OF BHARATAVARSA OR INDIA. 
203 
spent tlae best part of his life in intimate intercourse with 
the hill-tribes, among whom he commanded the highest 
respect for the genuine kindness he showed to them and the 
utter unselfishness he displayed towards the amelioration of 
their position. Very valuable information is also contained 
in the writings of the late Colonel Ouchterlony, in the 
Account of the late Mr. J. Wilkinson Breaks, Commissioner of 
have settled in the Wynaad. Each Badaga district has its own Kurumba 
priest, ■who comes up at the ploughing season, and sows the first handful of 
grain ; and at harvest time also before the sickle is put to the crop. And 
if a standing crop should at any time be attacked by insects, he is sent for, 
and has to go through the ceremony of lowing h'ke a calf, which the 
Badagas believe has the effect -of kUling the insect. . The Mullu and Naya 
Kurumbas are believed to possess the power of killing men by sorcerj% and so 
greatly are they feared that, if a Badaga meet a Kurumba in a jungle alone, 
death from sheer terror is not unfrequently the consequence. . . The caLms 
and cromlechs found in various parts of the hiUs, . . were, I think, pro- 
bably the work of the ancestors of the Kurumbas. . . Diiring the 13 years that 
I have labored amongst and mixed with the hiU-tribes, 1 have never found the 
Todas in any way interested in the cairns, whilst the fact of their making no 
objections to their being opened, taken in connection with the circumstance of 
the contents frequently consisting of parts of plough-shares, sickles, and other 
implements of husbandry, showing that the cairns were constructed by an 
agricultural race which the Todas never were, are to me convincing proofs 
that they are not the work of the Todas of a past generation. The Badagas 
and Kotas, on the other hand, are to a certain degree afraid to approach 
them . . I was once on a preaching excursion in a district near the southern 
boundary of the hills, and not very far from the principal Kurumba village, 
called MuUi, and after the labors of the day felt a curiosity to open a cairn 
which happened to be in the neighbourhood. Much to my surprise however 
the Badaga headmen present would not permit me to do so, not on account of 
any objections they had themselves to make, but because, as they said, it was 
the residence of the god of the Kui'umbas, who came up frequently from 
MuUi in order to worship the god of their forefathers. This is the only 
occasion on which I have ever known any of the hill tribes venerate a cairn, 
as the depository of the ashes of a deceased ancestor ; but, viewed in connec- 
tion with what I have already stated, I think it is sufficient to justify the 
supposition that the Kurumbas of old, when masters of the tableland may 
have constructed these remarkable cemeteries ; and this consideration is fur- 
ther borae out bj' the fact that the common tradition among Todas, Badagas, 
and Kotas, is that they are the graves of a very wicked race of people, who, 
though diminutive in stature, were at the same time powerful enough to 
raise the large blocks of granite of which the walls of Hoolicaldroog are built ; 
and that God drove them from the hills on account of their wickedness — a 
description which would well apply to the case of the Kurumbas, who, in 
addition to being feared and detested, are as a race much stunted in their 
