1837.] 



An Account of the Tribe of Mhadeo Kolies. 103 



It is the duty of one of the elderly females of the family to look after 

 t he dairy ; as the milk in a few hours becomes sour in this country, the 

 people for their convenience boil it. The Kolies for this purpose place 

 their fresh milk invariably on a very slow fire, and it is gradually heat- 

 ed for several hours, when it is suffered to boil for a few seconds ; after 

 which, it is poured into flat earthen dishes, and some sour milk, or a 

 little butter milk of the preceding clay, is added , in order to thicken it ; 

 the following morning it is made into butter.* Once a week, all the 

 butter that has been made is boiled sharply on a brisk fire, and strained 

 while hot; when cooled it is termed ghee. They only make ghee 

 during the monsoon and two of the cold months. Bunniahs travel 

 about the country and buy it up weekly at a very low price. 



As one of the days of the week is consecrated to each of the chief 

 Hindoo deities, by their respective votaries , and kept as a fast, the 

 Kolies dedicate one of their buffaloes or cows to these household gods, 

 and all, who wish to be considered punctual observers of their religious 

 rites, abstain from using the milk of the consecrated cow on these fast 

 days. It is converted into ghee, and burnt in the evening, in a lamp 

 placed before the family idols. 



They sometimes burn some of this consecrated ghee near a precipice 

 in the vicinity of water, to propitiate the tutelary spirits of the place 

 to prevent any accident befalling their cattle, when descending into 

 the bed of a river to quench their thirst. 



To ensure the milk being readily converted into good butter, the 

 Kolies insert a small piece of the bhoot khet tree into the slit end of 

 the churning staff. This is supposed to possess the virtue of counter- 

 acting the influence of the evil eye (principally that of the females), 

 and the machinations of the sorceress ; therefore it is used for that pur- 

 pose. When they fancy one of their cows has been enchanted, her 

 milk driven away, or she objects to her calf sucking her, all supposed 

 to be owing to the evil eye (especially of a female), they drive a peg, 

 made of the bhoot khet tree, into the ground, to which they fasten 

 the cow. This is said to act as a charm, the animal becoming quite 

 submissive, and the milk immediately returning to her. 



The Kolies are fond of charms or amulets. They believe, like many 

 others of the inhabitants, that the tail of the chamelion possesses 

 many virtues — that it will cure a fever of the tertian type, &c. &c. It 

 is only on a Friday that they catch a chamelion they wish to destroy 

 for the sake of its tail — they keep it all night in a pot with a little 

 grain, and kill it on Saturday morning, when they divide the tail into 



* The butter and ghee, made from the milk of the cattle which graze on the coarse 

 grass of the hills, is considered of an inferior quality to that produced from the milk of 

 cows in the open country. 



