Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/219

Rh and the whole heap is covered over with straw, and plastered over with clay, a few small openings being left here and there to allow the smoke to escape. These arrangements being completed, the fuel at the bottom is fired, and in the course of a few hours the process of baking is completed." When travelling in India, Dr. Jagor noticed that the potters of Salem communicated to their ware a kind of polish, exactly like that seen on some of the specimens of antique pottery found in cromlechs. It was ascertained that the Salem potters use a seed for producing the polish, which was determined by Surgeon-General G.Bidie to be the seed of Gyrocarpus Jacquini, which is also used for making rosaries and necklaces. Another method employed for producing a polish is to rub the surface of the baked vessel with the mucilaginous juice of tuthi (Abutilon indicum), and then fire the vessel again. It is stated, in the Coimbatore Manual, that "the potter never begins his day's work at the wheel without forming into a lingam and saluting the revolving lump of clay, which, with the wheel, bears a strong resemblance to the usual sculptured conjunction" (of lingam and yōni). An old potter woman, whom I examined on this point, explained that the lump represents Ganēsa. In like manner, the pan coolies at the salt factories never scrape salt from the pans without first making a Pillayar (Ganēsa) of a small heap of salt, on the top of which the salt is sometimes piled up. Painted hollow clay images are made by special families of Kusavans known as pūjāri, who, for the privilege of making them, have to pay an annual fee to the headman, who spends it on a festival at the caste temple. When a married couple are anxious to have female