Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/261

Rh Some low-caste men from the north-west of the Mysore state, and who brought their own musicians with them, next attempted the club dance as performed in the Deccan. They did not do it well, for, as we heard afterwards, these particular individuals had not been in the habit of dancing together; but the fact of their doing it proved that this same dance is common to the aborigines of more than one hilly district in Southern India. This same dance must at one period have been in use in other parts of that peninsula. At a place called Tadputri in the Madras presidency, a few hours distant by rail from the civil and military station of Bellary, there are certain old temples in the Dravidian style of architecture. A Saiva and a Vaishnava one are in the same enclosure. The latter, which is the larger temple of the two, has sculptured capitals on its columns with much defaced human figures. There are also traces of painting on the ceiling of the colonnade of the ante-temple. It is highly probable that the ceiling of the centre part was at one time similarly decorated, for the slabs which form it are very rough, without ornamentation of any kind, and not in keeping with the rest of the building.

In addition to the main approach through the ante-temple there are two side entrances flanked by stone seats. The slab of stone which forms the back of one of these seats has female figures upon it, sculptured in bas-relief; they are represented performing a club dance like those we witnessed at Belgaum and in the Coorg jungles. The hair of these figures is arranged in a large knot on one side of the head, as worn by Madrassee women at the present day. From the waist to the knee they have a kind of full petticoat or rather kilt. This being, as we said before, a Vaishnava temple, these damsels were most probably intended to represent the gopis or milk-maids who were the attendants of Krishna. This same dance is said to be still very frequently performed by the natives of the Bellary district at the time of the Dussera and other great feasts.

At Sagar, in the Central Provinces of India, a curious dance is executed by Hindu women; it takes place about the middle of September, and is said to be peculiar to that district: numbers of native