Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/195

  Hook-Swi)ioi)ig ill hidia. 169

particular festival certain children concerning whom their parents had made vows, having first prostrated themselves before the image of Kali, had wires put through the fleshy part of their sides, and, this having been done, they were led several times round the temple.

Mr. Knowles had also seen a hook-swinging festival at Madura where the devotee was swung with his weight taken by the hooks alone, and here a platform, instead of car, was in use.^^

E. Thurston describes a pseudo hook-swinging ceremony as witnessed by him in Chennapatna in Mysore, the chief feature of which seems to have been that a man was swung, or rather rotated, in effigy, from an apparatus very closely resembling that depicted in photograph No. 15. The figure of the man was provided with sword and shield. Cradles containing children were sometimes tied to the beam from which the figure was suspended, and occasionally men fastened to the cross pole by ropes were hoisted. This festival usually lasted three days ; on the first day , Mariamma was worshipped by Brahmans only, and on the following days by other castes, who made offerings of sheep and goats.'^ Prior to the swinging the goddess (Mariamma) in her shrine and the effigy (Sidi Viranna) were conducted to a tank where they were worshipped and then brought in procession to the scene of the ceremony.

Thurston also refers to another pseudo performance of a somewhat similar nature at Kumulan in South Arcot where, as a substitute for a human being, a sheep was used.^^

Before leaving the Madras Presidency, it is worth noting that, " Quite recently the Governor of Madras was approached by a ryot (agriculturist), on behalf of the community, with a request for permission to revive the

^2 For these two references I am indebted to E. Thurston, Ethnographic Notes in Southern India.

'*E. Thurston, op. cit., pp. 500 et seq.

'^^ Ibid., p. 501.