Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/420

KONDH still went on in Bastar." As recently as 1902, a petition was presented to the District Magistrate of Ganjam, asking him to sanction the performance of a human sacrifice. The memory of the abandoned practice is kept green by one of the Kondh songs, for a translation of which we are indebted to Mr. J. E. Friend- Pereira.* "At the time of the great Kiabon (Campbell) Sahib's coming, the country was in darkness; it was enveloped in mist.

Having sent paiks to collect the people of the land, they, having surrounded them, caught the Meriah sacrificers.

Having caught the Meriah sacrificers, they brought them, and again they went and seized the evil councillors. Having seen the chains and shackles, the people were afraid; murder and bloodshed were quelled.

Then the land became beautiful, and a certain Mokodella (Macpherson) Sahib came. He destroyed the lairs of the tigers and bears in the hills and rocks, and taught wisdom to the people. After the lapse of a month, he built bungalows and schools; and he advised them to learn reading and law. They learnt wisdom and reading; they acquired silver and gold. Then all the people became wealthy."

Human sacrifice was not practiced in the Kurtilli Muttah of the Ganjam Māliahs. The reason of this is assigned to the fact that the first attempt was made with a crooked knife, and the sacrificers made such a bad business of it that they gave it up. Colonel Campbell gives another tradition, that, through humanity, one of the Kurtilli Patros (head of a group of villages) threatened to leave the muttah if the practice was carried out.