses. Nor do they observe the Manavalai festival in honour of ancestors. Other ceremonies are celebrated by them, asby other Badagas, but they do not employ the services of a Kurumba.Important agricultural ceremonies are performed by the Badagas at the time of sowing and harvest. The seed-sowing ceremony takes place in March, and, in some places,e.g., the Mēkanād and Paranginād, a Kurumba plays an important part in it. On an auspicious day—a Tuesday before the crescent moon—a pūjāri of the Devvē temple sets out several hours before dawn with five or seven kinds of grain in a basket and sickle, accompanied by a Kurumba, and leading a pair of bullocks with a plough. On reaching the field selected, the pūjāri pours the grain into the cloth of the Kurumba, and, yoking the animals to the plough, makes three furrows in the soil. The Kurumba, stopping the bullocks, kneels on the ground between the furrows facing east. Removing his turban, he places it on the ground, and, closing his ears with his palms, bawls out “Dho, Dho,” thrice. He then rises, and scatters the grain thrice on the soil. The pūjāri and Kurumba then return to the village, and the former deposits what remains of the grain in the store-room (attu). A new pot, full of water, is placed in the milk-house, and the pūjāri dips his right hand therein, saying “Nerathubitta” (it is full). This ceremony is an important one for the Badagas, as, until it has been performed, sowing may not commence. It is a day of feasting, and, in addition to rice,Dolichos Lablabis cooked.
Badaga.—As the Todas are the pastoral, and the Kotas the artisan tribe of the Nīlgiris, so the agricultural element on these hills is represented by the Badagas (or, as they are sometimes called, Burghers). Their number was returned, at the census, 1901, as 34,178 against 1,267 Kotas, and 807 Todas. Though the primary occupation of the Badagas is agriculture, there are among their community schoolmasters, clerks, public works contractors, bricklayers, painters, carpenters, sawyers, tailors, gardeners, forest guards, barbers, washermen, and scavengers. Many work on tea and coffee estates, and gangs of Badagas can always be seen breaking stones on, and repairing the hill roads. Others are, at the present day, earning good wages in the Cordite Factory near Wellington. Some of the more prosperouspossess tea and coffee estates of their own. The rising generation are, to some extent, learning Tamil and English, in addition to their own language, which is said to resemble old Canarese. And I have heard a youthful Badaga, tending a flock of sheep, address an errant member thereof in very fluent Billingsgate. There were, in 1904–1905, thirty-nine Badaga schools, which were attended by 1,222 pupils. In 1907, one Badaga had passed the Matriculation of the Madras University, and was a clerk in the Sub-judge’s Court at Ootacamund.A newspaper discussion was carried on a few years ago as to the condition of the Badagas, and whether they are a down-trodden tribe, bankrupt and impoverished to such a degree that it is only a short time before something must be done to ameliorate their condition, and save them from extermination by inducing them to emigrate to the Wynād and Vizagapatam. A few have, in recent years, migrated to the Anaimalai hills, to work on the planters’ estates, which have been opened up there. One writer stated that “the tiled houses, costing from Rs. 250 to Rs. 500, certainly point to their prosperity. They may frequently borrow from the Labbai to enable them to build, but, as I do not know of a single case in which the Labbai has ever seized the house and sold it, I believe this debt is soon discharged. The walled-in, terraced fields immediately around their villages, on which they grow their barley and other grains requiring rich cultivation, are well worked, and regularly manured. The coats, good thick blankets, and gold ear-rings, which most Badagas now possess, can only, I think, point to their prosperity, while their constant feasts, and disinclination to work on Sundays, show that the loss of a few days’ pay does not affect them. On the other hand, a former Native official onthe Nīlgiris writes to me that “though the average Badaga is thrifty and hard-working, there is a tendency for him to be lazy when he is sure of his meal. When a person is sick in another village, his relatives make it an excuse to go and see him, and they have to be fed. When the first crop is raised, the idler pretends that ‘worms’ have crept into the crop, and the gods have to be propitiated, and there is a feast. Marriage or death, of course, draws a crowd to be fed or feasted. All this means extra expenditure, and a considerable drain on the slender income of the family. The Rowthan (Muhammadan merchant) from the Tamil country is near at hand to lend money, as he has carried his bazar to the very heart of the Badaga villages. First it is a bag of rāgi (food grain), a piece of cloth to throw on the coffin, or a few rupees worth of rice and curry-stuff doled out by the all-accommodating Rowthan at a price out of all proportion to the market rate, and at a rate ranging from six pies to two annas for the rupee. The ever impecunious Badaga has no means of extricating himself, with a slender income, which leaves no margin for redeeming debts. The bond is renewed every quarter or half year, and the debt grows by leaps and bounds, and consumes all his earthly goods, including lands. The advent of lawyers on the hills has made the Badagas a most litigious people, and they resort to the courts, which means expenditure of money, and neglect of agriculture.” In the funeral song of the Badagas, which has been translated by Mr. Gover,1one of the crimes enumerated, for which atonement must be made, is that of preferring a complaint to the Sirkar (Government), and one of their numerous proverbs embodies the same idea. “If youprefer a complaint to a Magistrate, it is as if you had put poison into your adversary’s food.” But Mr. Grigg writes,2“either the terrors of the Sirkar are not what they were, or this precept is much disregarded, for the Court-house at Ootacamund is constantly thronged with Badagas, and they are now very much given to litigation.”I gather from the notes, which Bishop Whitehead has kindly placed at my disposal, that “when the Badagas wish to take a very solemn oath, they go to the temple of Māriamma at Sigūr, and, after bathing in the stream and putting on only one cloth, offer fruits, cocoanuts, etc., and kill a sheep or fowl. They put the head of the animal on the step of the shrine, and make a line on the ground just in front of it. The person who is taking the oath then walks from seven feet off in seven steps, putting one foot immediately in front of the other, up to the line, crosses it, goes inside the shrine, and puts out a lamp that is burning in front of the image. If the oath is true, the man will walk without any difficulty straight to the shrine. But, if the oath is not true, his eyes will be blinded, and he will not be able to walk straight to the shrine, or see the lamp. It is a common saying among Badagas, when a man tells lies, ‘Will you go to Sigūr, and take an oath?’ Oaths are taken in much the same way at the temple of Māriamma at Ootacamund. When a Hindu gives evidence in the Court at Ootacamund, he is often asked by the Judge whether he will take an oath at the Māriamma temple. If he agrees, he is sent off to the temple with a Court official. The party for whom he gives evidence supplies a goat or sheep, which is killedat the temple, the head and carcase being placed in front of the image. The witness steps over the carcase, and this forms the oath. If the evidence is false, it is believed that some evil will happen to him.”The name Badaga or Vadugan means northerner, and the Badagas are believed to be descended from Canarese colonists from the Mysore country, who migrated to the Nīlgiris three centuries ago owing to famine, political turmoil, or local oppression in their own country. It is worthy of notice, in this connection, that the head of the Badagas, like that of the Todas and Kotas, is dolichocephalic, and not of the mesaticephalic or sub-brachycephalic type, which prevails throughout Mysore, as in other Canarese areas.Average.Cephalic length.Cephalic breadth.Cephalic index.cm.cm.Badaga18.913.671.7Toda19.414.273.3Kota19.214.274.1Of the Mysorean heads, the following are a few typical examples:—Average.Cephalic length.Cephalic breadth.Cephalic index.cm.cm.Ganiga18.514.377.6Bēdar18.314.377.7Holeya17.914.179.1Mandya Brahman18.514.880.2Vakkaliga17.714.581.7Concerning the origin of the Badagas, the following legend is current. Seven brothers and their sisters were living on the Talamalai hills. A Muhammadanruler attempted to ravish the girl, whom the brother saved from him by flight. They settled down near the present village of Bethalhada. After a short stay there, the brothers separated, and settled in different parts of the Nīlgiris, which they peopled. Concerning the second brother, Hethappa, who had two daughters, the story goes that, during his absence on one occasion, two Todas forced their way into his house, ravished his wife, and possessed themselves of hisworldlyeffects. Hearing of what had occurred, Hethappa sought the assistance of two Balayaru in revenging himself on the Todas. They readily consented to help him, in return for a promise that they should marry his daughters. The Todas were killed, and the present inhabitants of the village Hulikallu are supposed to be the descendants of the Balayaru and Badaga girls. The seven brothers are now worshipped under the name Hethappa or Hetha.In connection with the migration of the Badagas to the Nīlgiris, the following note is given in the Gazetteer of the Nīlgiris. “When this flitting took place there is little to show. It must have occurred after the foundation of the Lingāyat creed in the latter half of the twelfth century, as many of the Badagas are Lingāyats by faith, and sometime before the end of the sixteenth century, since in 1602 the Catholic priests from the west coast found them settled on the south of the plateau, and observing much the same relations with the Todas as subsist to this day. The present state of our knowledge does not enable us to fix more nearly the date of the migration. That the language of the Badagas, which is a form of Canarese, should by now have so widely altered from its original as to be classed as a separate dialect argues that the movement took place nearer the twelfth than the sixteenth century. On the other hand, thefact (pointed out by Dr. Rivers3) that the Badagas are not mentioned in a single one of the Todas’ legends about their gods, whereas the Kotas, Kurumbas, and Irulas, each play a part in one or more of these stories, raises the inference that the relations between the Badagas and the Todas are recent as compared with those between the other tribes. A critical study of the Badaga dialect might perhaps serve to fix within closer limits the date of the migration. As now spoken, this tongue contains letters (two forms of r for instance) and numerous words, which are otherwise met with only in ancient books, and which strike most strangely upon the ear of the present generation of Canarese. The date when some of these letters and words became obsolete might possibly be traced, and thus aid in fixing the period when the Badagas left the low country. It is known that the two forms of r, for example, had dropped out of use prior to the time of the grammarian Kēsirāja, who lived in the thirteenth century, and that the word betta (a hill), which the Badagas use in place of the modern bettu, is found in the thirteenth century work Sabdamanidarpana.”It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Nīlgiris, that “Nelliālam, about eight miles north-west of Dēvāla as the crow flies, is the residence of the Nelliālam Arasu (Urs), who has been recognised as the janmi (landlord) of a considerable area in the Munanād amsam, but is in reality a Canarese-speaking Lingāyat of Canarese extraction, who follows the ordinary Hindu law of inheritance, and is not a native of the Wynād or of Malabar. Family tradition, though now somewhat misty, says that in the beginning two brothers named Sadāsiva Rāja Urs and Bhujanga Rāja Urs moved (at some date and forsome reason not stated) from Ummattūr (in the present Chāmarājnagar taluk of Mysore), and settled at Malaikōta, the old fort near Kalhatti. Their family deities were Bhujangēsvara and Ummattūr Urakātti, which are still worshipped as such. They brought with them a following of Bēdars and Badagas, and thereafter always encouraged the immigration to the hills of more Canarese people. The village of Bannimara, a mile west of Kalhatti, is still peopled by Bēdars who are said to be descendants of people of that caste who came with the two brothers; and to this day, when the Badagas of the plateau have disputes of difficulty, they are said to go down to Nelliālam with presents (kānikai) in their hands, and ask the Arasu to settle their differences, while, at the time of their periodical ceremonies (manavalai) to the memory of their ancestors, they send a deputation to Nelliālam to invite representatives of the Arasu to be present.”Close to the village of Bethalhada is a row of cromlechs carved with figures of the sun and moon, human beings, animals, etc., and enclosed within a stone kraal, which the Badagas claim to be the work of their ancestors, to whom periodical offerings are made. At the time of my visit, there were within one of the cromlechs a conch shell, lingam, bell, and flowers. A number of these sculptured cromlechs at Sholūr, Mēlūr, and other spots on the Nīlgiris, are described and figured by Breeks,4who records that the cromlech at Jakata Kambē is interesting as being the place of the yearly sacrifice performed by the Badagas of the Jakanēri grāma (village) by their Kāni Kurumba. And he adds that the Badagas would seem to have usually selected theneighbourhood of these cromlechs for their temples, as for example, at Mēlūr, Kakūsi, H’laiuru, Tudūr, and Jakatāda.Dolmens near Kotagiri.Dolmens near Kotagiri.It is recorded5, in connection with the legends of the Badagas, that “in the heart of the Banagudi shōla, not far from the Doddūru group of cromlechs, is an odd little shrine to Karairāya, consisting of a ruined stone hut surrounded by a low wall, within which are a tiny cromlech, some sacred water-worn stones, and sundry little pottery images representing a tiger, a mounted man, and some dogs. These keep in memory, it is said, a Badaga who was slain in combat with a tiger; and annually a festival is held, at which new images are placed there, and vows are paid. A Kurumba makes fire by friction and burns incense, throws sanctified water over the numerous goats brought to be sacrificed, to see if they will shiver in the manner always held necessary in sacrificial victims, and then slays, one after the other, those which have shown themselves duly qualified. Hulikal Drūg, usually known as the Drūg, is a precipitous bluff at the very end of the range which borders on the south the great ravine which runs up to Coonoor. It is named from the neighbouring village of Hulikal, or tiger’s stone, and the story goes that this latter is so called because in it a Badaga killed a notorious man-eater which had long been the terror of the country side. The spot where the beast was buried is shown near the Pillaiyar temple to the south of Hulikal village, and is marked by three stones. Burton says there used formerly to be a stone image of the slain tiger thereabouts. Some two miles south-east of Kōnakarai in a place known as Kōttai-hāda, or the fort flat, liethe remains of the old fort Udaiya Rāya Kōta. Badaga tradition gives a fairly detailed account of Udaiya Rāya. It says he was a chief who collected the taxes for the Ummattūr Rājas, and that he had also a fort at Kullanthorai, near Sirumugai, the remains of which are still to be seen. He married a woman of Netlingi hamlet of Nedugula, named Muddu Gavari, but she died by the wrath of the gods because she persuaded him to celebrate the annual fire-walking festival in front of the fort, instead of at the customary spot by the Mahālingasvāmi temple about half a mile off. Ānaikatti is a hamlet situated in the jungle of the Moyar valley. The stream which flows past it tumbles over a pretty fall on the slopes of Bīrmukkū (Bimaka) hill. The Badagas call the spot Kuduraihallo, or the ravine of the horse, and say the name was given it because a Badaga, covered with shame at finding that his wife gave him first sort rice but his brother who lived with them only second sort, committed suicide by jumping his horse down the fall.”Badagas.Badagas.According to Mr. Grigg, the Badagas recognise eighteen different “castes or sects.” These are, however, simplified by Mr. S. M. Natesa Sāstri6into six, “five high castes and one low caste.” They are—1.Udaya.High caste.2.Hāruva.3.Adhikāri.4.Kanaka.5.Badaga.6.ToreyaLow caste.