On the Coromandel Coast/Chapter 22
CHAPTER XXII
A DEMON, A FUNERAL, AND SOME SNAKES.
One should keep oneself five yards from a carriage, ten yards from a horse, one hundred yards 1 from an elephant ; but the distance one should keep from a wicked man cannot be measured.–Sloka.
A marked feature in the south of India is its devil-worship. It is not noticeable in the town of Madras, although it exists there as well as elsewhere ; but in the south it strikes the eye at once. Village temples and wayside shrines abound by the side of the road and in out-of-the-way spots. Passing down the line towards Tuticorin the traveller sees uncouth representations of animals arranged in rows before the temples. Under innumerable trees devil-stones are set up with small plat- forms before them to hold the offerings. Everywhere the devil is in evidence. It is usually said to be of the feminine gender. Nothing seems to satisfy it but blood. Thousands of goats are offered annually to these demons. The largest festival of the kind takes place at Puttoor, the suburb of Trichinopoly already mentioned. The legend of the foundation of the feast is as follows :
Once upon a time a female demon, Kolomayi by name, had a temple in Travancore. She was of a blood-thirsty nature and would accept nothing less than human beings from the people who offered her pujah. Children were often sacrificed before her image, but her wrath was not appeased. Sickness and famine afflicted the people ; these calamities with the holocaust of children threatened to depopulate the country for miles around her temple. A deputation was sent to inform Kolomayi that the sacrifices would be no longer continued. They begged her to withdraw and seek another country. For the future they intended to place themselves under the protection of a milder deity, who would be satisfied with goats and fowls.
They then made a raft, placed the image upon it and set it afloat on the waters of the Cauvery. Kolomayi was borne for many days on the bosom of the flood that poured down the hills. In time she reached the broad channel of the river below Erode. The raft was carried into an irrigating canal, and was stranded at Puttoor, where it was buried in alluvial deposit.
Some ryots were digging in the banks of the canal to open a place for the flow of water on to their rice-fields. One of them struck the image with his implement and broke its arm. The man picked up the broken limb; he was filled with horror when he saw fresh crimson blood flowing from the fracture. With trembling lips he asked :
‘Who are you?’
A terrible voice that came from the earth beneath his feet replied :
‘I am the goddess Kolomayi, once the honoured deity of the Travancore people. The floods have brought me here, and I rested from my journey till you disturbed my slumbers. It is well known how the gods serve those who rudely awake them.’
In fear and dread the men besought her not to curse them.
‘What can we do to serve you ? Tell us and we will be your slaves.’
‘Set me up and build a temple over me,’ replied Kolomayi.
They hastened to fulfil her command, o washed away the mud with which she was encased after her long entombment, and placed her upon a pedestal of stone. The broken arm, on being restored to the image, healed miraculously. A goparum was built and a pujari was found to take charge of the new temple. The ryots brought offerings of fruit, camphor, sugar, and butter, and prepared to do pujah. The terrible voice spoke again.
'You must sacrifice a child to me. I am not to be appeased by gifts such as these.'
Her words filled them with dismay. The pujah was left unperformed while they returned to their homes to seek the advice of their women. Long into the night they sat by the fire under the big banyan tree in the centre of their village, holding council with heavy hearts and perplexed minds. At last an old woman arose and said:
‘Pah! foolish men that you are to bring this evil upon us ! but since it has come we must rid ourselves of it as best we may. To-morrow take beams and boards to the temple; and there, before the open door, let Kolomayi see you making another raft. Now depart to your houses and sleep in peace. At sunrise carry out my instructions and all will be well.'
The next morning they began the raft with much noise of saw and hammer. When the evening came they heard Kolomayi's voice.
‘What are you doing?' she asked.
‘We are making a raft.'
‘What for?'
‘That you may continue your voyage on the river towards the sea which is but eighty miles away, and the flood is full and strong.'
‘Why do you wish me to depart? Have I not promised to protect you if you sacrifice at my shrine ?'
‘Our wives have told us that they are not as fruitful as the women of Travancore; therefore they will not permit us to offer you our children.'
'What, then, do you offer to your gods?' asked the demon.
We give them goats, of which we have plenty.'
Kolomayi was silent for a space. The raft journey followed by the long entombment in the mud was not a pleasant memory.
'You may substitute goats for children when you offer sacrifice to me,' said Kolomayi. ' And I will bless your lands with double crops, but the goats must be as black as your own children without a single spot of white.'
So she was allowed to remain in her temple, and every March a feast is held in her honour. A pujari is supposed to be filled with the afflatus or divine essence of the goddess who feels, speaks, and manifests herself through him.
