The superstitions of the people are legion. A few typical examples may be given. If an owl perches on a house, it brings ill luck to the inmates. A crow cawing on the roof of a house indicates the arrival of a guest. Bad omens include being questioned regarding business on which one is setting out, or, directly after leaving the house, catching sight of one Bráhman, two Súdras, a widow, oil, a snake, a shikári, or a sanyási. Good omens are hearing a bell ring, a cannon go off, the braying of an ass, the cry of a Bráhmani kite, or, on first leaving the house, seeing a married woman, a corpse, flowers, water or a toddy pot. Talismans are commonly worn. A usual kind is a flat piece of metal with a figure of Hanumán on it. Another, made of leather with the skin of a lizard got from a Mádiga stitched into it, is hung round the shoulders of weak and sickly children. Women and houses are supposed often to be possessed of devils, whom only a professional sorcerer can exorcise. Yerukala women are in great request as exorcists. In cases of illness supposed to be due to the ill will of a god or spirit, three handfuls of rice are carried round the invalid, and are then placed in a winnowing fan, which is held by both the patient and the sorceress. The latter then scans the former's face, professes to be able to read there the name of the offended spirit, and advises as to the propitiation to be made. In the Agency, belief in witchcraft is exceptionally strong, and almost every ill is thought to be due to the person's being bewitched. The old rája of Cherla, just across the border, was especially afraid of witches and wizards, and before the British occupation of the taluk an easy method of ridding oneself of an enemy there was to accuse him of practising the black art. The rája immediately seized and hanged him.*[1]
Childbirth is surrounded by a number of superstitions. A pregnant woman should not see an eclipse, or her child will be born deformed. The pains of childbirth are relieved by turning the face of the bull god in a Saivite temple away from the emblem of Siva, or by the woman's touching a ring made of a mixture of gold, silver, copper, lead and iron by a fasting blacksmith on the day of an eclipse. A child whose first tooth comes in the upper jaw is supposed to foreshadow evil to its maternal uncle; and may not be seen by that relative till he has neutralized the omen by seeing the reflection of the child in a bowl of oil and broken a cocoanut. Similarly, as elsewhere, a girl who has attained maturity in an inauspicious hour may not be looked at by her husband until they have seen each other's reflections in a bowl of oil. Some
- ↑ * Rev. Mr. Cain in the Indian Antiquary, v, 303.