“Udayas are Lingāyats in religion, and carry the Sivalinga—the Siva image—tied round their necks. They claim to be superior to all the other Badagas, andare regarded as such. They are priests to all the Badagas of the Lingāyat class, and are strict vegetarians. They do not intermarry with any of the other high caste Badaga sects. Udaya was, and is the title assumed by the Maisūr Rājas, and those Badagas, by being thus designated as a caste, claim superior blood in their veins.” The Lingāyat Badagas are commonly called Lingakutti. “Next in rank come the Hāruvas. From their name being so closely connected with the Āryas—the respectable—and from their habit of wearing the Brāhmanical thread, we are warranted in believing that they must originally have been the poor Brāhman priests of the Badagas that migrated to this country (the Nīlgiris), though they have now got themselves closely mingled with the Badagas. These Hāruvas are also strict vegetarians, and act as priests.” It has been suggested that the Hāruvas (jumper) derive their name from the fire-walking ceremony, which they perform periodically. A further, and more probable suggestion has been made to me that Hāruva comes from a Canarese word meaning to beg or pray; hence one who begs or prays, and so a Brāhman. The Canarese Basava Purāna frequently uses the word in sense. “The Adhikāris are to a certain extent vegetarians. The other two high castes, and of course the low caste Toreyas also, have no objection of any kind to eating flesh. It is also said that the vegetarian Adhikāri, if he marries into a flesh-eating caste of the Badagas, betakes himself to this latter very readily.” The Kanakas are stated by Mr. Grigg to be the accountants, who were probably introduced when the hills were under the sway of the Tamil chiefs. This would, however, seem to be very improbable. “The Toreyas are regarded as sons and servants to the five high caste Badaga sects—to the Hāruvas especially.They are the lowest in the scale, and they are prohibited from intermarrying with the other or high caste Badagas, as long as they are sons to them.” The Toreya does the menial duties for the tribe. He is the village servant, carries the corpses to the burning-ground, conveys the news of a death from village to village, is the first to get shaved when a death occurs, and is sent along with a woman when she is going to visit her mother or mother-in-law at a distance from her own home. “The Udayas, Adhikāris and Kanakas are Lingāyats in religion, and the other three, the Hāruvas, Badagas, and Toreyas are Saivites.” Of the six divisions referred to, the Udayas and Toreyas are endogamous, but intermarriage is permissible between the other four. At the census, 1891, a large number of Badagas returned as their sub-division Vakkaliga, which means cultivator, and is the name of the great cultivating caste of Mysore.Seven miles west of Coonoor is a village named Athikārihatti, or village of the Athikāri or Adhikāri section of the Badagas. “The story goes that these people, under a leader named Karibetta Rāya, came from Sarigūr in Mysore territory, and settled first at Nelliturai (a short distance south-west of Mēttupālaiyam) and afterwards at Tūdūr (on the plateau west of Kulakambi) and Tadasimarahatti (to the north-west of Mēlūr), and that it was they who erected the sculptured cromlechs of Tūdūr and Mēlūr. Tūdūr and Tadasimarahatti are now both deserted; but in the former a cattle kraal, an old shrine, and a pit for fire-walking may still be seen, and in the latter another kraal, and one of the raised stone platforms called mandaikallu by the Badagas. Tradition says that the Badagas left these places and founded Athikārihatti and its hamlets instead, because the Kurumbas round about continually troubledthem with their magic arts, and indeed killed by sorcery several of their most prominent citizens.”7Badaga Girls.Badaga Girls.Like other Canarese people, the Badagas have exogamous septs or kūlas, of which Māri, Madhave (marriage), Kastūri (musk), and Belli (silver) are examples. A very large number of families belong to the Māri and Madhave septs, which were time after time given as the sept name in reply to my enquiries. It may be noted that Belli occurs as an exogamous sept of the Canarese classes Vakkaliga, Toreya, and Kuruba, and Kastūri is recorded in my notes as a sept of the Vakkaligas and Telugu Kammas.The Badagas dwell in extensive villages, generally situated on the summit of a low hillock, composed of rows of comfortable thatched or tiled houses, and surrounded by the fields, which yield the crops. The houses are not separate tenements, but a line of dwellings under one continuous roof, and divided by party walls. Sometimes there are two or three, or more lines, forming streets. Each house is partitioned off into an outer (edumane) and inner apartment (ozhaga or ōgamane). If the family has cows or buffaloes yielding milk, a portion of the latter is converted into a milk-house (hāgōttu), in which the milk is stored, and which no woman may enter. Even males who are under pollution, from having touched or passed near a Kota or Paraiyan, or other cause, may not enter it until they have had a ceremonial bath. To some houses a loft, made of bamboo posts, is added, to serve as a store-house. In every Badaga village there is a raised platform composed of a single boulder or several stones with an erect stone slab set up thereon, called sūththukallu. There is, further, a platform, made of bricks and mud, called mandhe kallu, whereon the Badagas, when not working, sit at ease. In their folk-tales men seated thereon are made to give information concerning the approach of strangers to the village. Strangers, who are not Badagas, are called Holeya. The Rev. G. Richter gives8Badaga Holeya as a division of the lowly Holeyas, who came to Coorg from the Mysore country. In front of the houses, the operations of drying and threshing grain are carried out. The cattle are kept in stone kraals, or covered sheds close to the habitations, and the litter is kept till it is knee or waist deep, and then carried away as manure for the Badaga’s land, or planters’ estates.“Nobody,” it has been said,9“can beat the Badaga at making mother earth produce to her utmost capacity, unless it be a Chinese gardener. To-day we see a portion of the hill side covered with rocks and boulders. The Badagas become possessed of this scene of chaos, and turn out into the place in hundreds, reducing it, in a few weeks, to neat order. The unwieldy boulders, having been rolled aside, serve their purpose by being turned into a wall to keep out cattle, etc. The soil is pounded and worried until it becomes amenable to reason, and next we see a green crop running in waves over the surface. The Badagas are the most progressive of all the hill tribes, and always willing to test any new method of cultivation, or new crops brought to their notice by the Nilgiri Horticultural Society.”Writing in 1832, Harkness states10that “on leaving his house in the morning the Burgher pays his adorationto the god of day, proceeds to the tu-el or yard, in which the cattle have been confined, and, again addressing the sun as the emblem of Siva, asks his blessing, and liberates the herd. He allows the cattle to stray about in the neighbourhood of the village, on a piece of ground which is always kept for this purpose, and, having performed his morning ablutions, commences the milking. This is also preceded by further salutations and praises to the sun. On entering the house in the evening, the Burgher addresses the lamp, now the only light, or visible emblem of the deity. ‘Thou, creator of this and of all worlds, the greatest of the great, who art with us, as well in the mountain as in the wilderness, who keepeth the wreaths that adorn the head from fading, who guardeth the foot from the thorn, God, among a hundred, may we be prosperous.’”The Badaga understands the rotation of crops well. On his land he cultivates bearded wheat (beer ganji), barley, onions, garlic, potatoes, kīrē (Amarantus), sāmai (Panicum miliare), tenai (Setaria italica), etc.“Among the Badagas,” Mr. Natesa Sastri writes, “the position of the women is somewhat different from what it is among most peoples. Every Badaga has a few acres to cultivate, but he does not mainly occupy himself with them, for his wife does all the out-door farm work, while he is engaged otherwise in earning something in hard cash. To a Badaga, therefore, his wife is his capital. Her labour in the field is considered to be worth one rupee per day, while an average male Badaga earns merely three annas. A Badaga woman, who has not her own acres to cultivate, finds work on some other lands. She thus works hard for her husband and family, and is quite content with the coarsest food—the korali (Setaria italica) flour—leaving thebetter food to the male members of the family. This fact, and the hard work the Badaga women have to perform, may perhaps account to some extent for the slight build of the Badagas as a race. The male Badaga, too, works in the field, or at his own craft if he is not a cultivator, but his love for ready cash is always so great that, even if he had a harvest to gather the next morning, he would run away as a cooly for two annas wages.” Further, Mr. Grigg states that “as the men constantly leave their villages to work on coffee plantations, much of the labour in their own fields, as well as ordinary household work, is performed by the women. They are so industrious, and their services of such value to their husbands, that a Badaga sometimes pays 150 or 200 rupees as dowry for his wife.” In the off season for cultivation, I am informed, the Badaga woman collects faggots for home consumption, and stores them near her house, and the women prepare the fields for cultivation by weeding, breaking the earth, and collecting manure.In his report on the revenue settlement of the Nilgiris (1885), Mr. (now Sir) R. S. Benson notes that “concurrently with the so-called abolition of the bhurty (or shifting) system of cultivation, Mr. Grant abolished the peculiar system in vogue up to that time in Kundahnad, which had been transferred from Malabar to the Nilgiris in 1860. This system was known as erkādu kothukādu. Under it, a tax of Re. 1 to Re. 1–8–0 was levied for the right to use a plough or er, and a tax of from 4 to 8 annas was levied for the right to use a hoe or kothu. The so-called patta issued to the ryot under this system was really no more than a license to use one or more hoes, as the case might be. It merely specified the amount payable for each instrument, but in no caseswas the extent or position of the lands to be cultivated specified. The ryot used his implements whenever and wherever he pleased. No restrictions, even on the felling of forests, were imposed, so that the hill-sides and valleys were cleared at will. The system was abolished in 1862. But, during the settlement, I found this erkādu kothukādu system still in force in the flourishing Badaga village of Kinnakorai, with some fifty houses.”In connection with the local self-government of the Badagas, Mr. A. Rajah Bahadur Mudaliar writes to me as follows. “In former days, the monegar was a great personage, as he formed the unit of the administration. The appointment was more or less hereditary, and it generally fell to the lot of the richest and most well-to-do. All disputes within his jurisdiction were placed before him, and his decision was accepted as final. In simple matters, such as partition of property, disputes between husband and wife, etc., the monegars themselves disposed of them. But, when questions of a complicated nature presented themselves, they took as their colleagues other people of the villages, and the disputes were settled by the collective wisdom of the village elders. They assembled at a place set apart for the purpose beneath a nīm (Melia Azadirachta) or pīpal tree (Ficus religiosa) on a raised platform (ratchai), generally situated at the entrance to the village. The monegar wasex-officiopresident of such councils. He and the committee had power to fine the parties, to excommunicate them, and to readmit them to the caste. Parents resorted to the monegar for counsel in the disposal of their daughters in marriage, and in finding brides for their sons. If any one had the audacity to run counter to the wishes of the monegar in mattersmatrimonial, he had the power to throw obstacles in the way of such marriages taking place. The monegar, in virtue of his position, wielded much power, and ruled the village as he pleased.” In the old days, it is said, when he visited any village within his jurisdiction, the monegar had the privilege of having the best women or maids of the place to share his cot according to his choice. In former times, the monegar used to wear a silver ring as the badge of office, and some Badagas still have in their possession such rings, which are preserved as heirlooms, and worshipped during festivals. The term monegar is, at the present day, used for the village revenue official and munsiff.I gather that each exogamous sept has its headman, called Gouda, who is assisted by a Parpattikāran, and decides tribal matters, such as disputes, divorce, etc. Fines, when inflicted, go towards feasting the tribe, and doing pūja (worship) to the gods. In the case of a dispute between two parties, one challenges the other to take an oath in a temple before the village council. A declaration on oath settles the matter at issue, and the parties agree to abide by it. It is the duty of the Parpattikāran to make arrangements for such events as the Heththeswāmi, Devvē and Bairaganni festivals, and the buffalo sacrificing festival at Konakkore. The Parpattikāran takes part in the purification of excommunicated members of the tribe, when they are received back into it, for example, on release from prison. The tongue of the delinquent is burnt with a hot sandal stick, and a new waist thread put on. He is taken to the temple, where he stands amidst the assembled Badagas, who touch his head with a cane. He then prostrates himself at the feet of the Parpattikāran, who smears his forehead with sacred ashes. It is, further, the duty ofthe Parpattikāran to be present on the occasion of the Kannikattu (pregnancy) ceremony.A quarter of a century ago, a Badaga could be at once picked out from the other tribes of the Nīlgiris by his wearing a turban. But, in the present advanced age, not only does the Toda sometimes appear in the national head-dress, but even Irulas and Kurumbas, who only a short time ago were buried in the jungles, living like pigs and bears on roots, honey and other forest produce, turn up on Sundays in the Kotagiri bazar, clad in turban and coat of English cut. And, as the less civilised tribes don the turban, so the college student abandons this picturesque form of head-gear in favour of the less becoming and less washable porkpie cap, while the Badaga men and youths glory in a knitted night-cap of flaring red or orange hue. The body of the Badaga man is covered by a long body-cloth, sometimes with red and blue stripes, wrapped “so loosely that, as a man works in the fields, he is obliged to stop between every few strokes of his hoe, to gather up his cloth, and throw one end over his shoulder.” Male adornment is limited to gold ear-rings of a special pattern made by Kotas or goldsmiths, a silver waist-thread, silver bangle on the wrist, and silver, copper, or brass rings. The women wear a white body-cloth, a white under-cloth tied round the chest, tightly wrapped square across the breasts, and reaching to the knees, and a white cloth worn like a cap on the head. As types of female jewelry and tattooing, the following examples may be cited:—1. Tattooed on forehead with dashes, circles and crescent; spot on chin; double row of dots on each upper arm over deltoid; and devices and double row of dots on right forearm. Gold ornament in left nostril. Necklets of glass beads and silver links with four-annapiece pendent. Silver armlet above right elbow. Four copper armlets above left elbow. Four silver and seven composition bangles on left forearm. Two silver rings on right ring-finger; two steel rings on left ring-finger.2. Tattooed on forehead; quadruple row of dots over right deltoid; star on right forearm.3. Tattooed like the preceding on forehead and upper arm. Spot on chin; elaborate device on right forearm; rayed star or sun on back of hand.4. Tattooed like the preceding on forehead and arm. Triple row of dots on back and front of left wrist, and double row of dots, with circle surrounded by dots, across chest.Toreya women are only allowed to wear bangles on the wrist.The tattoo marks on the foreheads of Udayar women consist of a crescent and dot, and they have a straight line tattooed at the outer corners of the eyes. Women of the other sub-divisions have on the forehead two circles with two vertical dashes between them, and a horizontal or crescentic dash below. The circles are made by pricking in the pigment over an impression made with a finger ring, or over a black mark made by means of such a ring. The operation is performed either by a Badaga or Korava woman. The former uses as needles the spines ofCarissa spinarum, and a mixture of finely powdered charcoal or lamp-black mixed with rice gruel. The marks on the forehead are made when a girl is about eight or nine years old, and do not, as stated by Mr. Natesa Sastri, proclaim to the whole Badaga world that a girl is of marriageable age.In colour the Badagas are lighter than the other hill tribes, and the comparative pallor of the skin is specially noticeable in the females, whom, with very few exceptions,I was only able to study by surreptitious examination, when we met on the roads. In physique, the typical Badaga man is below middle height, smooth-skinned, of slender build, with narrow chest and shoulders.Badaga men have cicatrices on the shoulder and forearm as the result of branding with a fire-stick when they are lads, with the object, it is said, of giving strength, and preventing pain when milking or churning. In like manner, the Todas have raised cicatrices (keloids) on the shoulder produced by branding with a fire-stick. They believe that the branding enables them to milk the buffaloes with perfect ease.The Badagas have a very extensive repertoire of hora hesaru, or nicknames, of which the following are examples:—One who eats in bed during the night.Snorer.Stupid.Bald head.Brown-eyed.Thin and bony.Big head.Bandy-legged.One who returned alive from the burning ground.Ripe fruit.Big-thighed.Blind.Lame.Big calves.Piles.Liar.Cat-eyed.Fond of pot-herbs.Rheumatic.Bad-tempered.Left-handed.Buffalo grazer.Saliva dribbling.Honey-eater.Black.Spleen.Teeth.Potato-eater.Glutton.Belly.Itch legged.One who was slow in learning to walk.Tall.Thief-eyed.Pustule-bodied.Scarred.Hairy.Weak, like partially baked pots.Strong, like portland cement.Among the Badagas, Konga is used as a term of abuse. Those who made mistakes in matching Holmgren’s wools, with which I tested them, were, always called Konga by the onlookers.When two Badagas meet each other, the elder touches the head of the younger with his right hand. This form of salutation is known as giving the head. A person of the Badaga section gives the head, as it is called, to an Udaiyar, in token of the superiority of the latter. When people belong to the same sept, they say “Ba, anna, appa, thamma, amma, akka” (come, father, brother, mother, sister, etc.). But, if they are of different septs, they will say “Ba, māma, māmi, bava” (come, uncle, aunt, brother-in-law, etc.). “Whenever,” Dr. Rivers writes,11“a Toda meets a Badaga monegar (headman), or an old Badaga with whom he is acquainted, a salutation passes between the two. The Toda stands before the Badaga, inclines his head slightly, and says ‘Madtin pudia.’ (Madtin, you have come). The Badaga replies ‘Buthuk! buthuk!’ (blessing, blessing), and rests his hand on the top of the Toda’s head. This greeting only takes place between Todas and the more important of the Badaga community. It would seem that every Badaga headman may be greeted in this way, but a Toda will only greet other Badaga elders, if he is already acquainted with them. The salutation is made to members of all the various castes of the Badagas, except the Toreyas. It has been held to imply that the Todas regard the Badagas as their superiors, but it is doubtful how far this is the case. The Todas themselves say they follow the custom because the Badagas help to support them. It seems to be a mark of respect paidby the Todas to the elders of a tribe with which they have very close relations, and it is perhaps significant that no similar sign of respect is shown to Toda elders by the Badagas.”Every Badaga family has its Muttu Kota, from whom it gets the agricultural implements, pots, hoes, etc. In return, the Kotas receive an annual present of food-grains, mustard and potatoes. For a Kota funeral, the Badagas have to give five rupees or a quantity of rice, and a buffalo. The pots obtained from the Kotas are not used immediately, but kept for three days in the jungle, or in a bush in some open spot. They are then taken to the outer apartment of the house, and kept there for three days, when they are smeared with the bark ofMeliosma pungens(the tūd tree of the Todas) and culms ofAndropogon Schœnanthus(bzambe hullu). Thus purified, the pots are used for boiling water in for three days, and may then be used for any purpose. The Badagas are said to give a present of grain annually to the Todas. Every Toda mand (or mad) seems to have its own group of Badaga families, who pay them this gudu, as it is called. “There are,” Dr. Rivers writes, “several regulations concerning the food of the palol (dairy man of a Toda sacred dairy). Any grain he eats must be that provided by the Badagas. At the present time more rice is eaten than was formerly the case. This is not grown by the Badagas, but nevertheless the rice for the palol must be obtained through them. The palol wears garments of a dark grey material made in the Coimbatore district. They are brought to the palol by the Badaga called tikelfmav. The earthenware vessels of the inner room (of the ti dairy) are not obtained from the Kotas, like the ordinary vessels, but are made by Hindus, and are procured through the Badagas.”The Badagas live in dread of the Kurumbas, and the Kurumba constantly comes under reference in their folk-stories. The Kurumba is the necromancer of the hills, and believed to be possessed of the power of outraging women, removing their livers, and so causing their death, while the wound heals by magic, so that no trace of the operation is left. He is supposed, too, to have the power of opening the bolts of doors by magic and effecting an entrance into a house at night for some nefarious purpose. The Toda or Badaga requires the services of the Kurumba, when he fancies that any member of his family is possessed of the devil, or when he wants to remove the evil eye, to which he imagines that his children have been subjected. The Kurumba does his best to remove the malady by repeating various mantrams (magical formulæ). If he fails, and if any suspicion is aroused in the mind of the Toda or Badaga that he is allowing the devil to play his pranks instead of loosing his hold on the supposed victim, woe betide him. The wrath of the entire village, or even the whole tribe, is raised against the unhappy Kurumba. His hut is surrounded at night, and the entire household massacred in cold blood, and their huts set on fire. This is very cleverly carried out, and the isolated position of the Kurumba settlements allows of very little clue for identification. In 1835 no less than fifty-eight Kurumbas were thus murdered, and a smaller number in 1875 and 1882. In 1891 the live inmates of a single hut were murdered, and their hut burnt to ashes, because, it was said, one of them who had been treating a sick Badaga child failed to cure it. The crime was traced to some Kotas in conjunction with Badagas, but the District Judge disbelieved the evidence, and all who were charged were acquitted. Every Badaga family pays an annualtax of four annas to the Kurumbas, and, if a Kurumba comes to a Badaga hatti (village), a subscription is raised as an inducement to him to take his departure. The Kurumba receives a fee for every Badaga funeral, and for the pregnancy ceremony (kannikattu).It is noted by Dr. Rivers that “the Toda sorcerers are not only feared by their fellow Todas, but also by the Badagas, and it is probably largely owing to fear of Toda sorcery that the Badagas continue to pay their tribute of grain. The Badagas may also consult the Toda diviners, and it is probable that the belief of the Badagas in the magical powers of the Todas is turned to good account by the latter. In some cases, Todas, have been killed by Badagas owing to this belief.”Among the Todas, the duties of milking the buffaloes and dairy-work are entrusted to special individuals, whereas any Badaga male may, after initiation, milk the cows and buffaloes, provided that he is free from pollution. Every Badaga boy, when he is about seven or nine years old, is made to milk a cow on an auspicious day, or on new year’s day. The ceremony is thus described by Mr. Natesa Sastri. “Early in the morning of the day appointed for this ceremony, the boy is bathed, and appears in his holiday dress. A she-buffalo, with her calf, stands before his house, waiting to be milked. The parents, or other elder relations of the boy, and those who have been invited to be present on the occasion, or whose duty it is to be present, then conduct the boy to the spot. The father, or some one of the agnatic kindred, gives into the hands of the boy a bamboo vessel called honē, which is already very nearly full of fresh-drawn milk. The boy receives the vessel with both his hands, and is conducted to the buffalo. The elder relations show him the process, and the boy,sitting down, milks a small quantity into the honē. This is his first initiation into the duty of milking, and it is that he may not commit mistakes on the very first day of his milking that the honē is previously filled almost to the brim. The boy takes the vessel filled with milk into his house, and pours some of the sacred fluid into all his household eating vessels—a sign that from that day he has taken up on himself the responsibility of supplying the family with milk. He also throws some milk in the faces of his parents and relatives. They receive it very kindly, and bless him, and request him to continue thus to milk the buffaloes, and bring plenty and prosperity to the house. After this, the boy enters the milk-house (hāgōttu), and places milk in his honē there. From this moment, and all through his life, he may enter into that room, and this is therefore considered a very important ceremony.”A cow or buffalo, which has calved for the first time, has to be treated in a special manner. For three or five days it is not milked. A boy is then selected to milk it. He must not sleep on a mat, or wear a turban, and, instead of tying his cloth round his waist, must wear it loosely over his body. Meat is forbidden, and he must avoid, and not speak to polluting classes, such as Irulas and Kotas, and menstruating women. On the day appointed for milking the animal, the boy bathes, and proceeds to milk it into a new honē purified by smearing a paste ofMeliosma(tūd) leaves and bark over it, and heating it over a fire. The milk is taken to a stream, where three cups are made ofArgyreia(mīnige) leaves, into which a small quantity of the milk is placed. The cups are then put in the water. The remainder of the milk in the honē is also poured into the stream. In some places, especially where a Mādeswara temple isclose at hand, the milk is taken to the temple, and given to the pūjāri. With a portion of the milk some plantain fruits are made into a pulp, and given to an Udaya, who throws them into a stream. The boy is treated with some respect by his family during the period when he milks the animal, and is given food first. This he must eat off a plate made ofArgyreia, or plantain leaves.Besides the hāgōttu within the house, the Badagas have, at certain places, separate dairy-houses near a temple dedicated to Heththeswāmi, of which the one at Bairaganni (or Bērganni) appears to be the most important. The dairy pūjāri is here, like the Toda palol, a celibate. In 1905, he was a young lad, whom my Brāhman assistant set forth to photograph. He was, however, met at a distance from the village by a headman, who assured him that he could not take the photograph without the sanction of fifteen villages. The pūjāri is not allowed to wander freely about the village, or talk to grown-up women. He cooks his own food within the temple grounds, and wears his cloth thrown loosely over his body. Once a year, on the occasion of a festival, he is presented with new cloths and turban, which alone he may wear. He must be a strict vegetarian. A desire to marry and abandon the priesthood is believed to be conveyed in dreams, or through one inspired. Before leaving the temple service, he must train his successor in the duties, and retires with the gains acquired by the sale of the products of the herd and temple offerings. The village of Bairaganni is regarded as sacred, and possesses no holagudi (menstrual hut).Bishop Whitehead adds that “buffaloes are given as offerings to the temple at Bairaganni, and become the property of the pūjāri, who milks them, and uses themilk for his food. All the villagers give him rice every day. He may only eat once a day, at about 3P.M.He cooks the meal himself, and empties the rice from the cooking-pot by turning it over once. If the rice does not come out the first time, he cannot take it at all. When he wants to get married, another boy is appointed in his place. The buffaloes are handed over to his successor.” The following legend in connection with Bairaganni is also recorded by Bishop Whitehead. “There is a village in the Mēkanād division of the Nīlgiris called Nundāla. A man had a daughter. He wanted to marry her to a man in the Paranganād division about a hundred years ago. She did not wish to marry him. The father insisted, but she refused again and again. At last she wished to die, and came near a tank, on the bank of which was a tree. She sat under the tree and washed, and then threw herself into the tank. One of the men of Bairaganni in the Paranganād division saw the woman in a dream. She told him that she was not a human being but a goddess, an incarnation of Parvati. The people of Nundāla built a strong bund (embankment) round the tank, and allow no woman to go on it. Only the pūjāri, and Badagas who have prepared themselves by fasting and ablution, are allowed to go on the bund to offer pūja, which is done by breaking cocoanuts, and offering rice, flowers, and fruits. The woman told the man in his dream to build a temple at Bairaganni, which is now the chief temple of Heththeswāmi.”Concerning the initiation of a Lingāyat Badaga into his religion, which takes place at about his thirteenth birthday, Mr. Natesa Sastri writes as follows. “The priest conducts this ceremony, and the elder relations of the family have only to arrange for the performanceof it. The priests belong to the Udaya sect. They live in their own villages, and are specially sent for, and come to the boy’s village for the occasion. The ceremony is generally done to several boys of about the same age on the same day. On the day appointed, all the people in the Badaga village, where this ceremony is to take place, observe a strict fast. The cows and buffaloes are all milked very early in the morning, and not a drop of the milk thus collected is given out, or taken by even the tenderest children of the village, who may require it very badly. The Udaya priest arrives near the village between 10A.M.and noon on the day appointed. He never goes into the village, but stops near some rivulet adjacent to it. The relations of the boy approach him with a new basket, containing five measures of uncooked rice, pulse, ghī, etc., and a quarter of a rupee—one fanam, as it is generally designated. The priest sits near the water-course, and lights a fire on the bank. Perfumes are thrown profusely into it, and this is almost the only ceremony before the fire. The boys, whose turn it is to receive the linga that day, are all directed to bathe in the river. A plantain leaf, cut into one foot square, is placed in front of the fire towards the east of it. The lingas, kept in readiness by the parents of the boys, are now received by the priest, and placed on the leaves. The boys are asked to wash them—each one the linga meant for his wearing—in water and milk. Then comes the time for the expenditure of all the collected milk of the morning. Profusely the white fluid is poured, till the whole rivulet is nothing but a stream of milk. After the lingas are thus washed, the boys give them to the priest, who places them in his left palm, and, covering them with his right, utters, with all the solemnity due to the occasion, the followingincantation, while the boys and the whole village assembled there listen to it with the most profound respect and veneration ‘Oh! Siva, Hara, Basava, the Lord of all the six thousand and three thousand names and glories, the Lord of one lakh and ninety-six thousand ganas (body-guards of Siva), the donor of water, the daily-to-be worshipped, the husband of Parvati. Oh! Lord, O! Siva Linga, thy feet alone are our resort. Oh! Siva, Siva, Siva, Siva.’ While pronouncing this prayer, the priest now and then removes his right palm, and pours water and milk round the sacred fire, and over the lingas resting in his left palm. He then places each of the lingas in a cloth of one cubit square, rolls it up, and requests the boys to hold out their right palms. The young Badaga receives it, repeats the prayer given about five times, and, during each repetition, the palm holding the linga tied up in the cloth is carried nearer and nearer to his neck. When that is reached (on the fifth utterance of the incantation), the priest ties the ends of the rolled up cloth containing the Siva emblem loosely round the boy’s neck, while the latter is all the while kneeling down, holding with both his hands the feet of the priest. After the linga has been tied, the priest blesses him thus: ‘May one become one thousand to you. May you ever preserve in you the Siva Linga. If you do so, you will have plenty of milk and food, and you will prosper for one thousand years in name and fame, kine and coin.’ If more than one have to receive the linga on the same day, each of them has to undergo this ceremony. After the ceremony is over, the priest returns to his village with the rice, etc., and fees. Every house, in which a boy has received the linga, has to give a grand feast on that day. Even the poorest Badaga must feed at least five other Badagas.”The foregoing account of the investiture with the lingam apparently applies to the Mēkanād Udayas. The following note is based on information supplied by the Udayas of Paranginād. The ceremony of investiture is performed either on new year’s day or Sivarāthri by an Udaya priest in the house of a respected member of the community (doddamane), which is vacated for the occasion. The houses of the boys and girls who are to receive lingams are cleaned, and festoons of tūd and mango leaves, lime fruits, and flowers ofLeucas aspera(thumbē) are tied across the doorways, and in front of the house where the ceremony is to be performed. Until the conclusion thereof, all the people of the village fast. The candidates, with their parents, and the officiating priest repair to the doddamane. The lingams are handed over to the priest, who, taking them up one by one, does pūja to them, and gives them to the children. They in turn do pūja, and the lingams, wrapped in pink silk or cotton cloths, are tied round their necks. The pūja consists of washing the lingams in cow’s urine and milk, smearing them with sandal and turmeric paste, throwing flowers on them, and waving incense and burning camphor before them. After the investiture, the novices are taught a prayer, which is not a stereotyped formula, but varies with the priest and village.Like other Lingayats, the Udayas respect the Jangam, but do not employ the Jangama thirtham (water used for washing the Jangam’s feet) for bathing their lingams. In Udaya villages there is no special menstrual hut (holagudi). Milk is not regarded by them as a sacred product, so there is no hāgōttu in their houses. Nor do they observe the Manavalai festival in honour of ancestors. Other ceremonies are celebrated by them, asby other Badagas, but they do not employ the services of a Kurumba.Important agricultural ceremonies are performed by the Badagas at the time of sowing and harvest. The seed-sowing ceremony takes place in March, and, in some places,e.g., the Mēkanād and Paranginād, a Kurumba plays an important part in it. On an auspicious day—a Tuesday before the crescent moon—a pūjāri of the Devvē temple sets out several hours before dawn with five or seven kinds of grain in a basket and sickle, accompanied by a Kurumba, and leading a pair of bullocks with a plough. On reaching the field selected, the pūjāri pours the grain into the cloth of the Kurumba, and, yoking the animals to the plough, makes three furrows in the soil. The Kurumba, stopping the bullocks, kneels on the ground between the furrows facing east. Removing his turban, he places it on the ground, and, closing his ears with his palms, bawls out “Dho, Dho,” thrice. He then rises, and scatters the grain thrice on the soil. The pūjāri and Kurumba then return to the village, and the former deposits what remains of the grain in the store-room (attu). A new pot, full of water, is placed in the milk-house, and the pūjāri dips his right hand therein, saying “Nerathubitta” (it is full). This ceremony is an important one for the Badagas, as, until it has been performed, sowing may not commence. It is a day of feasting, and, in addition to rice,Dolichos Lablabis cooked.
