Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 7.djvu/499

Rh the snake is sought in the hair, ears, and nose, basket and loin-cloth. The choir now sings the following: —


 * Come down to catch the snake,
 * O! snake-charmer, behold the standing snake.
 * Be sure the pipe sounds well.
 * Come, come, with the big snakes in the basket.
 * And the little ones in the lock of your hair.
 * When I went down the bank of the Yerracheru,
 * And saw the harvest cut.
 * The cobra crawled beneath the harvester.
 * Ayo! Ayo! Ayo!

To see this action song, and to hear these strange people, is one of the queerest experiences of native aboriginal life. The dancers, and the spectators who form the choir, all become very excited, and even the European, seeing the tamāsha (spectacle), is infected with the excitement. The actors are bathed in perspiration, but the dance is kept up nevertheless, and only when their large stock of palmyra leaf torches is exhausted will they stop and take their rest."

In their nomadic life the Yānādis have learnt by experience the properties and uses of herbs and roots, with which they treat fever, rheumatism, and other diseases. They have their own remedies for cobra bite and scorpion sting. It is said that the Yānādis alone are free from elephantiasis, which affects the remaining population of Srīharikota. It is noted by the Rev. G. N. Thomssen that "while it has been impossible to gather these people into schools, because of their shyness and jungle wildness. Christian missionaries, especially the American Baptist missionaries, have succeeded in winning the confidence of these degraded children of nature, and many of them have joined the Christian Church. Some read and write well, and a few have even learned English. We have a