242 
A JOURNEY FROM MADRAS THROUGH 
CHAPTER branches of his family live in his house, and cultivate the ground, 
or cari T 011 ; but he himself wanders about, and collects grain, 
June 22, &c. and small money, from those who are charitable. They get by rote 
a prayer in Telinga poetry, which they constantly bawl out in the 
streets, and endeavour farther to attract notice by blowing on a 
conch. It seems to be only the Sudras of the Vishnu sect that follow 
this idle life, and few of them are able either to read or write. 
The Telinga Bamjigaru are acknowledged to be true Sudras , and 
they allow this to be the case. A few of them learn to read and 
write accompts, but they never attempt any higher kind of learn- 
ing. They eat sheep, goats, hogs, fowls, and fish, and may use 
Bang; but they ought not to drink spirituous liquors. They bury 
the dead, and the women formerly used to bury themselves alive 
with their deceased husbands ; but this custom has fallen into dis- 
use. They pray to Vishnu, and all the gods of his family; and also 
to Dharma Raja, an inferior god of a beneficent nature ; but with 
the Brcihmans he is not an object of worship. In case of danger, they 
offer bloody sacrifices to several destructive spirits ; such as Ma~ 
fima, Butalima, Mutialima, and Gurigoma, which is a lump of mud 
made into a sort of temporary image. The Brahmans of this coun- 
try abhor this kind of worship, and call all these gods of the vulgar 
evil spirits, Sahtis, or ministers of Sim. They never offer sacrifices 
at the temples of these deities, and much less ever act as their Pu~ 
jkris. Influenced, however, by superstition, although they condemn 
the practice, they in sickness occasionally send a small offering of 
fruit or money to these deities ; but, being ashamed to do it pub- 
lickly, the present is generally conveyed by some child, who may 
be supposed to have made the offering by mistake. The small 
temples of these deities are very numerous, and the Pujaris are in 
general of the impure casts. I am inclined indeed to believe, that 
they are the original gods of the country ; and that these impure 
casts are the remains of the rude tribes that occupied, the country 
before the origin of the Brahmans , or other sects, that introduced 
