1917.] ■ Indian Ceremonies for Disease-Transference. 15 



supposed to die of drowning. The goat and the cock, that are 

 earned with the rath, are let loose; and it is believed that 

 whoever will catch and take them away will contract the 

 disease. When the procession starts, the women of the village 

 meet near the village- well, light a lamp, and sing songs imploring 

 the mercy of the village-goddess to them.' 



Curiously enough, an analogous custom wherein the disease- 

 spirit is conveyed to another village in a cart or chariot dedi- 

 cated to the village-goddess, also prevails in Southern India. 

 Suppose cholera or small-pox has broken out in a village in the 

 Telugu country. It is popularly believed that this outbreak 

 of disease is due to the anger of the village-goddess Peddamma 

 —the Great Mother. She, therefore, requires to be propitiated. 

 Accordingly, a subscription is raised for the expenses of a 

 festival, or a wealthy man offers to contribute all the expenses 

 from his own pocket. An auspicious day, which may be any 

 day except Sunday or Thursday, is selected for the performance 

 of the worship. The potter is ordered to make a clay image of 

 the goddess, and the carpenter to make a small wooden cart. 

 While a male buffalo is selected as the chief victim for the 

 sacrifice. We will suppose that the preliminary ceremonies 

 (which are too complicated to be narrated here) have been per- 

 formed ; and the sheep, goats, fowls and buffaloes have been 

 all sacrificed, the first three by the washermen by cutting their 

 throats, and the buffaloes by the Madigas, the lowest class of the 

 Pariahs. Thereafter the celebrants of the worship go to the 

 house of the village-carpenter who has by this time got the 

 small wooden cart ready. Arrived there, they offer some 

 cooked rice to the cart (or more properly, to the disease-spirit 

 thereon) and sacrifice a lamb before it. The carpenter is given 

 his customary fee of a new cloth and eight annas. The washer- 

 man, then, drags the cart to the braying of horns and the rub- 

 a-dub-dub of the tom-toms, to the place of sacrifice. After the 

 performance of some other ceremonies which do not come 

 within the scope of this paper, the image of the goddess is taken 

 from the canopy by the washerman. A Madiga carries the head 

 of the sacrificed buffalo with its foreleg in the mouth, the fore- 

 head and nostrils all smeared over with fat, and the earthen 

 lamp still lighted on the top thereof. Then they all go in 

 procession to the boundary of the village. The first man in 

 the procession is he who carries the buffalo's head; next comes 

 the washerman with the image. The roar is brought up by the 

 small wooden cart. When they reach the farthest boundary of 

 the village, they cross it and go over, for about a furlong, into 

 the lands of the adjoining village. Arrived there, the Asadis 

 first sing a long chant in praise of the goddess Peddamma. 



1 Vide the Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, Vol IV 

 pp. 419-426. 