Badaga.—As the Todas are the pastoral, and the Kotas the artisan tribe of the Nīlgiris, so the agricultural element on these hills is represented by the Badagas (or, as they are sometimes called, Burghers). Their number was returned, at the census, 1901, as 34,178 against 1,267 Kotas, and 807 Todas. Though the primary occupation of the Badagas is agriculture, there are among their community schoolmasters, clerks, public works contractors, bricklayers, painters, carpenters, sawyers, tailors, gardeners, forest guards, barbers, washermen, and scavengers. Many work on tea and coffee estates, and gangs of Badagas can always be seen breaking stones on, and repairing the hill roads. Others are, at the present day, earning good wages in the Cordite Factory near Wellington. Some of the more prosperouspossess tea and coffee estates of their own. The rising generation are, to some extent, learning Tamil and English, in addition to their own language, which is said to resemble old Canarese. And I have heard a youthful Badaga, tending a flock of sheep, address an errant member thereof in very fluent Billingsgate. There were, in 1904–1905, thirty-nine Badaga schools, which were attended by 1,222 pupils. In 1907, one Badaga had passed the Matriculation of the Madras University, and was a clerk in the Sub-judge’s Court at Ootacamund.A newspaper discussion was carried on a few years ago as to the condition of the Badagas, and whether they are a down-trodden tribe, bankrupt and impoverished to such a degree that it is only a short time before something must be done to ameliorate their condition, and save them from extermination by inducing them to emigrate to the Wynād and Vizagapatam. A few have, in recent years, migrated to the Anaimalai hills, to work on the planters’ estates, which have been opened up there. One writer stated that “the tiled houses, costing from Rs. 250 to Rs. 500, certainly point to their prosperity. They may frequently borrow from the Labbai to enable them to build, but, as I do not know of a single case in which the Labbai has ever seized the house and sold it, I believe this debt is soon discharged. The walled-in, terraced fields immediately around their villages, on which they grow their barley and other grains requiring rich cultivation, are well worked, and regularly manured. The coats, good thick blankets, and gold ear-rings, which most Badagas now possess, can only, I think, point to their prosperity, while their constant feasts, and disinclination to work on Sundays, show that the loss of a few days’ pay does not affect them. On the other hand, a former Native official onthe Nīlgiris writes to me that “though the average Badaga is thrifty and hard-working, there is a tendency for him to be lazy when he is sure of his meal. When a person is sick in another village, his relatives make it an excuse to go and see him, and they have to be fed. When the first crop is raised, the idler pretends that ‘worms’ have crept into the crop, and the gods have to be propitiated, and there is a feast. Marriage or death, of course, draws a crowd to be fed or feasted. All this means extra expenditure, and a considerable drain on the slender income of the family. The Rowthan (Muhammadan merchant) from the Tamil country is near at hand to lend money, as he has carried his bazar to the very heart of the Badaga villages. First it is a bag of rāgi (food grain), a piece of cloth to throw on the coffin, or a few rupees worth of rice and curry-stuff doled out by the all-accommodating Rowthan at a price out of all proportion to the market rate, and at a rate ranging from six pies to two annas for the rupee. The ever impecunious Badaga has no means of extricating himself, with a slender income, which leaves no margin for redeeming debts. The bond is renewed every quarter or half year, and the debt grows by leaps and bounds, and consumes all his earthly goods, including lands. The advent of lawyers on the hills has made the Badagas a most litigious people, and they resort to the courts, which means expenditure of money, and neglect of agriculture.” In the funeral song of the Badagas, which has been translated by Mr. Gover,1one of the crimes enumerated, for which atonement must be made, is that of preferring a complaint to the Sirkar (Government), and one of their numerous proverbs embodies the same idea. “If youprefer a complaint to a Magistrate, it is as if you had put poison into your adversary’s food.” But Mr. Grigg writes,2“either the terrors of the Sirkar are not what they were, or this precept is much disregarded, for the Court-house at Ootacamund is constantly thronged with Badagas, and they are now very much given to litigation.”I gather from the notes, which Bishop Whitehead has kindly placed at my disposal, that “when the Badagas wish to take a very solemn oath, they go to the temple of Māriamma at Sigūr, and, after bathing in the stream and putting on only one cloth, offer fruits, cocoanuts, etc., and kill a sheep or fowl. They put the head of the animal on the step of the shrine, and make a line on the ground just in front of it. The person who is taking the oath then walks from seven feet off in seven steps, putting one foot immediately in front of the other, up to the line, crosses it, goes inside the shrine, and puts out a lamp that is burning in front of the image. If the oath is true, the man will walk without any difficulty straight to the shrine. But, if the oath is not true, his eyes will be blinded, and he will not be able to walk straight to the shrine, or see the lamp. It is a common saying among Badagas, when a man tells lies, ‘Will you go to Sigūr, and take an oath?’ Oaths are taken in much the same way at the temple of Māriamma at Ootacamund. When a Hindu gives evidence in the Court at Ootacamund, he is often asked by the Judge whether he will take an oath at the Māriamma temple. If he agrees, he is sent off to the temple with a Court official. The party for whom he gives evidence supplies a goat or sheep, which is killedat the temple, the head and carcase being placed in front of the image. The witness steps over the carcase, and this forms the oath. If the evidence is false, it is believed that some evil will happen to him.”The name Badaga or Vadugan means northerner, and the Badagas are believed to be descended from Canarese colonists from the Mysore country, who migrated to the Nīlgiris three centuries ago owing to famine, political turmoil, or local oppression in their own country. It is worthy of notice, in this connection, that the head of the Badagas, like that of the Todas and Kotas, is dolichocephalic, and not of the mesaticephalic or sub-brachycephalic type, which prevails throughout Mysore, as in other Canarese areas.Average.Cephalic length.Cephalic breadth.Cephalic index.cm.cm.Badaga18.913.671.7Toda19.414.273.3Kota19.214.274.1Of the Mysorean heads, the following are a few typical examples:—Average.Cephalic length.Cephalic breadth.Cephalic index.cm.cm.Ganiga18.514.377.6Bēdar18.314.377.7Holeya17.914.179.1Mandya Brahman18.514.880.2Vakkaliga17.714.581.7Concerning the origin of the Badagas, the following legend is current. Seven brothers and their sisters were living on the Talamalai hills. A Muhammadanruler attempted to ravish the girl, whom the brother saved from him by flight. They settled down near the present village of Bethalhada. After a short stay there, the brothers separated, and settled in different parts of the Nīlgiris, which they peopled. Concerning the second brother, Hethappa, who had two daughters, the story goes that, during his absence on one occasion, two Todas forced their way into his house, ravished his wife, and possessed themselves of hisworldlyeffects. Hearing of what had occurred, Hethappa sought the assistance of two Balayaru in revenging himself on the Todas. They readily consented to help him, in return for a promise that they should marry his daughters. The Todas were killed, and the present inhabitants of the village Hulikallu are supposed to be the descendants of the Balayaru and Badaga girls. The seven brothers are now worshipped under the name Hethappa or Hetha.In connection with the migration of the Badagas to the Nīlgiris, the following note is given in the Gazetteer of the Nīlgiris. “When this flitting took place there is little to show. It must have occurred after the foundation of the Lingāyat creed in the latter half of the twelfth century, as many of the Badagas are Lingāyats by faith, and sometime before the end of the sixteenth century, since in 1602 the Catholic priests from the west coast found them settled on the south of the plateau, and observing much the same relations with the Todas as subsist to this day. The present state of our knowledge does not enable us to fix more nearly the date of the migration. That the language of the Badagas, which is a form of Canarese, should by now have so widely altered from its original as to be classed as a separate dialect argues that the movement took place nearer the twelfth than the sixteenth century. On the other hand, thefact (pointed out by Dr. Rivers3) that the Badagas are not mentioned in a single one of the Todas’ legends about their gods, whereas the Kotas, Kurumbas, and Irulas, each play a part in one or more of these stories, raises the inference that the relations between the Badagas and the Todas are recent as compared with those between the other tribes. A critical study of the Badaga dialect might perhaps serve to fix within closer limits the date of the migration. As now spoken, this tongue contains letters (two forms of r for instance) and numerous words, which are otherwise met with only in ancient books, and which strike most strangely upon the ear of the present generation of Canarese. The date when some of these letters and words became obsolete might possibly be traced, and thus aid in fixing the period when the Badagas left the low country. It is known that the two forms of r, for example, had dropped out of use prior to the time of the grammarian Kēsirāja, who lived in the thirteenth century, and that the word betta (a hill), which the Badagas use in place of the modern bettu, is found in the thirteenth century work Sabdamanidarpana.”It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Nīlgiris, that “Nelliālam, about eight miles north-west of Dēvāla as the crow flies, is the residence of the Nelliālam Arasu (Urs), who has been recognised as the janmi (landlord) of a considerable area in the Munanād amsam, but is in reality a Canarese-speaking Lingāyat of Canarese extraction, who follows the ordinary Hindu law of inheritance, and is not a native of the Wynād or of Malabar. Family tradition, though now somewhat misty, says that in the beginning two brothers named Sadāsiva Rāja Urs and Bhujanga Rāja Urs moved (at some date and forsome reason not stated) from Ummattūr (in the present Chāmarājnagar taluk of Mysore), and settled at Malaikōta, the old fort near Kalhatti. Their family deities were Bhujangēsvara and Ummattūr Urakātti, which are still worshipped as such. They brought with them a following of Bēdars and Badagas, and thereafter always encouraged the immigration to the hills of more Canarese people. The village of Bannimara, a mile west of Kalhatti, is still peopled by Bēdars who are said to be descendants of people of that caste who came with the two brothers; and to this day, when the Badagas of the plateau have disputes of difficulty, they are said to go down to Nelliālam with presents (kānikai) in their hands, and ask the Arasu to settle their differences, while, at the time of their periodical ceremonies (manavalai) to the memory of their ancestors, they send a deputation to Nelliālam to invite representatives of the Arasu to be present.”Close to the village of Bethalhada is a row of cromlechs carved with figures of the sun and moon, human beings, animals, etc., and enclosed within a stone kraal, which the Badagas claim to be the work of their ancestors, to whom periodical offerings are made. At the time of my visit, there were within one of the cromlechs a conch shell, lingam, bell, and flowers. A number of these sculptured cromlechs at Sholūr, Mēlūr, and other spots on the Nīlgiris, are described and figured by Breeks,4who records that the cromlech at Jakata Kambē is interesting as being the place of the yearly sacrifice performed by the Badagas of the Jakanēri grāma (village) by their Kāni Kurumba. And he adds that the Badagas would seem to have usually selected theneighbourhood of these cromlechs for their temples, as for example, at Mēlūr, Kakūsi, H’laiuru, Tudūr, and Jakatāda.Dolmens near Kotagiri.Dolmens near Kotagiri.It is recorded5, in connection with the legends of the Badagas, that “in the heart of the Banagudi shōla, not far from the Doddūru group of cromlechs, is an odd little shrine to Karairāya, consisting of a ruined stone hut surrounded by a low wall, within which are a tiny cromlech, some sacred water-worn stones, and sundry little pottery images representing a tiger, a mounted man, and some dogs. These keep in memory, it is said, a Badaga who was slain in combat with a tiger; and annually a festival is held, at which new images are placed there, and vows are paid. A Kurumba makes fire by friction and burns incense, throws sanctified water over the numerous goats brought to be sacrificed, to see if they will shiver in the manner always held necessary in sacrificial victims, and then slays, one after the other, those which have shown themselves duly qualified. Hulikal Drūg, usually known as the Drūg, is a precipitous bluff at the very end of the range which borders on the south the great ravine which runs up to Coonoor. It is named from the neighbouring village of Hulikal, or tiger’s stone, and the story goes that this latter is so called because in it a Badaga killed a notorious man-eater which had long been the terror of the country side. The spot where the beast was buried is shown near the Pillaiyar temple to the south of Hulikal village, and is marked by three stones. Burton says there used formerly to be a stone image of the slain tiger thereabouts. Some two miles south-east of Kōnakarai in a place known as Kōttai-hāda, or the fort flat, liethe remains of the old fort Udaiya Rāya Kōta. Badaga tradition gives a fairly detailed account of Udaiya Rāya. It says he was a chief who collected the taxes for the Ummattūr Rājas, and that he had also a fort at Kullanthorai, near Sirumugai, the remains of which are still to be seen. He married a woman of Netlingi hamlet of Nedugula, named Muddu Gavari, but she died by the wrath of the gods because she persuaded him to celebrate the annual fire-walking festival in front of the fort, instead of at the customary spot by the Mahālingasvāmi temple about half a mile off. Ānaikatti is a hamlet situated in the jungle of the Moyar valley. The stream which flows past it tumbles over a pretty fall on the slopes of Bīrmukkū (Bimaka) hill. The Badagas call the spot Kuduraihallo, or the ravine of the horse, and say the name was given it because a Badaga, covered with shame at finding that his wife gave him first sort rice but his brother who lived with them only second sort, committed suicide by jumping his horse down the fall.”Badagas.Badagas.According to Mr. Grigg, the Badagas recognise eighteen different “castes or sects.” These are, however, simplified by Mr. S. M. Natesa Sāstri6into six, “five high castes and one low caste.” They are—1.Udaya.High caste.2.Hāruva.3.Adhikāri.4.Kanaka.5.Badaga.6.ToreyaLow caste.“Udayas are Lingāyats in religion, and carry the Sivalinga—the Siva image—tied round their necks. They claim to be superior to all the other Badagas, andare regarded as such. They are priests to all the Badagas of the Lingāyat class, and are strict vegetarians. They do not intermarry with any of the other high caste Badaga sects. Udaya was, and is the title assumed by the Maisūr Rājas, and those Badagas, by being thus designated as a caste, claim superior blood in their veins.” The Lingāyat Badagas are commonly called Lingakutti. “Next in rank come the Hāruvas. From their name being so closely connected with the Āryas—the respectable—and from their habit of wearing the Brāhmanical thread, we are warranted in believing that they must originally have been the poor Brāhman priests of the Badagas that migrated to this country (the Nīlgiris), though they have now got themselves closely mingled with the Badagas. These Hāruvas are also strict vegetarians, and act as priests.” It has been suggested that the Hāruvas (jumper) derive their name from the fire-walking ceremony, which they perform periodically. A further, and more probable suggestion has been made to me that Hāruva comes from a Canarese word meaning to beg or pray; hence one who begs or prays, and so a Brāhman. The Canarese Basava Purāna frequently uses the word in sense. “The Adhikāris are to a certain extent vegetarians. The other two high castes, and of course the low caste Toreyas also, have no objection of any kind to eating flesh. It is also said that the vegetarian Adhikāri, if he marries into a flesh-eating caste of the Badagas, betakes himself to this latter very readily.” The Kanakas are stated by Mr. Grigg to be the accountants, who were probably introduced when the hills were under the sway of the Tamil chiefs. This would, however, seem to be very improbable. “The Toreyas are regarded as sons and servants to the five high caste Badaga sects—to the Hāruvas especially.They are the lowest in the scale, and they are prohibited from intermarrying with the other or high caste Badagas, as long as they are sons to them.” The Toreya does the menial duties for the tribe. He is the village servant, carries the corpses to the burning-ground, conveys the news of a death from village to village, is the first to get shaved when a death occurs, and is sent along with a woman when she is going to visit her mother or mother-in-law at a distance from her own home. “The Udayas, Adhikāris and Kanakas are Lingāyats in religion, and the other three, the Hāruvas, Badagas, and Toreyas are Saivites.” Of the six divisions referred to, the Udayas and Toreyas are endogamous, but intermarriage is permissible between the other four. At the census, 1891, a large number of Badagas returned as their sub-division Vakkaliga, which means cultivator, and is the name of the great cultivating caste of Mysore.Seven miles west of Coonoor is a village named Athikārihatti, or village of the Athikāri or Adhikāri section of the Badagas. “The story goes that these people, under a leader named Karibetta Rāya, came from Sarigūr in Mysore territory, and settled first at Nelliturai (a short distance south-west of Mēttupālaiyam) and afterwards at Tūdūr (on the plateau west of Kulakambi) and Tadasimarahatti (to the north-west of Mēlūr), and that it was they who erected the sculptured cromlechs of Tūdūr and Mēlūr. Tūdūr and Tadasimarahatti are now both deserted; but in the former a cattle kraal, an old shrine, and a pit for fire-walking may still be seen, and in the latter another kraal, and one of the raised stone platforms called mandaikallu by the Badagas. Tradition says that the Badagas left these places and founded Athikārihatti and its hamlets instead, because the Kurumbas round about continually troubledthem with their magic arts, and indeed killed by sorcery several of their most prominent citizens.”7Badaga Girls.Badaga Girls.Like other Canarese people, the Badagas have exogamous septs or kūlas, of which Māri, Madhave (marriage), Kastūri (musk), and Belli (silver) are examples. A very large number of families belong to the Māri and Madhave septs, which were time after time given as the sept name in reply to my enquiries. It may be noted that Belli occurs as an exogamous sept of the Canarese classes Vakkaliga, Toreya, and Kuruba, and Kastūri is recorded in my notes as a sept of the Vakkaligas and Telugu Kammas.The Badagas dwell in extensive villages, generally situated on the summit of a low hillock, composed of rows of comfortable thatched or tiled houses, and surrounded by the fields, which yield the crops. The houses are not separate tenements, but a line of dwellings under one continuous roof, and divided by party walls. Sometimes there are two or three, or more lines, forming streets. Each house is partitioned off into an outer (edumane) and inner apartment (ozhaga or ōgamane). If the family has cows or buffaloes yielding milk, a portion of the latter is converted into a milk-house (hāgōttu), in which the milk is stored, and which no woman may enter. Even males who are under pollution, from having touched or passed near a Kota or Paraiyan, or other cause, may not enter it until they have had a ceremonial bath. To some houses a loft, made of bamboo posts, is added, to serve as a store-house. In every Badaga village there is a raised platform composed of a single boulder or several stones with an erect stone slab set up thereon, called sūththukallu. There is, further, a platform, made of bricks and mud, called mandhe kallu, whereon the Badagas, when not working, sit at ease. In their folk-tales men seated thereon are made to give information concerning the approach of strangers to the village. Strangers, who are not Badagas, are called Holeya. The Rev. G. Richter gives8Badaga Holeya as a division of the lowly Holeyas, who came to Coorg from the Mysore country. In front of the houses, the operations of drying and threshing grain are carried out. The cattle are kept in stone kraals, or covered sheds close to the habitations, and the litter is kept till it is knee or waist deep, and then carried away as manure for the Badaga’s land, or planters’ estates.