Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/360

MADIGA and held by two others, leading the way. Behind him are all the other Mādigas, carrying six hundred seers of chōlum (Sorghum: millet), which they scatter; and, following them, all the other villagers. It is daybreak, and the Mādiga who led the way, the pūjāri (priest), and the women who followed him, who have been fasting for more than twenty-four hours, now eat. The Mādiga is fed. This Mādiga is said to be in mortal terror while leading the procession, for the spirit or influence of the goddess comes over him. He swoons before the procession is completed. At noon the people collect again at Ūramma's temple, where a purchased buffalo is sacrificed. The head is placed in front of the goddess as before, and removed at once for food. Then those of the lower Sūdra castes, and Mādigas who are under vows, come dressed in margosa leaves, with lamps on their heads, and sacrifice buffaloes, sheep and goats to the goddess." A further account of the festival of the village goddess Udisalamma, at Bandri in the Bellary district, is given by Mr. Fawcett. "A Mādiga," he writes, "naked but for a few leaves round his waist, leads the procession, and, following him, are Mādigas with baskets. Fear of the goddess comes on the Mādiga. He swoons, and is carried to the temple, and flung on the ground in front of the goddess. After a while he is revived, bathed, and given new clothing. This man is one of a family, in which this curious office is hereditary. He must be the son of a married woman, not of a Basivi, and he must not be married. He fasts from the beginning of the festival till he has done what is required of him. A young ram — the sacrifice sheep —is taken up by one of the Pōturāzus, as if it were a child, its hind legs at either side of his waist and its fore- legs over his shoulders, and he bites its throat open and