Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/371

Rh flower-buds of the tall palm as others are upon the solid earth. The sugar, fruit, and roots of the palmyra form a great part of the Shanar's food, and the sale of his surplus crop enables him to procure some few of the comforts of life; but as a class they are very poor. This very poverty, however, has probably made them more willing to receive the riches of everlasting life.

The religion of the Shanars is devil-worship: not in the sense in which all idolaters are said to worship devils and to follow the doctrine of devils; but the objects of their worship are actually evil spirits—devils. Their sacrifices, prayers, and devotions are directed to the attainment of a deliverance from the wrath and persecutions of these Peys and Pisasus, or devils; their temples are called Pey-covils, or devil-temples, and their worship, Pey-arathaney, or devil-worship. These devils are very numerous, and their number receives constant accessions from the ranks of the spirits of dying men. The grave of an English officer has become a holy place with some of these deluded devil-worshippers, and the offerings made to his departed spirit show their idea of what will most appease his ghost—they are brandy and segars!