“Nobody,” it has been said,9“can beat the Badaga at making mother earth produce to her utmost capacity, unless it be a Chinese gardener. To-day we see a portion of the hill side covered with rocks and boulders. The Badagas become possessed of this scene of chaos, and turn out into the place in hundreds, reducing it, in a few weeks, to neat order. The unwieldy boulders, having been rolled aside, serve their purpose by being turned into a wall to keep out cattle, etc. The soil is pounded and worried until it becomes amenable to reason, and next we see a green crop running in waves over the surface. The Badagas are the most progressive of all the hill tribes, and always willing to test any new method of cultivation, or new crops brought to their notice by the Nilgiri Horticultural Society.”Writing in 1832, Harkness states10that “on leaving his house in the morning the Burgher pays his adorationto the god of day, proceeds to the tu-el or yard, in which the cattle have been confined, and, again addressing the sun as the emblem of Siva, asks his blessing, and liberates the herd. He allows the cattle to stray about in the neighbourhood of the village, on a piece of ground which is always kept for this purpose, and, having performed his morning ablutions, commences the milking. This is also preceded by further salutations and praises to the sun. On entering the house in the evening, the Burgher addresses the lamp, now the only light, or visible emblem of the deity. ‘Thou, creator of this and of all worlds, the greatest of the great, who art with us, as well in the mountain as in the wilderness, who keepeth the wreaths that adorn the head from fading, who guardeth the foot from the thorn, God, among a hundred, may we be prosperous.’”The Badaga understands the rotation of crops well. On his land he cultivates bearded wheat (beer ganji), barley, onions, garlic, potatoes, kīrē (Amarantus), sāmai (Panicum miliare), tenai (Setaria italica), etc.“Among the Badagas,” Mr. Natesa Sastri writes, “the position of the women is somewhat different from what it is among most peoples. Every Badaga has a few acres to cultivate, but he does not mainly occupy himself with them, for his wife does all the out-door farm work, while he is engaged otherwise in earning something in hard cash. To a Badaga, therefore, his wife is his capital. Her labour in the field is considered to be worth one rupee per day, while an average male Badaga earns merely three annas. A Badaga woman, who has not her own acres to cultivate, finds work on some other lands. She thus works hard for her husband and family, and is quite content with the coarsest food—the korali (Setaria italica) flour—leaving thebetter food to the male members of the family. This fact, and the hard work the Badaga women have to perform, may perhaps account to some extent for the slight build of the Badagas as a race. The male Badaga, too, works in the field, or at his own craft if he is not a cultivator, but his love for ready cash is always so great that, even if he had a harvest to gather the next morning, he would run away as a cooly for two annas wages.” Further, Mr. Grigg states that “as the men constantly leave their villages to work on coffee plantations, much of the labour in their own fields, as well as ordinary household work, is performed by the women. They are so industrious, and their services of such value to their husbands, that a Badaga sometimes pays 150 or 200 rupees as dowry for his wife.” In the off season for cultivation, I am informed, the Badaga woman collects faggots for home consumption, and stores them near her house, and the women prepare the fields for cultivation by weeding, breaking the earth, and collecting manure.In his report on the revenue settlement of the Nilgiris (1885), Mr. (now Sir) R. S. Benson notes that “concurrently with the so-called abolition of the bhurty (or shifting) system of cultivation, Mr. Grant abolished the peculiar system in vogue up to that time in Kundahnad, which had been transferred from Malabar to the Nilgiris in 1860. This system was known as erkādu kothukādu. Under it, a tax of Re. 1 to Re. 1–8–0 was levied for the right to use a plough or er, and a tax of from 4 to 8 annas was levied for the right to use a hoe or kothu. The so-called patta issued to the ryot under this system was really no more than a license to use one or more hoes, as the case might be. It merely specified the amount payable for each instrument, but in no caseswas the extent or position of the lands to be cultivated specified. The ryot used his implements whenever and wherever he pleased. No restrictions, even on the felling of forests, were imposed, so that the hill-sides and valleys were cleared at will. The system was abolished in 1862. But, during the settlement, I found this erkādu kothukādu system still in force in the flourishing Badaga village of Kinnakorai, with some fifty houses.”In connection with the local self-government of the Badagas, Mr. A. Rajah Bahadur Mudaliar writes to me as follows. “In former days, the monegar was a great personage, as he formed the unit of the administration. The appointment was more or less hereditary, and it generally fell to the lot of the richest and most well-to-do. All disputes within his jurisdiction were placed before him, and his decision was accepted as final. In simple matters, such as partition of property, disputes between husband and wife, etc., the monegars themselves disposed of them. But, when questions of a complicated nature presented themselves, they took as their colleagues other people of the villages, and the disputes were settled by the collective wisdom of the village elders. They assembled at a place set apart for the purpose beneath a nīm (Melia Azadirachta) or pīpal tree (Ficus religiosa) on a raised platform (ratchai), generally situated at the entrance to the village. The monegar wasex-officiopresident of such councils. He and the committee had power to fine the parties, to excommunicate them, and to readmit them to the caste. Parents resorted to the monegar for counsel in the disposal of their daughters in marriage, and in finding brides for their sons. If any one had the audacity to run counter to the wishes of the monegar in mattersmatrimonial, he had the power to throw obstacles in the way of such marriages taking place. The monegar, in virtue of his position, wielded much power, and ruled the village as he pleased.” In the old days, it is said, when he visited any village within his jurisdiction, the monegar had the privilege of having the best women or maids of the place to share his cot according to his choice. In former times, the monegar used to wear a silver ring as the badge of office, and some Badagas still have in their possession such rings, which are preserved as heirlooms, and worshipped during festivals. The term monegar is, at the present day, used for the village revenue official and munsiff.I gather that each exogamous sept has its headman, called Gouda, who is assisted by a Parpattikāran, and decides tribal matters, such as disputes, divorce, etc. Fines, when inflicted, go towards feasting the tribe, and doing pūja (worship) to the gods. In the case of a dispute between two parties, one challenges the other to take an oath in a temple before the village council. A declaration on oath settles the matter at issue, and the parties agree to abide by it. It is the duty of the Parpattikāran to make arrangements for such events as the Heththeswāmi, Devvē and Bairaganni festivals, and the buffalo sacrificing festival at Konakkore. The Parpattikāran takes part in the purification of excommunicated members of the tribe, when they are received back into it, for example, on release from prison. The tongue of the delinquent is burnt with a hot sandal stick, and a new waist thread put on. He is taken to the temple, where he stands amidst the assembled Badagas, who touch his head with a cane. He then prostrates himself at the feet of the Parpattikāran, who smears his forehead with sacred ashes. It is, further, the duty ofthe Parpattikāran to be present on the occasion of the Kannikattu (pregnancy) ceremony.A quarter of a century ago, a Badaga could be at once picked out from the other tribes of the Nīlgiris by his wearing a turban. But, in the present advanced age, not only does the Toda sometimes appear in the national head-dress, but even Irulas and Kurumbas, who only a short time ago were buried in the jungles, living like pigs and bears on roots, honey and other forest produce, turn up on Sundays in the Kotagiri bazar, clad in turban and coat of English cut. And, as the less civilised tribes don the turban, so the college student abandons this picturesque form of head-gear in favour of the less becoming and less washable porkpie cap, while the Badaga men and youths glory in a knitted night-cap of flaring red or orange hue. The body of the Badaga man is covered by a long body-cloth, sometimes with red and blue stripes, wrapped “so loosely that, as a man works in the fields, he is obliged to stop between every few strokes of his hoe, to gather up his cloth, and throw one end over his shoulder.” Male adornment is limited to gold ear-rings of a special pattern made by Kotas or goldsmiths, a silver waist-thread, silver bangle on the wrist, and silver, copper, or brass rings. The women wear a white body-cloth, a white under-cloth tied round the chest, tightly wrapped square across the breasts, and reaching to the knees, and a white cloth worn like a cap on the head. As types of female jewelry and tattooing, the following examples may be cited:—1. Tattooed on forehead with dashes, circles and crescent; spot on chin; double row of dots on each upper arm over deltoid; and devices and double row of dots on right forearm. Gold ornament in left nostril. Necklets of glass beads and silver links with four-annapiece pendent. Silver armlet above right elbow. Four copper armlets above left elbow. Four silver and seven composition bangles on left forearm. Two silver rings on right ring-finger; two steel rings on left ring-finger.2. Tattooed on forehead; quadruple row of dots over right deltoid; star on right forearm.3. Tattooed like the preceding on forehead and upper arm. Spot on chin; elaborate device on right forearm; rayed star or sun on back of hand.4. Tattooed like the preceding on forehead and arm. Triple row of dots on back and front of left wrist, and double row of dots, with circle surrounded by dots, across chest.Toreya women are only allowed to wear bangles on the wrist.The tattoo marks on the foreheads of Udayar women consist of a crescent and dot, and they have a straight line tattooed at the outer corners of the eyes. Women of the other sub-divisions have on the forehead two circles with two vertical dashes between them, and a horizontal or crescentic dash below. The circles are made by pricking in the pigment over an impression made with a finger ring, or over a black mark made by means of such a ring. The operation is performed either by a Badaga or Korava woman. The former uses as needles the spines ofCarissa spinarum, and a mixture of finely powdered charcoal or lamp-black mixed with rice gruel. The marks on the forehead are made when a girl is about eight or nine years old, and do not, as stated by Mr. Natesa Sastri, proclaim to the whole Badaga world that a girl is of marriageable age.In colour the Badagas are lighter than the other hill tribes, and the comparative pallor of the skin is specially noticeable in the females, whom, with very few exceptions,I was only able to study by surreptitious examination, when we met on the roads. In physique, the typical Badaga man is below middle height, smooth-skinned, of slender build, with narrow chest and shoulders.Badaga men have cicatrices on the shoulder and forearm as the result of branding with a fire-stick when they are lads, with the object, it is said, of giving strength, and preventing pain when milking or churning. In like manner, the Todas have raised cicatrices (keloids) on the shoulder produced by branding with a fire-stick. They believe that the branding enables them to milk the buffaloes with perfect ease.The Badagas have a very extensive repertoire of hora hesaru, or nicknames, of which the following are examples:—One who eats in bed during the night.Snorer.Stupid.Bald head.Brown-eyed.Thin and bony.Big head.Bandy-legged.One who returned alive from the burning ground.Ripe fruit.Big-thighed.Blind.Lame.Big calves.Piles.Liar.Cat-eyed.Fond of pot-herbs.Rheumatic.Bad-tempered.Left-handed.Buffalo grazer.Saliva dribbling.Honey-eater.Black.Spleen.Teeth.Potato-eater.Glutton.Belly.Itch legged.One who was slow in learning to walk.Tall.Thief-eyed.Pustule-bodied.Scarred.Hairy.Weak, like partially baked pots.Strong, like portland cement.Among the Badagas, Konga is used as a term of abuse. Those who made mistakes in matching Holmgren’s wools, with which I tested them, were, always called Konga by the onlookers.When two Badagas meet each other, the elder touches the head of the younger with his right hand. This form of salutation is known as giving the head. A person of the Badaga section gives the head, as it is called, to an Udaiyar, in token of the superiority of the latter. When people belong to the same sept, they say “Ba, anna, appa, thamma, amma, akka” (come, father, brother, mother, sister, etc.). But, if they are of different septs, they will say “Ba, māma, māmi, bava” (come, uncle, aunt, brother-in-law, etc.). “Whenever,” Dr. Rivers writes,11“a Toda meets a Badaga monegar (headman), or an old Badaga with whom he is acquainted, a salutation passes between the two. The Toda stands before the Badaga, inclines his head slightly, and says ‘Madtin pudia.’ (Madtin, you have come). The Badaga replies ‘Buthuk! buthuk!’ (blessing, blessing), and rests his hand on the top of the Toda’s head. This greeting only takes place between Todas and the more important of the Badaga community. It would seem that every Badaga headman may be greeted in this way, but a Toda will only greet other Badaga elders, if he is already acquainted with them. The salutation is made to members of all the various castes of the Badagas, except the Toreyas. It has been held to imply that the Todas regard the Badagas as their superiors, but it is doubtful how far this is the case. The Todas themselves say they follow the custom because the Badagas help to support them. It seems to be a mark of respect paidby the Todas to the elders of a tribe with which they have very close relations, and it is perhaps significant that no similar sign of respect is shown to Toda elders by the Badagas.”Every Badaga family has its Muttu Kota, from whom it gets the agricultural implements, pots, hoes, etc. In return, the Kotas receive an annual present of food-grains, mustard and potatoes. For a Kota funeral, the Badagas have to give five rupees or a quantity of rice, and a buffalo. The pots obtained from the Kotas are not used immediately, but kept for three days in the jungle, or in a bush in some open spot. They are then taken to the outer apartment of the house, and kept there for three days, when they are smeared with the bark ofMeliosma pungens(the tūd tree of the Todas) and culms ofAndropogon Schœnanthus(bzambe hullu). Thus purified, the pots are used for boiling water in for three days, and may then be used for any purpose. The Badagas are said to give a present of grain annually to the Todas. Every Toda mand (or mad) seems to have its own group of Badaga families, who pay them this gudu, as it is called. “There are,” Dr. Rivers writes, “several regulations concerning the food of the palol (dairy man of a Toda sacred dairy). Any grain he eats must be that provided by the Badagas. At the present time more rice is eaten than was formerly the case. This is not grown by the Badagas, but nevertheless the rice for the palol must be obtained through them. The palol wears garments of a dark grey material made in the Coimbatore district. They are brought to the palol by the Badaga called tikelfmav. The earthenware vessels of the inner room (of the ti dairy) are not obtained from the Kotas, like the ordinary vessels, but are made by Hindus, and are procured through the Badagas.”The Badagas live in dread of the Kurumbas, and the Kurumba constantly comes under reference in their folk-stories. The Kurumba is the necromancer of the hills, and believed to be possessed of the power of outraging women, removing their livers, and so causing their death, while the wound heals by magic, so that no trace of the operation is left. He is supposed, too, to have the power of opening the bolts of doors by magic and effecting an entrance into a house at night for some nefarious purpose. The Toda or Badaga requires the services of the Kurumba, when he fancies that any member of his family is possessed of the devil, or when he wants to remove the evil eye, to which he imagines that his children have been subjected. The Kurumba does his best to remove the malady by repeating various mantrams (magical formulæ). If he fails, and if any suspicion is aroused in the mind of the Toda or Badaga that he is allowing the devil to play his pranks instead of loosing his hold on the supposed victim, woe betide him. The wrath of the entire village, or even the whole tribe, is raised against the unhappy Kurumba. His hut is surrounded at night, and the entire household massacred in cold blood, and their huts set on fire. This is very cleverly carried out, and the isolated position of the Kurumba settlements allows of very little clue for identification. In 1835 no less than fifty-eight Kurumbas were thus murdered, and a smaller number in 1875 and 1882. In 1891 the live inmates of a single hut were murdered, and their hut burnt to ashes, because, it was said, one of them who had been treating a sick Badaga child failed to cure it. The crime was traced to some Kotas in conjunction with Badagas, but the District Judge disbelieved the evidence, and all who were charged were acquitted. Every Badaga family pays an annualtax of four annas to the Kurumbas, and, if a Kurumba comes to a Badaga hatti (village), a subscription is raised as an inducement to him to take his departure. The Kurumba receives a fee for every Badaga funeral, and for the pregnancy ceremony (kannikattu).It is noted by Dr. Rivers that “the Toda sorcerers are not only feared by their fellow Todas, but also by the Badagas, and it is probably largely owing to fear of Toda sorcery that the Badagas continue to pay their tribute of grain. The Badagas may also consult the Toda diviners, and it is probable that the belief of the Badagas in the magical powers of the Todas is turned to good account by the latter. In some cases, Todas, have been killed by Badagas owing to this belief.”Among the Todas, the duties of milking the buffaloes and dairy-work are entrusted to special individuals, whereas any Badaga male may, after initiation, milk the cows and buffaloes, provided that he is free from pollution. Every Badaga boy, when he is about seven or nine years old, is made to milk a cow on an auspicious day, or on new year’s day. The ceremony is thus described by Mr. Natesa Sastri. “Early in the morning of the day appointed for this ceremony, the boy is bathed, and appears in his holiday dress. A she-buffalo, with her calf, stands before his house, waiting to be milked. The parents, or other elder relations of the boy, and those who have been invited to be present on the occasion, or whose duty it is to be present, then conduct the boy to the spot. The father, or some one of the agnatic kindred, gives into the hands of the boy a bamboo vessel called honē, which is already very nearly full of fresh-drawn milk. The boy receives the vessel with both his hands, and is conducted to the buffalo. The elder relations show him the process, and the boy,sitting down, milks a small quantity into the honē. This is his first initiation into the duty of milking, and it is that he may not commit mistakes on the very first day of his milking that the honē is previously filled almost to the brim. The boy takes the vessel filled with milk into his house, and pours some of the sacred fluid into all his household eating vessels—a sign that from that day he has taken up on himself the responsibility of supplying the family with milk. He also throws some milk in the faces of his parents and relatives. They receive it very kindly, and bless him, and request him to continue thus to milk the buffaloes, and bring plenty and prosperity to the house. After this, the boy enters the milk-house (hāgōttu), and places milk in his honē there. From this moment, and all through his life, he may enter into that room, and this is therefore considered a very important ceremony.”A cow or buffalo, which has calved for the first time, has to be treated in a special manner. For three or five days it is not milked. A boy is then selected to milk it. He must not sleep on a mat, or wear a turban, and, instead of tying his cloth round his waist, must wear it loosely over his body. Meat is forbidden, and he must avoid, and not speak to polluting classes, such as Irulas and Kotas, and menstruating women. On the day appointed for milking the animal, the boy bathes, and proceeds to milk it into a new honē purified by smearing a paste ofMeliosma(tūd) leaves and bark over it, and heating it over a fire. The milk is taken to a stream, where three cups are made ofArgyreia(mīnige) leaves, into which a small quantity of the milk is placed. The cups are then put in the water. The remainder of the milk in the honē is also poured into the stream. In some places, especially where a Mādeswara temple isclose at hand, the milk is taken to the temple, and given to the pūjāri. With a portion of the milk some plantain fruits are made into a pulp, and given to an Udaya, who throws them into a stream. The boy is treated with some respect by his family during the period when he milks the animal, and is given food first. This he must eat off a plate made ofArgyreia, or plantain leaves.Besides the hāgōttu within the house, the Badagas have, at certain places, separate dairy-houses near a temple dedicated to Heththeswāmi, of which the one at Bairaganni (or Bērganni) appears to be the most important. The dairy pūjāri is here, like the Toda palol, a celibate. In 1905, he was a young lad, whom my Brāhman assistant set forth to photograph. He was, however, met at a distance from the village by a headman, who assured him that he could not take the photograph without the sanction