Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/76

KOYI him that they had that morning driven their husbands to the forest, to bring home game of some kind or other. This quaint festival is said by Mr. Hemingway to be called Bhūdēvi Pandaga, or the festival of the earth goddess. When the samalu crop is ripe, the Kois summon the pūjāri on a previously appointed day, and collect from every house in the village a fowl and a handful of grain. The pūjāri has to fast all that night, and bathe early the next morning. After bathing, he kills the fowls gathered the previous evening in the names of the favourite gods, and fastens an ear of samalu to each house, and then a feast follows. In the evening they cook some of the new grain, and kill fresh fowls, which have not to be curried but roasted, and the heart, liver, and lights of which are set apart as the especial food of their ancestral spirits, and eaten by every member of each household in their name. The bean feast is an important one, as, until it is held, no one is allowed to gather any beans. On the second day before the feast, the village pūjāri must eat only bread. The day before, he must fast the whole twenty-four hours, and, on the day of the feast, he must eat only rice cooked in milk, with the bird offered in sacrifice. All the men of the village accompany the pūjāri to a neighbouring tree, which must be a Terminalia tomentosa, and set up a stone, which they thus dedicate to the goddess Kodalamma. Every one is bound to bring for the pūjāri a good hen and a seer of rice, and for himself a cock and half a seer of rice. The pūjāri also demands from them two annas as his sacrificing fee. Each worshipper then brings his cock to the pūjāri, who holds it over grains of rice which have been sprinkled before the goddess, and, if the bird pecks at the rice, good luck is ensured for the coming year, whilst, if perchance the bird pecks three times, the