twice more. A general feast closes the ceremony, and next day the first ploughings are done, the Kurumba sowing the first seeds, and the priests the next lot. Finally, a net is brought. The priest of the temple, standing over it, puts up prayers for a favourable agricultural season; two fowls are thrown into it, and a pretence is made of spearing them; and then it is taken and put across some game path, and some wild animal (a sāmbhar deer if possible) is driven into it, slain, and divided among the villagers. This same custom of annually killing a sāmbhar is also observed at other villages on the plateau, and in 1883 and 1894 special orders were passed to permit of its being done during the close season. Latterly, disputes about precedence in the matter of walking through the fire at Mēlur have been carried as far as the civil courts, and the two factions celebrate the festival separately in alternate years. A fire-walking ceremony also takes place annually at the Jadayasvāmi temple in Jakkanēri under the auspices of a Sivāchāri Badaga. It seems to have originally had some connection with agricultural prospects, as a young bull is made to go partly across the fire-pit before the other devotees,and the owners of young cows which have had their first calves during the year take precedence of others in the ceremony, and bring offerings of milk, which are sprinkled over the burning embers."
At the Sakalathi festival, in the month of October, Badagas, towards evening, throw on the roofs of their houses flowers of Plectranthus Wightii, Crotalaria obtecta, Lobelia nicotianœfolia, Achyranthes aspera, and Leucas aspera. On the following day, they clean their houses, and have a feast. In the afternoon, numbers of them may be seen in the streets drawing in front of their houses pictures in wood-ashes of buffaloes, bulls, cows,
