Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/85

Rh and thy ally Hanumant our tutelary deities.' Vishnu was pleased to grant their prayer, and by his command the water in an instant divided, and left a dry space, over which they passed. The moment they reached the opposite bank, the waters closed and prevented their adversary from pursuing them, who returned to his own country. The sect settled in the provinces near the Tungabhadra river, and in course of time spread over the districts which now form the eastern part of the kingdom of Mysore then called Morsu, and from thence arose their surname."

As in Africa, and among the American Indians, Australians, and Polynesians, so in Southern India artificial deformity of the hand is produced by chopping off some of the fingers. Writing in 1815, Buchanan (Hamilton)* says that "near Deonella or Deonhully, a town in Mysore, is a sect or sub-division of the Murressoo Wocal caste, every woman of which, previous to piercing the ears of her eldest daughter, preparatory to her being betrothed in marriage, must undergo the amputation of the first joints of third and fourth fingers of her right hand. The amputation is performed by the blacksmith of the village, who, having placed the finger in a block, performs the operation with a chisel. If the girl to be betrothed is motherless, and the mother of the boy has not before been subjected to the amputation, it is incumbent on her to suffer the operation." Of the same ceremony among the "Morsa-Okkala-Makkalu " of Mysore the Abbé Dubois † says that, if the bride's mother be dead, the bridegroom's mother, or in default of her the mother of the nearest relative, must submit to the cruel ordeal. In an editorial foot-note it is stated