Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/406

KONDH hut for unmarried girls to sleep in) prevails among them in its simplest form, and girls have opportunities for the most intimate acquaintance before they need inform their parents they wish to marry. Special ceremonies are practiced to prevent the spirits of the dead (especially of those killed by tigers) from returning to molest the living. Except totemistic septs, they have apparently no sub-divisions.* The dress of the civilised Khonds of both sexes is ordinary and uninteresting. These civilised Khonds worship all degrees of deities, from their own tribal Jākara down to the orthodox Hindu gods; follow every gradation of marriage and funeral customs from those of their primitive forefathers to those of the low- country Telugu; speak dialects which range from good Khond through bastard patois down to corrupt Telugu; and allow their totemistic septs to be degraded down to,or divided into, the intipērulu of the plains." There is a tradition that, in olden days, four Kondhs, named Kasi, Mendora, Bolti, and Bolo, with eyes the size of brass pots, teeth like axe-heads, and ears like elephant's ears, brought their ancestor Mandia Pātro from Jorasingi in Boad, and gave him and his children authority all over the country now comprised in Mahasingi, and in Kurtilli Barakhumma, Bodogodo, Balliguda, and Pussangia, on condition of settling their disputes, and aiding them in their rights. The following legendary account of the origin of the Kondhs is given by Mr. A. B. Jayaram Moodaliar. Once upon a time, the ground was all wet, and there were only two females on the earth, named Karaboodi and Tharthaboodi, each of whom was blessed with a single male child. The names