Page:Vizagapatam.djvu/95

THE PEOPLE. with them and established these in shrines in some of the larger towns, but the mass of the people in the wilder parts worship exclusively their aboriginal forefathers' animistic deities, which differ altogether from those of the low country. Villages nearer civilization, however, exhibit curiously the transition which is occurring. In Chollapadam in Párvatípur taluk (to give only one instance) are simultaneously worshipped the Khonds' ancient Kondadévata, nameless mountain spirits who dwell in a cave on the hills; Jákara, the aboriginal Khond deity, to whom a Khond janni is priest; Pólamma, a village deity imported from the Telugu country whose priest is a Játapu, or civilized Khond; and Kásivisvésvara, an orthodox god of the Hindu pantheon, at whose shrine a Jangam (Lingáyat) officiates and who has a festival at Sivarátri. The aboriginal deities of the Agency include the Jákara (or Jankari) above mentioned, Tákuráni, Pindráni, Mauli, Báripennu, Dharivipennu ('pennu' means 'god'), and a host of others. These again have apparently no separate attributes or personalities, and in some places the people worship the whole crowd of them together under the name Bododévata, the great gods.' Jákara and Tákuráni are more often met with than any others and Hindus are at pains to explain that the latter is merely another form of Durga or Káli. None of these deities have any proper shrines; a stone under a big tree, a sacred grove (from which no twig is ever cut), a mountain peak or a deep pool are their habitations. They are usually worshipped (always by priests belonging to the hill tribes themselves) with offerings of buffaloes, goats, pigs and pigeons, and much burning of resin; and if sufficiently propitiated grant good seasons and good hunting, and avert disease. When cholera or small-pox are virulent a ceremony is observed which is curiously parallel to that practised in the Deccan.1 A little car is made on which is placed a grain of saffron-stained rice for every soul in the village and also numerous offerings such as little swings, pots, knives,ploughs and the like and the blood of certain sacrificial victims, and this is then dragged with due ceremony to the boundary of the village. By this means the malignant essence of the deity who brings small-pox or cholera is transferred across the boundary. The neighbouring villagers naturally hasten to move the car on with similar ceremony, and it is thus dragged through a whole series of villages and eventually left by the roadside in some lonely spot. 75