Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/384

SAVARA baskets for sifting grain for female Kulbas. I once came across some hundreds of Saoras performing the Guar Karja. Dancing, with music, fantastically dressed, and brandishing their weapons, they returned from putting up the stones to the village, and proceeded to hack to pieces with their axes the buffaloes that had been slaughtered — a disgusting sight. After dark, many of the feasters passed my camp on their way home, some carrying legs and other large pieces of the sacrificed buffaloes, others trying to dance in a drunken way, swinging their weapons. During my last visit to Kolakotta, I witnessed a kind of combination of the Limma and Guar (an uncommon arrangement there) made owing to peculiar circumstances. A deceased Saora left no family, and his relatives thought it advisable to get through his Limma and Guar without delay, so as to run no risk of the non-performance of these feasts. He had been dead about a month. The Limma was performed one day, the feast calling together the deceased ancestors the same evening; and the Guar on the following day. Part of the Limma was performed in a house. Three men, and a female Kudang sat in a row; in front of them there was an inverted pot on the ground, and around it were small leaf cups containing portions of food. All chanted together, keeping excellent time. Some food in a little leaf cup was held near the earthen pot, and now and then, as they sang, passed round it. Some liquor was poured on the food in the leaf cup, and put on one side for the Kulba. The men drank liquor from the leaf cups which had been passed round the earthen pot. After some silence there was a long chant, to call together all spirits of ancestors who had died violent deaths, and request them to receive the spirit of the deceased among them; and portions of food and liquor