Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/389

Rh local, in which the entire community of a village takes part, and which all outsiders are excluded from participating in. It is performed whenever a series of crops successively fail or cattle die in large numbers of murrain, and is peculiarly adapted, by the horrible nature of the attendant rites and the midnight hour chosen for the exhibition of its most ghastly scenes, to impress the minds of an ignorant people with a belief in its efficacy. When the celebration of the jātra is resolved on, a dark Tuesday night is selected for it, and subscriptions are collected and deposited with the Reddi (headman) or some respectable man in the village. Messengers are sent off to give intimation of the day fixed for the jātra to the Bynēnivādu, Bhutabaligādu, and Poturāju, three of the principal actors in the ceremony. At the same time a buffalo is purchased, and, after having its horns painted with saffron (turmeric) and adorned with margosa leaves, is taken round the village in procession with tom-toms beating, and specially devoted to the sacrifice of the goddess Peddamma or Sunkulamma on the morning of the Tuesday on which the ceremony is to take place. The village potter and carpenter are sent for, and ordered to have ready by that evening two images of the goddess, one of clay and the other of juvi wood, and a new cloth and a quantity of rice and dholl (peas: Cajanus indicus) are given to each of them. When the images are made, they are dressed with the new cloths, and the rice and dholl are cooked and offered as naivēdyam to the images. In some villages only one image, of clay, is made. Meanwhile the villagers are busy erecting a pandal (booth) in front of the village chāvidi (caste meeting-house), underneath which a small temple is erected of cholam straw. The Bynenivādu takes a handful of earth, and places it inside this little temple, and