Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/415

Rh which used once to be considered incumbent upon them. In some places, the Badagas and Kotas have gone even further, and established Rangasvāmi Bettus of their own, handy for their own particular villages. On the real Rangasvāmi peak are two rude walled enclosures sacred to the god Ranga and his consort, and within these are votive offerings (chiefly iron lamps and the notched sticks used as weighing machines), and two stones to represent the deities. The hereditary pūjāri is an Irula, and, on the day fixed by the Badagas for the annual feast, he arrives from his hamlet near Nandipuram, bathes in a pool below the summit, and marches to the top shouting 'Govinda! Govinda'! The cry is taken up with wild enthusiasm by all those present, and the whole crowd, which includes Badagas, Irulas, and Kurumbas, surrounds the enclosures, while the Irula priest invokes the deities by blowing his conch and beating his drum, and pours oblations over, and decorates with flowers, the two stones which represent them. That night, two stone basins on the summit are filled with ghee and lighted, and the glare is visible for miles around. The ceremonies close with prayers for good rain and fruitfulness among the flocks and herds, a wild dance by the Irula, and the boiling (called pongal, the same word as pongal the Tamil agricultural feast) of much rice in milk. About a mile from Arakōd is an overhanging rock called the kodai-kal or umbrella stone, under which is found a whitish clay. This clay is used by the Irulas for making the Vaishnava marks on their foreheads at this festival." The following account of an Irula temple festival is given by Harkness. * "The hair of the men, as well as of the women and children, was bound up in a fantastic