of fifteen villages. The pūjāri is not allowed to wander freely about the village, or talk to grown-up women. He cooks his own food within the temple grounds, and wears his cloth thrown loosely over his body. Once a year, on the occasion of a festival, he is presented with new cloths and turban, which alone he may wear. He must be a strict vegetarian. A desire to marry and abandon the priesthood is believed to be conveyed in dreams, or through one inspired. Before leaving the temple service, he must train his successor in the duties, and retires with the gains acquired by the sale of the products of the herd and temple offerings. The village of Bairaganni is regarded as sacred, and possesses no holagudi (menstrual hut).Bishop Whitehead adds that “buffaloes are given as offerings to the temple at Bairaganni, and become the property of the pūjāri, who milks them, and uses themilk for his food. All the villagers give him rice every day. He may only eat once a day, at about 3P.M.He cooks the meal himself, and empties the rice from the cooking-pot by turning it over once. If the rice does not come out the first time, he cannot take it at all. When he wants to get married, another boy is appointed in his place. The buffaloes are handed over to his successor.” The following legend in connection with Bairaganni is also recorded by Bishop Whitehead. “There is a village in the Mēkanād division of the Nīlgiris called Nundāla. A man had a daughter. He wanted to marry her to a man in the Paranganād division about a hundred years ago. She did not wish to marry him. The father insisted, but she refused again and again. At last she wished to die, and came near a tank, on the bank of which was a tree. She sat under the tree and washed, and then threw herself into the tank. One of the men of Bairaganni in the Paranganād division saw the woman in a dream. She told him that she was not a human being but a goddess, an incarnation of Parvati. The people of Nundāla built a strong bund (embankment) round the tank, and allow no woman to go on it. Only the pūjāri, and Badagas who have prepared themselves by fasting and ablution, are allowed to go on the bund to offer pūja, which is done by breaking cocoanuts, and offering rice, flowers, and fruits. The woman told the man in his dream to build a temple at Bairaganni, which is now the chief temple of Heththeswāmi.”Concerning the initiation of a Lingāyat Badaga into his religion, which takes place at about his thirteenth birthday, Mr. Natesa Sastri writes as follows. “The priest conducts this ceremony, and the elder relations of the family have only to arrange for the performanceof it. The priests belong to the Udaya sect. They live in their own villages, and are specially sent for, and come to the boy’s village for the occasion. The ceremony is generally done to several boys of about the same age on the same day. On the day appointed, all the people in the Badaga village, where this ceremony is to take place, observe a strict fast. The cows and buffaloes are all milked very early in the morning, and not a drop of the milk thus collected is given out, or taken by even the tenderest children of the village, who may require it very badly. The Udaya priest arrives near the village between 10A.M.and noon on the day appointed. He never goes into the village, but stops near some rivulet adjacent to it. The relations of the boy approach him with a new basket, containing five measures of uncooked rice, pulse, ghī, etc., and a quarter of a rupee—one fanam, as it is generally designated. The priest sits near the water-course, and lights a fire on the bank. Perfumes are thrown profusely into it, and this is almost the only ceremony before the fire. The boys, whose turn it is to receive the linga that day, are all directed to bathe in the river. A plantain leaf, cut into one foot square, is placed in front of the fire towards the east of it. The lingas, kept in readiness by the parents of the boys, are now received by the priest, and placed on the leaves. The boys are asked to wash them—each one the linga meant for his wearing—in water and milk. Then comes the time for the expenditure of all the collected milk of the morning. Profusely the white fluid is poured, till the whole rivulet is nothing but a stream of milk. After the lingas are thus washed, the boys give them to the priest, who places them in his left palm, and, covering them with his right, utters, with all the solemnity due to the occasion, the followingincantation, while the boys and the whole village assembled there listen to it with the most profound respect and veneration ‘Oh! Siva, Hara, Basava, the Lord of all the six thousand and three thousand names and glories, the Lord of one lakh and ninety-six thousand ganas (body-guards of Siva), the donor of water, the daily-to-be worshipped, the husband of Parvati. Oh! Lord, O! Siva Linga, thy feet alone are our resort. Oh! Siva, Siva, Siva, Siva.’ While pronouncing this prayer, the priest now and then removes his right palm, and pours water and milk round the sacred fire, and over the lingas resting in his left palm. He then places each of the lingas in a cloth of one cubit square, rolls it up, and requests the boys to hold out their right palms. The young Badaga receives it, repeats the prayer given about five times, and, during each repetition, the palm holding the linga tied up in the cloth is carried nearer and nearer to his neck. When that is reached (on the fifth utterance of the incantation), the priest ties the ends of the rolled up cloth containing the Siva emblem loosely round the boy’s neck, while the latter is all the while kneeling down, holding with both his hands the feet of the priest. After the linga has been tied, the priest blesses him thus: ‘May one become one thousand to you. May you ever preserve in you the Siva Linga. If you do so, you will have plenty of milk and food, and you will prosper for one thousand years in name and fame, kine and coin.’ If more than one have to receive the linga on the same day, each of them has to undergo this ceremony. After the ceremony is over, the priest returns to his village with the rice, etc., and fees. Every house, in which a boy has received the linga, has to give a grand feast on that day. Even the poorest Badaga must feed at least five other Badagas.”The foregoing account of the investiture with the lingam apparently applies to the Mēkanād Udayas. The following note is based on information supplied by the Udayas of Paranginād. The ceremony of investiture is performed either on new year’s day or Sivarāthri by an Udaya priest in the house of a respected member of the community (doddamane), which is vacated for the occasion. The houses of the boys and girls who are to receive lingams are cleaned, and festoons of tūd and mango leaves, lime fruits, and flowers ofLeucas aspera(thumbē) are tied across the doorways, and in front of the house where the ceremony is to be performed. Until the conclusion thereof, all the people of the village fast. The candidates, with their parents, and the officiating priest repair to the doddamane. The lingams are handed over to the priest, who, taking them up one by one, does pūja to them, and gives them to the children. They in turn do pūja, and the lingams, wrapped in pink silk or cotton cloths, are tied round their necks. The pūja consists of washing the lingams in cow’s urine and milk, smearing them with sandal and turmeric paste, throwing flowers on them, and waving incense and burning camphor before them. After the investiture, the novices are taught a prayer, which is not a stereotyped formula, but varies with the priest and village.Like other Lingayats, the Udayas respect the Jangam, but do not employ the Jangama thirtham (water used for washing the Jangam’s feet) for bathing their lingams. In Udaya villages there is no special menstrual hut (holagudi). Milk is not regarded by them as a sacred product, so there is no hāgōttu in their houses. Nor do they observe the Manavalai festival in honour of ancestors. Other ceremonies are celebrated by them, asby other Badagas, but they do not employ the services of a Kurumba.Important agricultural ceremonies are performed by the Badagas at the time of sowing and harvest. The seed-sowing ceremony takes place in March, and, in some places,e.g., the Mēkanād and Paranginād, a Kurumba plays an important part in it. On an auspicious day—a Tuesday before the crescent moon—a pūjāri of the Devvē temple sets out several hours before dawn with five or seven kinds of grain in a basket and sickle, accompanied by a Kurumba, and leading a pair of bullocks with a plough. On reaching the field selected, the pūjāri pours the grain into the cloth of the Kurumba, and, yoking the animals to the plough, makes three furrows in the soil. The Kurumba, stopping the bullocks, kneels on the ground between the furrows facing east. Removing his turban, he places it on the ground, and, closing his ears with his palms, bawls out “Dho, Dho,” thrice. He then rises, and scatters the grain thrice on the soil. The pūjāri and Kurumba then return to the village, and the former deposits what remains of the grain in the store-room (attu). A new pot, full of water, is placed in the milk-house, and the pūjāri dips his right hand therein, saying “Nerathubitta” (it is full). This ceremony is an important one for the Badagas, as, until it has been performed, sowing may not commence. It is a day of feasting, and, in addition to rice,Dolichos Lablabis cooked.
Badaga.—As the Todas are the pastoral, and the Kotas the artisan tribe of the Nīlgiris, so the agricultural element on these hills is represented by the Badagas (or, as they are sometimes called, Burghers). Their number was returned, at the census, 1901, as 34,178 against 1,267 Kotas, and 807 Todas. Though the primary occupation of the Badagas is agriculture, there are among their community schoolmasters, clerks, public works contractors, bricklayers, painters, carpenters, sawyers, tailors, gardeners, forest guards, barbers, washermen, and scavengers. Many work on tea and coffee estates, and gangs of Badagas can always be seen breaking stones on, and repairing the hill roads. Others are, at the present day, earning good wages in the Cordite Factory near Wellington. Some of the more prosperouspossess tea and coffee estates of their own. The rising generation are, to some extent, learning Tamil and English, in addition to their own language, which is said to resemble old Canarese. And I have heard a youthful Badaga, tending a flock of sheep, address an errant member thereof in very fluent Billingsgate. There were, in 1904–1905, thirty-nine Badaga schools, which were attended by 1,222 pupils. In 1907, one Badaga had passed the Matriculation of the Madras University, and was a clerk in the Sub-judge’s Court at Ootacamund.
A newspaper discussion was carried on a few years ago as to the condition of the Badagas, and whether they are a down-trodden tribe, bankrupt and impoverished to such a degree that it is only a short time before something must be done to ameliorate their condition, and save them from extermination by inducing them to emigrate to the Wynād and Vizagapatam. A few have, in recent years, migrated to the Anaimalai hills, to work on the planters’ estates, which have been opened up there. One writer stated that “the tiled houses, costing from Rs. 250 to Rs. 500, certainly point to their prosperity. They may frequently borrow from the Labbai to enable them to build, but, as I do not know of a single case in which the Labbai has ever seized the house and sold it, I believe this debt is soon discharged. The walled-in, terraced fields immediately around their villages, on which they grow their barley and other grains requiring rich cultivation, are well worked, and regularly manured. The coats, good thick blankets, and gold ear-rings, which most Badagas now possess, can only, I think, point to their prosperity, while their constant feasts, and disinclination to work on Sundays, show that the loss of a few days’ pay does not affect them. On the other hand, a former Native official onthe Nīlgiris writes to me that “though the average Badaga is thrifty and hard-working, there is a tendency for him to be lazy when he is sure of his meal. When a person is sick in another village, his relatives make it an excuse to go and see him, and they have to be fed. When the first crop is raised, the idler pretends that ‘worms’ have crept into the crop, and the gods have to be propitiated, and there is a feast. Marriage or death, of course, draws a crowd to be fed or feasted. All this means extra expenditure, and a considerable drain on the slender income of the family. The Rowthan (Muhammadan merchant) from the Tamil country is near at hand to lend money, as he has carried his bazar to the very heart of the Badaga villages. First it is a bag of rāgi (food grain), a piece of cloth to throw on the coffin, or a few rupees worth of rice and curry-stuff doled out by the all-accommodating Rowthan at a price out of all proportion to the market rate, and at a rate ranging from six pies to two annas for the rupee. The ever impecunious Badaga has no means of extricating himself, with a slender income, which leaves no margin for redeeming debts. The bond is renewed every quarter or half year, and the debt grows by leaps and bounds, and consumes all his earthly goods, including lands. The advent of lawyers on the hills has made the Badagas a most litigious people, and they resort to the courts, which means expenditure of money, and neglect of agriculture.” In the funeral song of the Badagas, which has been translated by Mr. Gover,1one of the crimes enumerated, for which atonement must be made, is that of preferring a complaint to the Sirkar (Government), and one of their numerous proverbs embodies the same idea. “If youprefer a complaint to a Magistrate, it is as if you had put poison into your adversary’s food.” But Mr. Grigg writes,2“either the terrors of the Sirkar are not what they were, or this precept is much disregarded, for the Court-house at Ootacamund is constantly thronged with Badagas, and they are now very much given to litigation.”
I gather from the notes, which Bishop Whitehead has kindly placed at my disposal, that “when the Badagas wish to take a very solemn oath, they go to the temple of Māriamma at Sigūr, and, after bathing in the stream and putting on only one cloth, offer fruits, cocoanuts, etc., and kill a sheep or fowl. They put the head of the animal on the step of the shrine, and make a line on the ground just in front of it. The person who is taking the oath then walks from seven feet off in seven steps, putting one foot immediately in front of the other, up to the line, crosses it, goes inside the shrine, and puts out a lamp that is burning in front of the image. If the oath is true, the man will walk without any difficulty straight to the shrine. But, if the oath is not true, his eyes will be blinded, and he will not be able to walk straight to the shrine, or see the lamp. It is a common saying among Badagas, when a man tells lies, ‘Will you go to Sigūr, and take an oath?’ Oaths are taken in much the same way at the temple of Māriamma at Ootacamund. When a Hindu gives evidence in the Court at Ootacamund, he is often asked by the Judge whether he will take an oath at the Māriamma temple. If he agrees, he is sent off to the temple with a Court official. The party for whom he gives evidence supplies a goat or sheep, which is killedat the temple, the head and carcase being placed in front of the image. The witness steps over the carcase, and this forms the oath. If the evidence is false, it is believed that some evil will happen to him.”
The name Badaga or Vadugan means northerner, and the Badagas are believed to be descended from Canarese colonists from the Mysore country, who migrated to the Nīlgiris three centuries ago owing to famine, political turmoil, or local oppression in their own country. It is worthy of notice, in this connection, that the head of the Badagas, like that of the Todas and Kotas, is dolichocephalic, and not of the mesaticephalic or sub-brachycephalic type, which prevails throughout Mysore, as in other Canarese areas.
Average.Cephalic length.Cephalic breadth.Cephalic index.cm.cm.Badaga18.913.671.7Toda19.414.273.3Kota19.214.274.1
Of the Mysorean heads, the following are a few typical examples:—
Average.Cephalic length.Cephalic breadth.Cephalic index.cm.cm.Ganiga18.514.377.6Bēdar18.314.377.7Holeya17.914.179.1Mandya Brahman18.514.880.2Vakkaliga17.714.581.7
Concerning the origin of the Badagas, the following legend is current. Seven brothers and their sisters were living on the Talamalai hills. A Muhammadanruler attempted to ravish the girl, whom the brother saved from him by flight. They settled down near the present village of Bethalhada. After a short stay there, the brothers separated, and settled in different parts of the Nīlgiris, which they peopled. Concerning the second brother, Hethappa, who had two daughters, the story goes that, during his absence on one occasion, two Todas forced their way into his house, ravished his wife, and possessed themselves of hisworldlyeffects. Hearing of what had occurred, Hethappa sought the assistance of two Balayaru in revenging himself on the Todas. They readily consented to help him, in return for a promise that they should marry his daughters. The Todas were killed, and the present inhabitants of the village Hulikallu are supposed to be the descendants of the Balayaru and Badaga girls. The seven brothers are now worshipped under the name Hethappa or Hetha.
In connection with the migration of the Badagas to the Nīlgiris, the following note is given in the Gazetteer of the Nīlgiris. “When this flitting took place there is little to show. It must have occurred after the foundation of the Lingāyat creed in the latter half of the twelfth century, as many of the Badagas are Lingāyats by faith, and sometime before the end of the sixteenth century, since in 1602 the Catholic priests from the west coast found them settled on the south of the plateau, and observing much the same relations with the Todas as subsist to this day. The present state of our knowledge does not enable us to fix more nearly the date of the migration. That the language of the Badagas, which is a form of Canarese, should by now have so widely altered from its original as to be classed as a separate dialect argues that the movement took place nearer the twelfth than the sixteenth century. On the other hand, thefact (pointed out by Dr. Rivers3) that the Badagas are not mentioned in a single one of the Todas’ legends about their gods, whereas the Kotas, Kurumbas, and Irulas, each play a part in one or more of these stories, raises the inference that the relations between the Badagas and the Todas are recent as compared with those between the other tribes. A critical study of the Badaga dialect might perhaps serve to fix within closer limits the date of the migration. As now spoken, this tongue contains letters (two forms of r for instance) and numerous words, which are otherwise met with only in ancient books, and which strike most strangely upon the ear of the present generation of Canarese. The date when some of these letters and words became obsolete might possibly be traced, and thus aid in fixing the period when the Badagas left the low country. It is known that the two forms of r, for example, had dropped out of use prior to the time of the grammarian Kēsirāja, who lived in the thirteenth century, and that the word betta (a hill), which the Badagas use in place of the modern bettu, is found in the thirteenth century work Sabdamanidarpana.”
It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Nīlgiris, that “Nelliālam, about eight miles north-west of Dēvāla as the crow flies, is the residence of the Nelliālam Arasu (Urs), who has been recognised as the janmi (landlord) of a considerable area in the Munanād amsam, but is in reality a Canarese-speaking Lingāyat of Canarese extraction, who follows the ordinary Hindu law of inheritance, and is not a native of the Wynād or of Malabar. Family tradition, though now somewhat misty, says that in the beginning two brothers named Sadāsiva Rāja Urs and Bhujanga Rāja Urs moved (at some date and forsome reason not stated) from Ummattūr (in the present Chāmarājnagar taluk of Mysore), and settled at Malaikōta, the old fort near Kalhatti. Their family deities were Bhujangēsvara and Ummattūr Urakātti, which are still worshipped as such. They brought with them a following of Bēdars and Badagas, and thereafter always encouraged the immigration to the hills of more Canarese people. The village of Bannimara, a mile west of Kalhatti, is still peopled by Bēdars who are said to be descendants of people of that caste who came with the two brothers; and to this day, when the Badagas of the plateau have disputes of difficulty, they are said to go down to Nelliālam with presents (kānikai) in their hands, and ask the Arasu to settle their differences, while, at the time of their periodical ceremonies (manavalai) to the memory of their ancestors, they send a deputation to Nelliālam to invite representatives of the Arasu to be present.”
Close to the village of Bethalhada is a row of cromlechs carved with figures of the sun and moon, human beings, animals, etc., and enclosed within a stone kraal, which the Badagas claim to be the work of their ancestors, to whom periodical offerings are made. At the time of my visit, there were within one of the cromlechs a conch shell, lingam, bell, and flowers. A number of these sculptured cromlechs at Sholūr, Mēlūr, and other spots on the Nīlgiris, are described and figured by Breeks,4who records that the cromlech at Jakata Kambē is interesting as being the place of the yearly sacrifice performed by the Badagas of the Jakanēri grāma (village) by their Kāni Kurumba. And he adds that the Badagas would seem to have usually selected theneighbourhood of these cromlechs for their temples, as for example, at Mēlūr, Kakūsi, H’laiuru, Tudūr, and Jakatāda.
