Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India.djvu/229

Rh It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district, that "Matsya gundam (fish pool) is a curious pool on the Machēru (fish river) near the village of Matam, close under the great Yendrika hill, 5,188 feet above the sea. A barrier of rocks runs right across the river there, and the stream plunges into a great hole and vanishes beneath this, reappearing again about a hundred yards lower down. Just where it emerges from under the barrier, it forms a pool, which is crowded with mahseer of all sizes. These are wonderfully tame, the bigger ones feeding fearlessly from one's hand, and even allowing their backs to be stroked. They are protected by the Mādgole zamindars — who on several grounds venerate all fish — and by superstitious fears. Once, goes the story, a Brinjāri caught one and turned it into curry, whereon the king of the fish solemnly cursed him, and he and all his pack-bullocks were turned into rocks, which may be seen there till this day. At Sivarātri, a festival occurs at the little thatched shrine near by, the priest at which is a Bagata, and part of the ritual consists in feeding the sacred fish.

"In 1901, certain envious Bagatas looted one of the villages of the Konda Mālas or hill Paraiyans, a pushing set of traders, who are rapidly acquiring wealth and exalted notions, on the ground that they were becoming unduly arrogant. The immediate cause of the trouble was the fact that at a cockfight the Mālas' birds had defeated the Bagatas'." In a note on the Bagatas, Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao writes that the caste is divided into exogamous septs or intipērulu, some of which occur also among the Kāpus, Telagas, and Vantaris. Girls are married either before or after puberty, and the custom, called mēnarikam, which renders it a man's duty to marry his maternal