Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/547

Rh coloured flesh,—typifying the powers of darkness and evil,—is cut off and split into two pieces. The name of the person whom it is intended to injure is written on a piece of palm-leaf and inserted between the two parts of the skull. The whole is wrapped up with certain jungle fruits and deposited under the enemy's gateway. The writer of this account quotes a letter from an old lady in Yorkshire, who describes a similar rite current on the moors near Leeds. Take a pigeon, a bird with dark-coloured flesh, and hang it up alive before a fire. Taking a knife, cut its breast open with the invocation,—"O God! do unto my enemy (mentioning his or her name) as I now do to this pigeon; for it is in my hands to kill or to keep alive, even as he is in Thy hands." After this the heart of the pigeon is cast into the fire. (Times of India, Aug. 13, 1908.)

The Kodangalur Cock Feast.—About March 25th crowds of natives visit Kodangalur, each of them carrying a cock as an offering. The celebration is based on the tale of Kovalam and his faithful wife Kannakai, the son and daughter of two merchant princes, who were married and lived happily for some years. After this Kovalam fell a victim to the fascinations of a dancing-girl and deserted his wife, taking with him one of her anklets, which he sold, giving the proceeds to his paramour. Meanwhile the queen of Madura had sent one of her anklets to be cleaned by a goldsmith; and, when he placed it in the sun, a vulture carried it away. Kovalam was arrested, charged with the crime of stealing the jewel, and executed. When the news of the death of her husband reached Kannakai she went to Madura and produced her other anklet before the king. The anklet was examined and was found to be stuffed with diamonds, while that of the queen was filled with pearls. The king on learning that Kovalam was innocent fell down dead, and his queen also soon died. The goldsmith was lynched by the indignant people, and Kannakai retired to the forest, where she spent the rest of her life in the practice of austerities. After her death she was recognised as an incarnation of the benign Mother goddess, Bhadrā Kālī, and a temple was dedicated to her with a statue of the heroine made from granite specially brought from the Himalaya. Cocks are now yearly sacrificed to her to induce her to forbear