Dolmens near Kotagiri.Dolmens near Kotagiri.
Dolmens near Kotagiri.
It is recorded5, in connection with the legends of the Badagas, that “in the heart of the Banagudi shōla, not far from the Doddūru group of cromlechs, is an odd little shrine to Karairāya, consisting of a ruined stone hut surrounded by a low wall, within which are a tiny cromlech, some sacred water-worn stones, and sundry little pottery images representing a tiger, a mounted man, and some dogs. These keep in memory, it is said, a Badaga who was slain in combat with a tiger; and annually a festival is held, at which new images are placed there, and vows are paid. A Kurumba makes fire by friction and burns incense, throws sanctified water over the numerous goats brought to be sacrificed, to see if they will shiver in the manner always held necessary in sacrificial victims, and then slays, one after the other, those which have shown themselves duly qualified. Hulikal Drūg, usually known as the Drūg, is a precipitous bluff at the very end of the range which borders on the south the great ravine which runs up to Coonoor. It is named from the neighbouring village of Hulikal, or tiger’s stone, and the story goes that this latter is so called because in it a Badaga killed a notorious man-eater which had long been the terror of the country side. The spot where the beast was buried is shown near the Pillaiyar temple to the south of Hulikal village, and is marked by three stones. Burton says there used formerly to be a stone image of the slain tiger thereabouts. Some two miles south-east of Kōnakarai in a place known as Kōttai-hāda, or the fort flat, liethe remains of the old fort Udaiya Rāya Kōta. Badaga tradition gives a fairly detailed account of Udaiya Rāya. It says he was a chief who collected the taxes for the Ummattūr Rājas, and that he had also a fort at Kullanthorai, near Sirumugai, the remains of which are still to be seen. He married a woman of Netlingi hamlet of Nedugula, named Muddu Gavari, but she died by the wrath of the gods because she persuaded him to celebrate the annual fire-walking festival in front of the fort, instead of at the customary spot by the Mahālingasvāmi temple about half a mile off. Ānaikatti is a hamlet situated in the jungle of the Moyar valley. The stream which flows past it tumbles over a pretty fall on the slopes of Bīrmukkū (Bimaka) hill. The Badagas call the spot Kuduraihallo, or the ravine of the horse, and say the name was given it because a Badaga, covered with shame at finding that his wife gave him first sort rice but his brother who lived with them only second sort, committed suicide by jumping his horse down the fall.”
Badagas.Badagas.
Badagas.
According to Mr. Grigg, the Badagas recognise eighteen different “castes or sects.” These are, however, simplified by Mr. S. M. Natesa Sāstri6into six, “five high castes and one low caste.” They are—
1.Udaya.High caste.2.Hāruva.3.Adhikāri.4.Kanaka.5.Badaga.6.ToreyaLow caste.
“Udayas are Lingāyats in religion, and carry the Sivalinga—the Siva image—tied round their necks. They claim to be superior to all the other Badagas, andare regarded as such. They are priests to all the Badagas of the Lingāyat class, and are strict vegetarians. They do not intermarry with any of the other high caste Badaga sects. Udaya was, and is the title assumed by the Maisūr Rājas, and those Badagas, by being thus designated as a caste, claim superior blood in their veins.” The Lingāyat Badagas are commonly called Lingakutti. “Next in rank come the Hāruvas. From their name being so closely connected with the Āryas—the respectable—and from their habit of wearing the Brāhmanical thread, we are warranted in believing that they must originally have been the poor Brāhman priests of the Badagas that migrated to this country (the Nīlgiris), though they have now got themselves closely mingled with the Badagas. These Hāruvas are also strict vegetarians, and act as priests.” It has been suggested that the Hāruvas (jumper) derive their name from the fire-walking ceremony, which they perform periodically. A further, and more probable suggestion has been made to me that Hāruva comes from a Canarese word meaning to beg or pray; hence one who begs or prays, and so a Brāhman. The Canarese Basava Purāna frequently uses the word in sense. “The Adhikāris are to a certain extent vegetarians. The other two high castes, and of course the low caste Toreyas also, have no objection of any kind to eating flesh. It is also said that the vegetarian Adhikāri, if he marries into a flesh-eating caste of the Badagas, betakes himself to this latter very readily.” The Kanakas are stated by Mr. Grigg to be the accountants, who were probably introduced when the hills were under the sway of the Tamil chiefs. This would, however, seem to be very improbable. “The Toreyas are regarded as sons and servants to the five high caste Badaga sects—to the Hāruvas especially.They are the lowest in the scale, and they are prohibited from intermarrying with the other or high caste Badagas, as long as they are sons to them.” The Toreya does the menial duties for the tribe. He is the village servant, carries the corpses to the burning-ground, conveys the news of a death from village to village, is the first to get shaved when a death occurs, and is sent along with a woman when she is going to visit her mother or mother-in-law at a distance from her own home. “The Udayas, Adhikāris and Kanakas are Lingāyats in religion, and the other three, the Hāruvas, Badagas, and Toreyas are Saivites.” Of the six divisions referred to, the Udayas and Toreyas are endogamous, but intermarriage is permissible between the other four. At the census, 1891, a large number of Badagas returned as their sub-division Vakkaliga, which means cultivator, and is the name of the great cultivating caste of Mysore.
Seven miles west of Coonoor is a village named Athikārihatti, or village of the Athikāri or Adhikāri section of the Badagas. “The story goes that these people, under a leader named Karibetta Rāya, came from Sarigūr in Mysore territory, and settled first at Nelliturai (a short distance south-west of Mēttupālaiyam) and afterwards at Tūdūr (on the plateau west of Kulakambi) and Tadasimarahatti (to the north-west of Mēlūr), and that it was they who erected the sculptured cromlechs of Tūdūr and Mēlūr. Tūdūr and Tadasimarahatti are now both deserted; but in the former a cattle kraal, an old shrine, and a pit for fire-walking may still be seen, and in the latter another kraal, and one of the raised stone platforms called mandaikallu by the Badagas. Tradition says that the Badagas left these places and founded Athikārihatti and its hamlets instead, because the Kurumbas round about continually troubledthem with their magic arts, and indeed killed by sorcery several of their most prominent citizens.”7
Badaga Girls.Badaga Girls.
Badaga Girls.
Like other Canarese people, the Badagas have exogamous septs or kūlas, of which Māri, Madhave (marriage), Kastūri (musk), and Belli (silver) are examples. A very large number of families belong to the Māri and Madhave septs, which were time after time given as the sept name in reply to my enquiries. It may be noted that Belli occurs as an exogamous sept of the Canarese classes Vakkaliga, Toreya, and Kuruba, and Kastūri is recorded in my notes as a sept of the Vakkaligas and Telugu Kammas.
The Badagas dwell in extensive villages, generally situated on the summit of a low hillock, composed of rows of comfortable thatched or tiled houses, and surrounded by the fields, which yield the crops. The houses are not separate tenements, but a line of dwellings under one continuous roof, and divided by party walls. Sometimes there are two or three, or more lines, forming streets. Each house is partitioned off into an outer (edumane) and inner apartment (ozhaga or ōgamane). If the family has cows or buffaloes yielding milk, a portion of the latter is converted into a milk-house (hāgōttu), in which the milk is stored, and which no woman may enter. Even males who are under pollution, from having touched or passed near a Kota or Paraiyan, or other cause, may not enter it until they have had a ceremonial bath. To some houses a loft, made of bamboo posts, is added, to serve as a store-house. In every Badaga village there is a raised platform composed of a single boulder or several stones with an erect stone slab set up thereon, called sūththukallu. There is, further, a platform, made of bricks and mud, called mandhe kallu, whereon the Badagas, when not working, sit at ease. In their folk-tales men seated thereon are made to give information concerning the approach of strangers to the village. Strangers, who are not Badagas, are called Holeya. The Rev. G. Richter gives8Badaga Holeya as a division of the lowly Holeyas, who came to Coorg from the Mysore country. In front of the houses, the operations of drying and threshing grain are carried out. The cattle are kept in stone kraals, or covered sheds close to the habitations, and the litter is kept till it is knee or waist deep, and then carried away as manure for the Badaga’s land, or planters’ estates.
“Nobody,” it has been said,9“can beat the Badaga at making mother earth produce to her utmost capacity, unless it be a Chinese gardener. To-day we see a portion of the hill side covered with rocks and boulders. The Badagas become possessed of this scene of chaos, and turn out into the place in hundreds, reducing it, in a few weeks, to neat order. The unwieldy boulders, having been rolled aside, serve their purpose by being turned into a wall to keep out cattle, etc. The soil is pounded and worried until it becomes amenable to reason, and next we see a green crop running in waves over the surface. The Badagas are the most progressive of all the hill tribes, and always willing to test any new method of cultivation, or new crops brought to their notice by the Nilgiri Horticultural Society.”
Writing in 1832, Harkness states10that “on leaving his house in the morning the Burgher pays his adorationto the god of day, proceeds to the tu-el or yard, in which the cattle have been confined, and, again addressing the sun as the emblem of Siva, asks his blessing, and liberates the herd. He allows the cattle to stray about in the neighbourhood of the village, on a piece of ground which is always kept for this purpose, and, having performed his morning ablutions, commences the milking. This is also preceded by further salutations and praises to the sun. On entering the house in the evening, the Burgher addresses the lamp, now the only light, or visible emblem of the deity. ‘Thou, creator of this and of all worlds, the greatest of the great, who art with us, as well in the mountain as in the wilderness, who keepeth the wreaths that adorn the head from fading, who guardeth the foot from the thorn, God, among a hundred, may we be prosperous.’”
The Badaga understands the rotation of crops well. On his land he cultivates bearded wheat (beer ganji), barley, onions, garlic, potatoes, kīrē (Amarantus), sāmai (Panicum miliare), tenai (Setaria italica), etc.
“Among the Badagas,” Mr. Natesa Sastri writes, “the position of the women is somewhat different from what it is among most peoples. Every Badaga has a few acres to cultivate, but he does not mainly occupy himself with them, for his wife does all the out-door farm work, while he is engaged otherwise in earning something in hard cash. To a Badaga, therefore, his wife is his capital. Her labour in the field is considered to be worth one rupee per day, while an average male Badaga earns merely three annas. A Badaga woman, who has not her own acres to cultivate, finds work on some other lands. She thus works hard for her husband and family, and is quite content with the coarsest food—the korali (Setaria italica) flour—leaving thebetter food to the male members of the family. This fact, and the hard work the Badaga women have to perform, may perhaps account to some extent for the slight build of the Badagas as a race. The male Badaga, too, works in the field, or at his own craft if he is not a cultivator, but his love for ready cash is always so great that, even if he had a harvest to gather the next morning, he would run away as a cooly for two annas wages.” Further, Mr. Grigg states that “as the men constantly leave their villages to work on coffee plantations, much of the labour in their own fields, as well as ordinary household work, is performed by the women. They are so industrious, and their services of such value to their husbands, that a Badaga sometimes pays 150 or 200 rupees as dowry for his wife.” In the off season for cultivation, I am informed, the Badaga woman collects faggots for home consumption, and stores them near her house, and the women prepare the fields for cultivation by weeding, breaking the earth, and collecting manure.
In his report on the revenue settlement of the Nilgiris (1885), Mr. (now Sir) R. S. Benson notes that “concurrently with the so-called abolition of the bhurty (or shifting) system of cultivation, Mr. Grant abolished the peculiar system in vogue up to that time in Kundahnad, which had been transferred from Malabar to the Nilgiris in 1860. This system was known as erkādu kothukādu. Under it, a tax of Re. 1 to Re. 1–8–0 was levied for the right to use a plough or er, and a tax of from 4 to 8 annas was levied for the right to use a hoe or kothu. The so-called patta issued to the ryot under this system was really no more than a license to use one or more hoes, as the case might be. It merely specified the amount payable for each instrument, but in no caseswas the extent or position of the lands to be cultivated specified. The ryot used his implements whenever and wherever he pleased. No restrictions, even on the felling of forests, were imposed, so that the hill-sides and valleys were cleared at will. The system was abolished in 1862. But, during the settlement, I found this erkādu kothukādu system still in force in the flourishing Badaga village of Kinnakorai, with some fifty houses.”
In connection with the local self-government of the Badagas, Mr. A. Rajah Bahadur Mudaliar writes to me as follows. “In former days, the monegar was a great personage, as he formed the unit of the administration. The appointment was more or less hereditary, and it generally fell to the lot of the richest and most well-to-do. All disputes within his jurisdiction were placed before him, and his decision was accepted as final. In simple matters, such as partition of property, disputes between husband and wife, etc., the monegars themselves disposed of them. But, when questions of a complicated nature presented themselves, they took as their colleagues other people of the villages, and the disputes were settled by the collective wisdom of the village elders. They assembled at a place set apart for the purpose beneath a nīm (Melia Azadirachta) or pīpal tree (Ficus religiosa) on a raised platform (ratchai), generally situated at the entrance to the village. The monegar wasex-officiopresident of such councils. He and the committee had power to fine the parties, to excommunicate them, and to readmit them to the caste. Parents resorted to the monegar for counsel in the disposal of their daughters in marriage, and in finding brides for their sons. If any one had the audacity to run counter to the wishes of the monegar in mattersmatrimonial, he had the power to throw obstacles in the way of such marriages taking place. The monegar, in virtue of his position, wielded much power, and ruled the village as he pleased.” In the old days, it is said, when he visited any village within his jurisdiction, the monegar had the privilege of having the best women or maids of the place to share his cot according to his choice. In former times, the monegar used to wear a silver ring as the badge of office, and some Badagas still have in their possession such rings, which are preserved as heirlooms, and worshipped during festivals. The term monegar is, at the present day, used for the village revenue official and munsiff.
I gather that each exogamous sept has its headman, called Gouda, who is assisted by a Parpattikāran, and decides tribal matters, such as disputes, divorce, etc. Fines, when inflicted, go towards feasting the tribe, and doing pūja (worship) to the gods. In the case of a dispute between two parties, one challenges the other to take an oath in a temple before the village council. A declaration on oath settles the matter at issue, and the parties agree to abide by it. It is the duty of the Parpattikāran to make arrangements for such events as the Heththeswāmi, Devvē and Bairaganni festivals, and the buffalo sacrificing festival at Konakkore. The Parpattikāran takes part in the purification of excommunicated members of the tribe, when they are received back into it, for example, on release from prison. The tongue of the delinquent is burnt with a hot sandal stick, and a new waist thread put on. He is taken to the temple, where he stands amidst the assembled Badagas, who touch his head with a cane. He then prostrates himself at the feet of the Parpattikāran, who smears his forehead with sacred ashes. It is, further, the duty ofthe Parpattikāran to be present on the occasion of the Kannikattu (pregnancy) ceremony.
A quarter of a century ago, a Badaga could be at once picked out from the other tribes of the Nīlgiris by his wearing a turban. But, in the present advanced age, not only does the Toda sometimes appear in the national head-dress, but even Irulas and Kurumbas, who only a short time ago were buried in the jungles, living like pigs and bears on roots, honey and other forest produce, turn up on Sundays in the Kotagiri bazar, clad in turban and coat of English cut. And, as the less civilised tribes don the turban, so the college student abandons this picturesque form of head-gear in favour of the less becoming and less washable porkpie cap, while the Badaga men and youths glory in a knitted night-cap of flaring red or orange hue. The body of the Badaga man is covered by a long body-cloth, sometimes with red and blue stripes, wrapped “so loosely that, as a man works in the fields, he is obliged to stop between every few strokes of his hoe, to gather up his cloth, and throw one end over his shoulder.” Male adornment is limited to gold ear-rings of a special pattern made by Kotas or goldsmiths, a silver waist-thread, silver bangle on the wrist, and silver, copper, or brass rings. The women wear a white body-cloth, a white under-cloth tied round the chest, tightly wrapped square across the breasts, and reaching to the knees, and a white cloth worn like a cap on the head. As types of female jewelry and tattooing, the following examples may be cited:—
1. Tattooed on forehead with dashes, circles and crescent; spot on chin; double row of dots on each upper arm over deltoid; and devices and double row of dots on right forearm. Gold ornament in left nostril. Necklets of glass beads and silver links with four-annapiece pendent. Silver armlet above right elbow. Four copper armlets above left elbow. Four silver and seven composition bangles on left forearm. Two silver rings on right ring-finger; two steel rings on left ring-finger.
2. Tattooed on forehead; quadruple row of dots over right deltoid; star on right forearm.
3. Tattooed like the preceding on forehead and upper arm. Spot on chin; elaborate device on right forearm; rayed star or sun on back of hand.
4. Tattooed like the preceding on forehead and arm. Triple row of dots on back and front of left wrist, and double row of dots, with circle surrounded by dots, across chest.
Toreya women are only allowed to wear bangles on the wrist.