Kolomayi's pujari stands upon a raised platform, so that he may be seen by all while the sacrifice of blood is made. It is a disgusting orgy, with revolting ceremonies, mingled with the amusements of a country fair. Hundreds of black goats are driven in from the villages round Trichinopoly. I used to hear the flocks bleating as they passed my house in the night under charge of a goat-herd. The animals are led up to the pujari singly. Water is sprinkled on the head, and as the creature shakes itself to throw off the drops, an attendant swings round a heavy sword and decapitates it with one blow. The bleeding head is caught up and presented to the pujari, who seizes it eagerly. Placing his lips to the artery he presents all the appearance of drinking the blood. It is impossible to say whether he does so or not. If he does not, he must have some secret method of staunching the blood, for the bleeding ceases when he throws the head aside.
All day long he continues his ghastly feast. His clothes as well as his body become saturated with the crimson stream, and the crowd shudders as it beholds the insatiable appetite of the demon. There is no doubt that he is under the influence of some powerful drug; his wild bloodshot eyes, his eagerness to receive the heads, and his insensibility to the presence of the excited crowd that surges around him point to the fanaticism produced by bhang and datura poison.
The body of the goat is returned to the owner, who prepares a curry, which is eaten as a love feast by the family party that has accompanied him. All night long the excited worshippers remain in the streets uttering short staccato cries of 'Ah! Hah!' drawing in the breath with the first syllable and sighing out the second. Sweets, coffee, arrack, and toys for children are sold at temporary stalls, and the festival is turned into a fair that lasts several days.
The English residents usually played tennis or some outdoor game between four and six. As I did not join in these games I spent the time in visiting the Eurasians and taking evening drives. Sometimes I went into the town, left the pony-cart and wandered about the evening bazaar, and down some of the narrow streets. The shopkeepers brought their wares into an open space before the old ruined palace where the last Hindu queen lived. The strangest articles were exposed for sale, all neatly spread out upon mats laid upon the dusty ground. I saw old glass, cracked and discoloured ; old brass, copper and iron articles, lamps and candle-shades, native garments, caps, shoes, betel-bags, toys, fans, sweets of native manufacture, and a hundred other objects of no great value, but affording hours of serious bargaining between buyer and seller. The crowd was good-natured and amusing if rather redolent of garlic and oil. There was nothing to fear from Hindu or Mohammedan but infection.
In times of cholera it was not safe to mix with them, nor was it inviting. The careless, contented expression was gone, and each countenance bore an anxious harassed look. The goddess Kali was angry and would assuredly kill them all if she were not appeased. The prolonged notes of the funeral horns never ceased as body after body was carried to the burning or burial ground. Columns of blue smoke rose from huge fires that were lighted for the purpose of disinfecting the tainted parts of the city. The beat of the tomtom told the story of frequent pujah done to the malignant demon. At such times it was best to keep away. Cholera is no respecter of persons, and it rarely disappeared after a bad visitation without claiming toll of the cantonment. One or two fell victims, struck down with awful suddenness, dead and buried before the news of the illness reached those living at a little distance.
On two occasions I lost servants. It was the same in each case. They came to their work in the morning as usual, and were in the midst of the performance of their duties, when they were seized with pain. It was followed by symptoms of biliousness. A few hours later they were convulsed with cramp and before midnight death had claimed them. Natives and Eurasians frequently collapsed from terror and despondency. They gave up hope and their friends ceased to apply remedies. The chaplain's ministrations to the sick Eurasians were physical as well as spiritual. At his urgent request the efforts of those who were nursing were renewed, and not relinquished again until the patient recovered or death ensued, which last happened too frequently.
In the town of Trichinopoly I felt in much closer touch with the natives than in Madras. The people of the inland cities have been less influenced by contact with foreigners than in the seaports. They are indifferent to the presence of the European, and pursue their vocations as though no stranger were near. If their curiosity is roused they stop to stare, and possibly to ask questions ; otherwise they go their ways with unconcern. Through the streets passes the wedding procession with beat of drum and playing of pipes. The dead are carried along the road with wailing and every sign of bitter grief. At the wayside devil-stone or temple the worshipper performs his pujah careless of those who may have the curiosity to stop and look on. A pilgrim in fulfilment of a vow breaks cocoanuts and recites muntrums before an oil-anointed image, upon which he has placed a wreath of jasmin flowers. He, too, takes no notice of the stranger who watches his odd ritual. Mohammedans kneel on their prayer-carpets by the road side, with their faces towards the setting sun, and say their prayers with many prostrations.
