Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/284

GAMALLA effigy. The widow's remaining bangles are broken, and she is presented with a new cloth, called munda koka (widow's cloth) as a sign of her condition. All Gamallas, rich or poor, engage on this occasion the services of Mala Pambalas and Bainēdus (musicians and story- tellers) to recite the story of the goddess Ankamma. The performance is called Ankamma kolupu. Some of the Mālas make on the ground a design, called muggu, while the others play on the drum, and carry out the recitation. The design must be made in five colours, green (leaves of Cassia auriculata), white (rice flour), red (turmeric and lime), yellow (turmeric), and black (burnt rice-husk). It represents a male and female figure (Vīrulu, heroes), who are supposed to be the person whose peddadinam is being celebrated, and an ancestor of the opposite sex. If the family can afford it, other designs, for example of Ankamma, are also drawn. On the completion of the muggu, cocoanuts, rice, and betel are offered, and a fowl is sacrificed. Like many other Telugu castes, the Gamallas have a class of beggars, called Eneti, attached to them, for whom a subscription is raised when they turn up. The Gamallas are mostly Saivites, and their priests are Ārādhya Brāhmans, i.e., Telugu Brāhmans, who have adopted some of the customs of the Lingāyats. They worship a variety of gods and goddesses, who include Pōtharāju, Kātamayya, Gangamma, Mathamma, and Thallamma, or Thadlamma. Once or twice during the year, a pot of toddy is brought from every house to the shrine of Thallamma, and the liquor contained in some of the pots is poured on the floor, and the remainder given to those assembled, irrespective of caste. At the festival of Dīpāvali, the celebrants bathe in the early morning, and go, in wet clothes, to an ant-hill,