The tattoo marks on the foreheads of Udayar women consist of a crescent and dot, and they have a straight line tattooed at the outer corners of the eyes. Women of the other sub-divisions have on the forehead two circles with two vertical dashes between them, and a horizontal or crescentic dash below. The circles are made by pricking in the pigment over an impression made with a finger ring, or over a black mark made by means of such a ring. The operation is performed either by a Badaga or Korava woman. The former uses as needles the spines ofCarissa spinarum, and a mixture of finely powdered charcoal or lamp-black mixed with rice gruel. The marks on the forehead are made when a girl is about eight or nine years old, and do not, as stated by Mr. Natesa Sastri, proclaim to the whole Badaga world that a girl is of marriageable age.
In colour the Badagas are lighter than the other hill tribes, and the comparative pallor of the skin is specially noticeable in the females, whom, with very few exceptions,I was only able to study by surreptitious examination, when we met on the roads. In physique, the typical Badaga man is below middle height, smooth-skinned, of slender build, with narrow chest and shoulders.
Badaga men have cicatrices on the shoulder and forearm as the result of branding with a fire-stick when they are lads, with the object, it is said, of giving strength, and preventing pain when milking or churning. In like manner, the Todas have raised cicatrices (keloids) on the shoulder produced by branding with a fire-stick. They believe that the branding enables them to milk the buffaloes with perfect ease.
The Badagas have a very extensive repertoire of hora hesaru, or nicknames, of which the following are examples:—
Among the Badagas, Konga is used as a term of abuse. Those who made mistakes in matching Holmgren’s wools, with which I tested them, were, always called Konga by the onlookers.
When two Badagas meet each other, the elder touches the head of the younger with his right hand. This form of salutation is known as giving the head. A person of the Badaga section gives the head, as it is called, to an Udaiyar, in token of the superiority of the latter. When people belong to the same sept, they say “Ba, anna, appa, thamma, amma, akka” (come, father, brother, mother, sister, etc.). But, if they are of different septs, they will say “Ba, māma, māmi, bava” (come, uncle, aunt, brother-in-law, etc.). “Whenever,” Dr. Rivers writes,11“a Toda meets a Badaga monegar (headman), or an old Badaga with whom he is acquainted, a salutation passes between the two. The Toda stands before the Badaga, inclines his head slightly, and says ‘Madtin pudia.’ (Madtin, you have come). The Badaga replies ‘Buthuk! buthuk!’ (blessing, blessing), and rests his hand on the top of the Toda’s head. This greeting only takes place between Todas and the more important of the Badaga community. It would seem that every Badaga headman may be greeted in this way, but a Toda will only greet other Badaga elders, if he is already acquainted with them. The salutation is made to members of all the various castes of the Badagas, except the Toreyas. It has been held to imply that the Todas regard the Badagas as their superiors, but it is doubtful how far this is the case. The Todas themselves say they follow the custom because the Badagas help to support them. It seems to be a mark of respect paidby the Todas to the elders of a tribe with which they have very close relations, and it is perhaps significant that no similar sign of respect is shown to Toda elders by the Badagas.”
Every Badaga family has its Muttu Kota, from whom it gets the agricultural implements, pots, hoes, etc. In return, the Kotas receive an annual present of food-grains, mustard and potatoes. For a Kota funeral, the Badagas have to give five rupees or a quantity of rice, and a buffalo. The pots obtained from the Kotas are not used immediately, but kept for three days in the jungle, or in a bush in some open spot. They are then taken to the outer apartment of the house, and kept there for three days, when they are smeared with the bark ofMeliosma pungens(the tūd tree of the Todas) and culms ofAndropogon Schœnanthus(bzambe hullu). Thus purified, the pots are used for boiling water in for three days, and may then be used for any purpose. The Badagas are said to give a present of grain annually to the Todas. Every Toda mand (or mad) seems to have its own group of Badaga families, who pay them this gudu, as it is called. “There are,” Dr. Rivers writes, “several regulations concerning the food of the palol (dairy man of a Toda sacred dairy). Any grain he eats must be that provided by the Badagas. At the present time more rice is eaten than was formerly the case. This is not grown by the Badagas, but nevertheless the rice for the palol must be obtained through them. The palol wears garments of a dark grey material made in the Coimbatore district. They are brought to the palol by the Badaga called tikelfmav. The earthenware vessels of the inner room (of the ti dairy) are not obtained from the Kotas, like the ordinary vessels, but are made by Hindus, and are procured through the Badagas.”
The Badagas live in dread of the Kurumbas, and the Kurumba constantly comes under reference in their folk-stories. The Kurumba is the necromancer of the hills, and believed to be possessed of the power of outraging women, removing their livers, and so causing their death, while the wound heals by magic, so that no trace of the operation is left. He is supposed, too, to have the power of opening the bolts of doors by magic and effecting an entrance into a house at night for some nefarious purpose. The Toda or Badaga requires the services of the Kurumba, when he fancies that any member of his family is possessed of the devil, or when he wants to remove the evil eye, to which he imagines that his children have been subjected. The Kurumba does his best to remove the malady by repeating various mantrams (magical formulæ). If he fails, and if any suspicion is aroused in the mind of the Toda or Badaga that he is allowing the devil to play his pranks instead of loosing his hold on the supposed victim, woe betide him. The wrath of the entire village, or even the whole tribe, is raised against the unhappy Kurumba. His hut is surrounded at night, and the entire household massacred in cold blood, and their huts set on fire. This is very cleverly carried out, and the isolated position of the Kurumba settlements allows of very little clue for identification. In 1835 no less than fifty-eight Kurumbas were thus murdered, and a smaller number in 1875 and 1882. In 1891 the live inmates of a single hut were murdered, and their hut burnt to ashes, because, it was said, one of them who had been treating a sick Badaga child failed to cure it. The crime was traced to some Kotas in conjunction with Badagas, but the District Judge disbelieved the evidence, and all who were charged were acquitted. Every Badaga family pays an annualtax of four annas to the Kurumbas, and, if a Kurumba comes to a Badaga hatti (village), a subscription is raised as an inducement to him to take his departure. The Kurumba receives a fee for every Badaga funeral, and for the pregnancy ceremony (kannikattu).
It is noted by Dr. Rivers that “the Toda sorcerers are not only feared by their fellow Todas, but also by the Badagas, and it is probably largely owing to fear of Toda sorcery that the Badagas continue to pay their tribute of grain. The Badagas may also consult the Toda diviners, and it is probable that the belief of the Badagas in the magical powers of the Todas is turned to good account by the latter. In some cases, Todas, have been killed by Badagas owing to this belief.”
Among the Todas, the duties of milking the buffaloes and dairy-work are entrusted to special individuals, whereas any Badaga male may, after initiation, milk the cows and buffaloes, provided that he is free from pollution. Every Badaga boy, when he is about seven or nine years old, is made to milk a cow on an auspicious day, or on new year’s day. The ceremony is thus described by Mr. Natesa Sastri. “Early in the morning of the day appointed for this ceremony, the boy is bathed, and appears in his holiday dress. A she-buffalo, with her calf, stands before his house, waiting to be milked. The parents, or other elder relations of the boy, and those who have been invited to be present on the occasion, or whose duty it is to be present, then conduct the boy to the spot. The father, or some one of the agnatic kindred, gives into the hands of the boy a bamboo vessel called honē, which is already very nearly full of fresh-drawn milk. The boy receives the vessel with both his hands, and is conducted to the buffalo. The elder relations show him the process, and the boy,sitting down, milks a small quantity into the honē. This is his first initiation into the duty of milking, and it is that he may not commit mistakes on the very first day of his milking that the honē is previously filled almost to the brim. The boy takes the vessel filled with milk into his house, and pours some of the sacred fluid into all his household eating vessels—a sign that from that day he has taken up on himself the responsibility of supplying the family with milk. He also throws some milk in the faces of his parents and relatives. They receive it very kindly, and bless him, and request him to continue thus to milk the buffaloes, and bring plenty and prosperity to the house. After this, the boy enters the milk-house (hāgōttu), and places milk in his honē there. From this moment, and all through his life, he may enter into that room, and this is therefore considered a very important ceremony.”
A cow or buffalo, which has calved for the first time, has to be treated in a special manner. For three or five days it is not milked. A boy is then selected to milk it. He must not sleep on a mat, or wear a turban, and, instead of tying his cloth round his waist, must wear it loosely over his body. Meat is forbidden, and he must avoid, and not speak to polluting classes, such as Irulas and Kotas, and menstruating women. On the day appointed for milking the animal, the boy bathes, and proceeds to milk it into a new honē purified by smearing a paste ofMeliosma(tūd) leaves and bark over it, and heating it over a fire. The milk is taken to a stream, where three cups are made ofArgyreia(mīnige) leaves, into which a small quantity of the milk is placed. The cups are then put in the water. The remainder of the milk in the honē is also poured into the stream. In some places, especially where a Mādeswara temple isclose at hand, the milk is taken to the temple, and given to the pūjāri. With a portion of the milk some plantain fruits are made into a pulp, and given to an Udaya, who throws them into a stream. The boy is treated with some respect by his family during the period when he milks the animal, and is given food first. This he must eat off a plate made ofArgyreia, or plantain leaves.
Besides the hāgōttu within the house, the Badagas have, at certain places, separate dairy-houses near a temple dedicated to Heththeswāmi, of which the one at Bairaganni (or Bērganni) appears to be the most important. The dairy pūjāri is here, like the Toda palol, a celibate. In 1905, he was a young lad, whom my Brāhman assistant set forth to photograph. He was, however, met at a distance from the village by a headman, who assured him that he could not take the photograph without the sanction of fifteen villages. The pūjāri is not allowed to wander freely about the village, or talk to grown-up women. He cooks his own food within the temple grounds, and wears his cloth thrown loosely over his body. Once a year, on the occasion of a festival, he is presented with new cloths and turban, which alone he may wear. He must be a strict vegetarian. A desire to marry and abandon the priesthood is believed to be conveyed in dreams, or through one inspired. Before leaving the temple service, he must train his successor in the duties, and retires with the gains acquired by the sale of the products of the herd and temple offerings. The village of Bairaganni is regarded as sacred, and possesses no holagudi (menstrual hut).
Bishop Whitehead adds that “buffaloes are given as offerings to the temple at Bairaganni, and become the property of the pūjāri, who milks them, and uses themilk for his food. All the villagers give him rice every day. He may only eat once a day, at about 3P.M.He cooks the meal himself, and empties the rice from the cooking-pot by turning it over once. If the rice does not come out the first time, he cannot take it at all. When he wants to get married, another boy is appointed in his place. The buffaloes are handed over to his successor.” The following legend in connection with Bairaganni is also recorded by Bishop Whitehead. “There is a village in the Mēkanād division of the Nīlgiris called Nundāla. A man had a daughter. He wanted to marry her to a man in the Paranganād division about a hundred years ago. She did not wish to marry him. The father insisted, but she refused again and again. At last she wished to die, and came near a tank, on the bank of which was a tree. She sat under the tree and washed, and then threw herself into the tank. One of the men of Bairaganni in the Paranganād division saw the woman in a dream. She told him that she was not a human being but a goddess, an incarnation of Parvati. The people of Nundāla built a strong bund (embankment) round the tank, and allow no woman to go on it. Only the pūjāri, and Badagas who have prepared themselves by fasting and ablution, are allowed to go on the bund to offer pūja, which is done by breaking cocoanuts, and offering rice, flowers, and fruits. The woman told the man in his dream to build a temple at Bairaganni, which is now the chief temple of Heththeswāmi.”
Concerning the initiation of a Lingāyat Badaga into his religion, which takes place at about his thirteenth birthday, Mr. Natesa Sastri writes as follows. “The priest conducts this ceremony, and the elder relations of the family have only to arrange for the performanceof it. The priests belong to the Udaya sect. They live in their own villages, and are specially sent for, and come to the boy’s village for the occasion. The ceremony is generally done to several boys of about the same age on the same day. On the day appointed, all the people in the Badaga village, where this ceremony is to take place, observe a strict fast. The cows and buffaloes are all milked very early in the morning, and not a drop of the milk thus collected is given out, or taken by even the tenderest children of the village, who may require it very badly. The Udaya priest arrives near the village between 10A.M.and noon on the day appointed. He never goes into the village, but stops near some rivulet adjacent to it. The relations of the boy approach him with a new basket, containing five measures of uncooked rice, pulse, ghī, etc., and a quarter of a rupee—one fanam, as it is generally designated. The priest sits near the water-course, and lights a fire on the bank. Perfumes are thrown profusely into it, and this is almost the only ceremony before the fire. The boys, whose turn it is to receive the linga that day, are all directed to bathe in the river. A plantain leaf, cut into one foot square, is placed in front of the fire towards the east of it. The lingas, kept in readiness by the parents of the boys, are now received by the priest, and placed on the leaves. The boys are asked to wash them—each one the linga meant for his wearing—in water and milk. Then comes the time for the expenditure of all the collected milk of the morning. Profusely the white fluid is poured, till the whole rivulet is nothing but a stream of milk. After the lingas are thus washed, the boys give them to the priest, who places them in his left palm, and, covering them with his right, utters, with all the solemnity due to the occasion, the followingincantation, while the boys and the whole village assembled there listen to it with the most profound respect and veneration ‘Oh! Siva, Hara, Basava, the Lord of all the six thousand and three thousand names and glories, the Lord of one lakh and ninety-six thousand ganas (body-guards of Siva), the donor of water, the daily-to-be worshipped, the husband of Parvati. Oh! Lord, O! Siva Linga, thy feet alone are our resort. Oh! Siva, Siva, Siva, Siva.’ While pronouncing this prayer, the priest now and then removes his right palm, and pours water and milk round the sacred fire, and over the lingas resting in his left palm. He then places each of the lingas in a cloth of one cubit square, rolls it up, and requests the boys to hold out their right palms. The young Badaga receives it, repeats the prayer given about five times, and, during each repetition, the palm holding the linga tied up in the cloth is carried nearer and nearer to his neck. When that is reached (on the fifth utterance of the incantation), the priest ties the ends of the rolled up cloth containing the Siva emblem loosely round the boy’s neck, while the latter is all the while kneeling down, holding with both his hands the feet of the priest. After the linga has been tied, the priest blesses him thus: ‘May one become one thousand to you. May you ever preserve in you the Siva Linga. If you do so, you will have plenty of milk and food, and you will prosper for one thousand years in name and fame, kine and coin.’ If more than one have to receive the linga on the same day, each of them has to undergo this ceremony. After the ceremony is over, the priest returns to his village with the rice, etc., and fees. Every house, in which a boy has received the linga, has to give a grand feast on that day. Even the poorest Badaga must feed at least five other Badagas.”
The foregoing account of the investiture with the lingam apparently applies to the Mēkanād Udayas. The following note is based on information supplied by the Udayas of Paranginād. The ceremony of investiture is performed either on new year’s day or Sivarāthri by an Udaya priest in the house of a respected member of the community (doddamane), which is vacated for the occasion. The houses of the boys and girls who are to receive lingams are cleaned, and festoons of tūd and mango leaves, lime fruits, and flowers ofLeucas aspera(thumbē) are tied across the doorways, and in front of the house where the ceremony is to be performed. Until the conclusion thereof, all the people of the village fast. The candidates, with their parents, and the officiating priest repair to the doddamane. The lingams are handed over to the priest, who, taking them up one by one, does pūja to them, and gives them to the children. They in turn do pūja, and the lingams, wrapped in pink silk or cotton cloths, are tied round their necks. The pūja consists of washing the lingams in cow’s urine and milk, smearing them with sandal and turmeric paste, throwing flowers on them, and waving incense and burning camphor before them. After the investiture, the novices are taught a prayer, which is not a stereotyped formula, but varies with the priest and village.
Like other Lingayats, the Udayas respect the Jangam, but do not employ the Jangama thirtham (water used for washing the Jangam’s feet) for bathing their lingams. In Udaya villages there is no special menstrual hut (holagudi). Milk is not regarded by them as a sacred product, so there is no hāgōttu in their houses. Nor do they observe the Manavalai festival in honour of ancestors. Other ceremonies are celebrated by them, asby other Badagas, but they do not employ the services of a Kurumba.
Important agricultural ceremonies are performed by the Badagas at the time of sowing and harvest. The seed-sowing ceremony takes place in March, and, in some places,e.g., the Mēkanād and Paranginād, a Kurumba plays an important part in it. On an auspicious day—a Tuesday before the crescent moon—a pūjāri of the Devvē temple sets out several hours before dawn with five or seven kinds of grain in a basket and sickle, accompanied by a Kurumba, and leading a pair of bullocks with a plough. On reaching the field selected, the pūjāri pours the grain into the cloth of the Kurumba, and, yoking the animals to the plough, makes three furrows in the soil. The Kurumba, stopping the bullocks, kneels on the ground between the furrows facing east. Removing his turban, he places it on the ground, and, closing his ears with his palms, bawls out “Dho, Dho,” thrice. He then rises, and scatters the grain thrice on the soil. The pūjāri and Kurumba then return to the village, and the former deposits what remains of the grain in the store-room (attu). A new pot, full of water, is placed in the milk-house, and the pūjāri dips his right hand therein, saying “Nerathubitta” (it is full). This ceremony is an important one for the Badagas, as, until it has been performed, sowing may not commence. It is a day of feasting, and, in addition to rice,Dolichos Lablabis cooked.