Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/62

KAIKOLAN Among the Kaikōlan musicians, I have seen every gradation of colour and type, from leptorhine men with fair skin and chiselled features, to men very dark and platyrhine, with nasal index exceeding 90. The Kaikōlans take part in the annual festival at Tirupati in honour of the goddess Gangamma. "It is," Mr. Stuart writes,* "distinguished from the majority of similar festivals by a custom, which requires the people to appear in a different disguise (vēsham) every morning and evening. The Mātangi vēsham of Sunday morning deserves special mention. The devotee who consents to undergo this ceremony dances in front of an image or representation of the goddess, and, when he is worked up to the proper pitch of frenzy, a metal wire is passed through the middle of his tongue. It is believed that this operation causes no pain, or even bleeding, and the only remedy adopted is the chewing of a few margosa (Melia Azadirachta) leaves, and some kunkumam (red powder) of the goddess. This vēsham is undertaken only by a Kaikōlan (weaver), and is performed only in two places — the house of a certain Brāhman and the Mahant's math. The concluding disguise is that known as the pērantālu vēsham. Pērantālu signifies the deceased married women of a family who have died before their husbands, or, more particularly, the most distinguished of such women. This vēsham is accordingly represented by a Kaikōlan disguised as a female, who rides round the town on a horse, and distributes to the respectable inhabitants of the place the kunkumam, saffron paste, and flowers of the goddess." For the following account of a ceremony, which took place at Conjeeveram in August, 1908, I am indebted