AFTER-HUTTARI-DAYS.

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lowed to mix with the rest of the company. Supper follows, consisting of sugared rice, into which a handful of new rice is thrown, and of a substantial common repast of rice and curry.

After supper, the men of the village assemble in a house chosen for the Huttari-meeting. Songs are chanted in honor of the members of the house, living and dead. Thus the commencement is made of the Huttari-chants, which are performed at every house, belonging to the village, in the course of that night. If the village is large, several singing-parties are formed. Before dawn the chants must be completed. The Dévara-kattu (Gottesfriede in German) is at an end. No one during the seven holy days of Huttari dares quarrel, or fight, or even use offensive language to a brotherCoorg. Joy and peace are to reign.

But the Coorgs have not yet done altogether, with their pleasant festival. Four after-Huttari-days are added to the holy week. On the eighth day the Urukólu, the village-stick-dance, collects the whole community. The women of two or three houses repair together to the Urumandu, a pair leading and a second pair following, all four beating cymbals and chanting ancient songs or impromptu verses. When they have arrived at the place of meeting, they sit down in groups with the children, and look at the dances performed by the men, who go through the evolutions of Coorg-saltation, beating small rattans, of which they carry one in each hand, while they move to the time of a music, which proceeds from a group of Holeyas, stationed between the assembly of the Coorgs and that of their own people, who enjoy themselves, in the same fashion as their masters, at a little distance.

The afternoon is spent in this manner until 5 o'clock, when the whole male community goes to the Nèmakada-mane, (the house of appointment) some house cho

sen for the season. Supper is there served to the company. After supper a play of music, masks and dances commences. One lad is dressed as a dancinggirl; he is accompanied by a Jangama. Both dance for half an hour to the music of four men singing and beating small drums. Then two Brahmans, from Pálghatt make their appearance. They are asked, who they are, whence they have come, what errand, and so on, and answer with as much of wit and fun as they can muster. After they have danced for some time, two Máplis, with hempen beards, speaking Malayálam, join the party. Questions are asked and answers given in the same style. Then a Vodda and his wife enter. (These are tank-diggers from Orissa.) They are in search of work, make a contract and perform their púja. These are succeeded by two Gádikas (men who travel about, begging, with snakes which they cause to dance &c.) Last of all a troop of little boys comes in, dressed as Jógis, covered with ashes and fantastically dressed. The whole party set out from the Némakadamane, to perform in all the houses of the village. They continue at their work till 12 o'clock the following day, when dinner is served in another house of appointment; breakfast having been taken in due time at a third.

After dinner, on the ninth day, the Nádukólu begins. This is an assembly of the whole district. Every thing is done as at the Urukólu, only on a larger scale. At five the parties from different villages separate and go home. The night is spent again with plays and masked dances.

In the afternoon of the tenth day, the Dévarakólu (stick-dance in honor of Bhagavati) takes place in every village. The entertainment is quite the same as on the two preceding days, Also the succeeding night and following morning are spent as above described.

GREAT HUTTARI-FEAST.

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Towards noon, on the eleventh day, the masks are laid aside; the people bathe, and take rest, and prepare for the great feast, which is to finish the Huttari-solemnities.

Towards evening the male community gathers in some open plain in the forest. Dinner is prepared. It consists of pork and liquor in abundance. Three, four, five pigs are slaughtered. The flesh is boiled. Bread is brought by the different families for their own consumption. By eleven o'clock the whole company sits down to the last feast. The musicians play their last and are dismissed. The Coorg-bards and drummers receive a special portion. The Holeya-and Médamusicians also come in for their share of pork and liquor. The latter is made of rice, or of molasses.

At this last feast the Takka of the village appoints five servitors, to distribute the meat and the brandy. They first give each person a portion, then they serve the musicians. What remains, is again divided in order, a spoonful (about half a pound) to each individual, The brandy is poured out into cocoanut-shells from a measure holding one-eighth part of a bottle. young people receive one measure, the older men more, according to their age, two, three and four measures. About twelve o'clock at night this last feast terminates, the company disperses, and the Huttari, for that year, is at an end.

The

Three peculiarites in the above described customs of the Coorgs seem to deserve especial notice.

Their traditions, which are carefully preserved, par ticularly by the Palmés, point back to a time, when the people were essentially a warlike race. The old spirit and the ancient habits have almost disappeared. How can it be otherwise under the peaceful and orderly rule of the Honorable Company. The man in office, and the man who has plenty of money, are now at the

head of Coorg-society. Valor has no battle-field, no price in the market. It is a useless commodity, which will soon utterly decay. The race has grown old, and remembers only on festive occasions the glorious days of its youth, spent in battle with men of other Nádus, or with foreign invaders, or the wild animals of the forest.

The spirit of Clanship is exceedingly strong among the Coorgs. In fact, whether we look to marriage or to funeral, to festive representations of war or peaceful games, it seems as if the Coorgs, even in the present day, had some unextinguishable feeling of close familyrelationship binding the race together. They call it now regard for caste. But this is a complete mistake. They have no notion of caste in the Hindu sense of the world. For strangers are received among them and naturalized without difficulty, and such as have been excommunicated, are received back without much ado.

It is plain, that the whole economy of Coorg-life has no need of Brahmans. There is scarcely room left for these clever spiritual intruders. Few races in India have so completely shut out the influence of the priestly master. Had it not been for the favor of some Rajas, and the Brahman-favoring powers of Mysore and of the Company, Brahmans would perhaps have been excluded altogether from the soil of Coorg.

Of the two lesser annual festivals one, the Bhagavati festival, has been introduced by Tulu Brahmans, or, if it was originally a Coorg observance, has been thoroughly Brahmanized.

It takes place during the two months preceding the Monsoon. Different localities differ in the time of its celebration. Two or three villages have one Bhagavati temple in common, and support it jointly. These temples are in charge of Brahmans entirely. mans hold the livings; with them some

Tulu BrahPadárthis, a

BHAGAVATI-FESTIVAL.

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lower class of Brahmans, who wear no holy string, are associated as musicians to Bhagavati. The whole establishment is under the management of some TantriBrahmans in the Tulu country, who come every eighth or tenth year, to consecrate idols and to collect money. On these occasions large sums are offered by the superstitious. The Coorgs have an extraordinary dread of the power of these men. They say, that if one of the Tantri-Brahmans be offended and curse a man, he will lose his sight, or hearing or even his life. It is enough, they believe, for one of these masters of the black art, to say to a man: "do you not see?" or "do you not hear?" and the poor fellow is doomed to blindness or deafness or even death. Strange! It would appear, that the common worship of the great gods of the country was less degrading to the mind, and engendered a more cheerful kind of superstition, than this wild sort of idolatry, which has enslaved the poor Coorgs. The Tantris, on one of their visits, will gather some two or three hundred rupees from the money-loving Coorgs. Sometimes an idol of Bhagavati has lost its power, when they re-enliven it. Or the officiating Brahman, who has played the possessed on festival days, has died. The Tantri has to appoint his successor. These services are not performed gratuitously; the presiding Tantri receives every year one half of the profits of the establishment, through a curate whom he leaves in charge. Some Coorg also is chosen as a subject for possession by Bhagavati. He likewise, and his successors, must be instituted by the ruling Tantri. They are selected from a small number of candidates presented by the community connected with the temple. The Tantri takes one of the men, pronounces some mantra and puts holy ashes upon his face, when immediately the individual commences to shake and to dance, and to speak as one possessed.