cakes, some flat, and some conical, to represent Pillayar (Ganēsa). Flowers, fruits, betel, turmeric, combs, kunkumam (red powder), and other articles required in connection with the Pillayar worship, are also taken to the room in which the rites are performed. Of these it has been impossible to gather an account, as the women refused to describe them, lest ruin should fall on their families. Some say that, during the ceremony, the women are stark-naked.
In an account of an annual ceremony at Trichinopoly in connection with the festival of Kulumai Amman, who is the guardian deity against epidemics, Bishop White-head records *[1] that " a very fat pujāri (priest) of the Vellāla caste is lifted up above the vast crowd on the arms of two men. Some two thousand kids are then sacrificed, one after the other. The blood of the first eight or nine is collected in a large silver vessel holding about a quart, and handed up to the pujāri, who drinks it. Then, as the throat of each kid is cut, the animal is handed up to him, and he sucks, or pretends to suck the blood out of the carcase."
Of proverbs relating to the Vellālas, the following may be cited: —
- Agriculture is no agriculture, unless it is performed by the Vellālas.
- The Vellāla ruined himself by gaudy dress; the courtesan ruined herself by coquetry and affectation.
- Of all the sections of the Sūdras, the Vellāla is foremost; and, of all the thefts committed in the world, those of the Kallans are most notorious.
- Though you may face an evil star, never oppose a Vellāla.
- ↑ * Madras Museum Bull., V. 3, 1907.
