Dravidian Gods in Modern Hinduism 45 



on the left, and vice versa. This is in order that the Sakti or any 

 other demon may not be able to recognize his footprints and so 

 follow him later. 



After beheading the buffalo they do not place the leg in the 

 mouth, as is the usual custom, but instead remove the heart, lungs, 

 and liver, and place them in the mouth, and smear the head with 

 blood. The image and the hideous head with the vitals in the 

 mouth are afterwards carried to the boundary and left in the usual 

 way. 



The Lambadis have another Sakti, called Malayala Sakti, who is 

 the most terrible of all because she requires human sacrifice.^^ She 

 has no image whatever, perhaps for the reason that no one dares 

 to make one for her. The sacrifice of human beings by the Lam- 

 badis was reported by the Abbe Dubois nearly one hundred years 

 ago.^^ He says that when the Lambadis wish to make a human 

 sacrifice, they seize the first person whom they meet, and taking 

 him to a lonely spot they bury him up to the neck. They then 

 make a sort of cup from a lump of dough, and place it on his 

 head. This they fill with oil, and placing four wicks in it they 

 light them. All then join hands, and dance around the victim 

 until he expires. 



In the village of Pokuru, Nellore District, is a middle-aged man 

 who tells a strange story that corroborates in general what the 

 Abbe Dubois reported. When this man was a boy of five or six 

 years, he was stolen from home by a band of traveling Lambadis,^* 



^2 The Lambadis are not the only people in India who have offered 

 human sacrifices. Max Miiller (Ancient Sanskrit Literature, Edinburgh, 

 i860, p. 419) thinks it may have existed among the Aryans. On the other 

 hand, the Manual of Administration of the Madras Presidency, I, p. 71, 

 states that human sacrifices were probably very common among the Dra- 

 vidians, and that the Aryans adopted sati and human sacrifices from 

 them. Monier-Williams (Brahmanism and Hinduism, p. 24) says that 

 it was probably once part of the Brahmanical system. For further dis- 

 cussion see Crooke, Things Indian, p. 262 sq. ; E. R. Clough, While Sewing 

 Sandals, p. 72; Dubois, Hindu Manners and Customs, pp. 652 sq. 



13 Hindu Manners and Customs, p. 70. 



1* Thurston (Castes and Tribes of Southern India, IV, p. 226) says that 

 the Lambadis purchase children whom they adopt. It is probable that they 

 do purchase children in famine times. But it also seems well established 



45 