As I sat and sketched I had opportunities of seeing various things that escaped the observation of the devotees of tennis. Landscape painting always puzzles natives. Their own art is highly conventional, and they have very little notion of perspective. When they look at a painting they seem unable to distinguish the sky from the ground, or understand which is the top of a picture and which the bottom unless there is a very distinct figure in it. The presence of an English woman sketching always excited the curiosity of the passers-by, and most of them found time to come and look over my shoulder. They did no harm; but at such close quarters they were not always agreeable by reason of what I have already mentioned.
One day I drove out with a friend some distance beyond the old Worriore cantonment to sketch the rock from the north side. We found a charming view from a road that ran along the top of an embankment. The evening sun lighted up the old fortress and touched the town at its foot. In the middle distance were broad stretches of cultivated fields of a rich green, intersected with pools of water reflecting the tints of the sky. In the foreground was the rank large-leaved vegetation and feathery palms peculiar to a tropical climate. We seated ourselves upon the side of the embankment and began to draw. Presently the sound of a horn came from the direction of Worriore. It was blown at intervals and was accompanied by the beat of a tomtom. The party was evidently approaching by the road we had traversed. My friend became uneasy. She had a curious dislike for the natives, partly instinctive, and partly on account of the garlic. She rose to her feet and walked down the embankment into the fields. Feeling nothing of the same prejudice, I remained seated and continued sketching.
The party proved to be a funeral procession. The body was that of an old man. It was garlanded with oleander and jasmin flowers, and was partly covered with a white cloth, the face and hands being left exposed. It was extended upon a flat bier, supported upon the shoulders of bearers, who were chanting a monotonous inarticulate chant. Two men carried long horns made of tin, from which they produced notes like the hoot of a motor. A third had a drum. Behind the corpse walked seven or eight mourners, whose voices were occasionally raised in loud lamentations. It was a strange scene, with the flower-bedecked body of the old man stretched out upon the red and gold bier, the clean white garments of the followers stained here and there with the red dust which they had thrown upon themselves in the ecstasy of their grief, the brilliant colour of the sky, and the rich verdant landscape. The party approached slowly, and the chanting ceased as they came up to me. The bearers stopped, and all eyes were directed upon the stranger seated upon the ground.
With one accord the whole party sidled up close enough for their flowing garments to touch me, and leaned forward to look over my shoulder. The bearers on the further side were as eager as the rest to get a glimpse of the precious paper I held in my hand. In their endeavour to see the picture they tilted their unconscious burden so that he rolled slightly on his side. For a few moments I was speechless from surprise and apprehension lest the body should be precipitated into my lap. At the hasty words, 'Go! go! go!' in their own language they moved on like obedient children, the bearers resuming their chant, the mourners their wailing, and the horns and drum their melancholy notes. The transition from grief to curiosity, and from satisfied curiosity to grief, was the oddest feature of all.
To the south and west of the cantonment are some isolated hills composed of rock. They are not more than three hundred feet high, but standing upon the level plain they look imposing. To one of these I found my way with Mrs. F. F. Smith. Her husband was one of the engineers in the South Indian Railway Company, and later on chief engineer. He arranged for us to be taken down the line in a trolly; from the railroad it was but a short walk to the hill.
At the foot of the hill there is a small temple standing in a walled enclosure. The entrance of the enclosure has two giant figures of demons in place of gate-posts. We did not attempt to enter the compound, but contented ourselves with making a sketch at different points of view. The guardian demons of the gateway attracted me, and I sat down upon a flat stone that seemed to offer a convenient seat. It was immediately in front of the images. In a few minutes there appeared a wild figure with long tangled locks. He had a white cloth about his loins, and it was his only garment. He addressed me in excited tones, and explained that I must move from my seat. It was the sacrificial altar upon which the offerings of blood were placed when pujah was done to the images. I rose at once and glanced at the stone. It bore dark stains that corroborated his words, and though the sun had dried the surface, there was evidence to show that the last pujah was not of a very remote date.
Wandering round outside the wall of the temple compound we came upon the decapitated bodies of two goats lying in a pool of crimson blood. They had recently been killed, and the colour of the blood was intensely vivid. Pujah was going on inside the temple, but nothing could be seen of it. The heads of the animals were presented to the idol; the bodies were subsequently divided between the worshippers and the temple attendant.
I was once the spectator of a pujah done in my own compound. The tamarind tree, that was supposed to harbour a devil, had a devil-stone set up against its trunk. The stone rested on a platform built of brick and mortar. When the repair of the bungalow was nearly finished the heathen servants of our establishment arranged to do pujah to the devil, unknown to us. Their object was to propitiate him with offerings and to dispose him favourably towards the whole household, including the master and the mistress.
