Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/370

 334 Collectanea.

is at once copied down and interpreted as a prophecy that there will be much rain in the year to come. Thus every year, in the month of February, the Karanika of Mailars is uttered and copied and kept by all in the District as a prophecy. This Karanika prognostication is also pronounced now at the Mallari Temple, in the Dharwar District ; at Nerakini, in the Alur Taluq, and at Mailar Lingappa, in the Harpanahalli Taluq.

Every village has at its entrance a stone called Boddurayi, which means the navel stone. In the month of May, or just before the commencement of the sowing season, a feast is celebrated, known as the worship of the bullocks. The bullocks are worshipped on that day, as is done in the Tamil districts on Pongal day, and towards evening they are taken outside the village with music and tom-tom. The Boddurayi is then worshipped and a string with margosa or mango leaves is tied across the entrance of the village gateway (most of the Bellary villages have gates) or to two poles planted on each side of the entrance of the village. The bullocks collected outside the village are now driven inside with music and tom-toms through this string. A party of villagers from the other side of the string try with shouting to keep out the bullocks and prevent them from crossing the string. In the midst of this confusion some bull eventually breaks through the string, and the colour of that bull decides the colour of the grain to be sown and the colour of the soil which will give a good crop that year. If a red bull breaks the string, red cholam is sown extensively ; and red soils are supposed to yield a bumper crop.

At the time of harvest a feast is held called the Poll feast. When the grain is harvested in the field, and before the same is removed to the house, the cultivator prepares a sumptuous feast in the field itself on the night before he carts the harvested grain to his house. Every member of the family must partake of this feast in the field. And it is the firm belief of the cultivator that only when this is done will profit accrue to the family by that year's agricultural produce.

Thus it will be seen that the agriculturist's life in Bellary is completely intertwined with superstitions. Their fields have spirits which have to be propitiated and their very villages are