Page:Madras Journal of Literature and Science, series 1, volume 6 (1837).djvu/52

44 top of which is an effigy of a bird, and at the foot of which a brass figure of the same bird is buried. The Khonds and others dance round the post to music, and addressing the earth, say, "O god! we sacrifice to you, give us good crops and seasons and health." Then the victim is addressed—"We have bought you with a price, not seized you, and now sacrifice you according to custom. No sin rests on us." On the following day the victim is intoxicated with toddy again, and anointed with oil. Each individual present touches the anointed part, and wipes the oil on his own head. They then proceed in procession around the village and its boundaries, bearing the victim, who is preceded by music and a long pole to the top of which is attached tufts of peacocks' feathers. On returning to the post, which is always placed near the village deity (Gram devete), here called "Jakaree penoo," represented by three stones, and near to which the brass effigy of a bird, before alluded to, intended to represent a peacock, is always buried. They proceed to dig a pit, and having killed in sacrifice a hog, the blood is allowed to flow into the pit. The victim, who, if it has been found possible, has been made senseless from intoxication, is seized by five or six persons, thrown into the pit, and his face kept pressed to the earth, till suffocated in the bloody mire. All cries, if any, are drowned by the noises of instruments. When supposed to be dead, the Janee cuts a bit of flesh from the body, and buries it with ceremony near the effigy and village idol, as an offering to the earth; all present then, cut pieces of flesh and carry it to their own villages, where part is buried before the same idols, and morsels in the boundaries of the villages, or fields, to which it is carried in procession, with music, &c. The head and face remains untouched, and when the bones are deprived of flesh, they are buried with the head in the pit.

Subsequently to this horrid rite, a calf is brought before the post, and his four feet being cut off, it is left there till the following day, when women, dressed in male attire, and armed as men, drink, and dance, and sing round the post. The calf is then killed and eaten, and the Janee dismissed with a present of rice, and a hog or calf.

Captain Millar (43d Regiment N. I.) when at Coopautee, managed with much discretion to rescue no less than twelve victims; seventeen more have fallen into my hands, making in all twenty-nine. The first who made her escape to my camp, although closely fettered, disappeared after a few days, and I could never learn more of her. She was an elderly woman; of the remainder, ten were restored to their friends, and eighteen children from three to ten years of age, remain with Captain Millar and myself. These were all sold by their parents, or I have been unable to discover their history and origin.