While the building operations were going on we shared a house with a friend in an adjoining compound. One evening I returned from my drive about seven. The dinner hour was eight o'clock. There was time to spare for a stroll in the garden. I caught sight of a group under the tree. The ayah observing said, 'Missus, come and see.' It was one of those lovely moonlight evenings which, are the delight of native and European alike. There was a flickering gleam on the other side of the aloe hedge that divided the compounds, and a cloud of wood smoke arose. A fire had been kindled beneath the tamarind tree. The sound of a tomtom rose and fell, and figures moved to and fro through the smoke. The picturesqueness of the scene was alluring. My curiosity was aroused, and I crept to the hedge to watch the strange mysterious rites which were about to be performed. The ayah and butler, who were Roman Catholics, were also gazing intently through gaps in the fence.
Upon the fire stood an earthen pot containing oil, which was already seething. The stone had been decorated with garlands, and the platform had received a coating of colour-wash on its sides in broad stripes of alternate red and white. On the surface of the platform was arranged a row of leaf platters containing various offerings. The centre leaf held the head of a cock that had lately been decapitated. The people belonging to our establishment, with their relations, stood round in a circle. Their hands were placed together in supplicatory fashion, the flickering fire illuminating their serious faces. The pujari was the coachman. He was bare to the waist, his head uncovered, and his long hair hanging down his back. I scarcely recognised him in such a guise. He began by reciting muntrums. One of the syces handed him a ladle of oil taken from the pot, and he poured it over the stone. Someone gave him another wreath of flowers, which he hung upon the dripping stone. During this performance the assembly murmured something by way of response, and bent their heads over their hands as if making obeisance. It was quietly done in the still summer night of the Tropics. The bats flitted to and fro, and large moths hovered over the long grass of the compound. The ayah's voice at my elbow startled me. 'Pujah done finish now/ she said. As I went back to my walk along the garden paths I could not help wondering whether it had been so arranged that I should be included as a spectator, if not a worshipper, in that heathen ceremony.
Early morning rides on a mount lent by a friend and sketching expeditions in the afternoons were pleasant forms of recreation in between visits paid to the Eurasians, choir-practices, services, and superintending the clothing of the orphans. There was a boat at that time on the Wyacondah Channel. Colonel Byng and his wife made up some parties for expeditions upon the old canal. The caladiums, pampas grass, and wild vegetation, intertwined with masses of luxuriant creepers by the water's edge, gave excellent subjects for sketches. It was very warm under the shelter of the banks, and the water was muddy and uninviting. At the upper end of the canal there was a branch that was nothing more than a tributary stream. One afternoon we pushed our way up this stream and were startled by seeing a snake swimming across. A land-snake moves through the water with the same serpentine motion that it takes on land and its head is raised above the surface. The presence of the snake directed our attention to the tangled bushes on the banks. It was easy to distinguish more than one ophidian form coiled upon the branches that hung over the stream. A story was called to mind that three men boating on the Wyacondah had encountered a snake at this very spot and had rashly hit at it with an oar. The cobra is endowed with plenty of courage when attacked. The snake leaped into the boat and simultaneously two of the men leaped out of it. The third, who could not swim, armed himself with a stretcher and broke the back of the creature before it could fasten its fangs into him. The story told on the spot with the snake passing our bows resulted in a unanimous vote to turn back without delay.
The native has an even greater dislike and fear of snakes than the European. The following letter was sent to an Eastern paper for insertion:
'Sir,—I should like to bring to notice of public through widely scattered columns of your valuable journal a peradventure that overtook my personality whilst taking nocturnal perambulations on the road in order to caution fellow-citizens against simultaneous danger. Whilst wending my way along above said thoroughfare in the evening of the 22nd ultimo, and pursing a course as crow flies towards my humble domicile, I was suddenly and instantaneously confronted with monstrous hissing and much confounded in immediate vicinity. I first remained sotto voce and then applying close scrutiny of my double optics to spot whence proceeded above said disturbance I was much horrified and temporaneously paralysed to lo! and behold a mighty enormous reptile of Cobra de capello making frontal attack. My pedal appendages being only clothed in wooden sandals, I thereupon took to nether limbs and beat hasty retreat (as stated in war telegrams), or, in other words, made rapid retrograde movement by locomotion of lower shanks though personally much courageous. I should like to indignantly question what are newly selected City Fathers cogitating that they should not take commensurate steps to relegate such carnivorous animals to limbo oblivion and ensure safety of pedestrians and foot-pads? Please answer me this inscrutable question, famous Sir!
'Praying for welfare and increase of filial bond I am. I am most obedient Sir your ever obedient servant B. C. B. N.B. If this epistle is consigned to wastepaper-basket and no notice taken of my humble complaint, I shall memoriate in other papers.'