VIZAGAPATAM.
pilgrimages to his shrine and holding car-festivals in their villages on the same date as the Puri car-festival.
The last of the cultivating castes requiring mention are the Konda Doras ('lords of the hills') or Konda Kápus, who number 81,000 people, or more than in any other district. They mostly reside along the south-eastern edge of the 3,000 feet plateau and in the country below it, and they provide an interesting example (several others occur in this district) of the manner in which a section of a hill tribe which comes in contact with the people of the plains will gradually drop its original customs and adopt those of its more civilized neighbours, and thus in time become almost a distinct caste. They are split into two well-marked subdivisions, known as Pedda Kondalu and Chinna Kondalu, which still dine together and intermarry; but the former of these live on the plateau and are highlanders with highland customs while the latter reside in the low country and have taken to almost all the ways of the lowlanders. Thus the Chinna Kondalu have adopted inti pérulu, while the Pedda Kondalu still regulate their table of affinity by their ancient totemistic septs (tiger, cobra and tortoise); the former follow the lowland custom of ménarikam, but the latter adhere to eduru ménarikam; the marriage rites of the one resemble those of the plains, and those of the other the highland ceremonial; the women of the one class wear the jewels of the plains and those of the other the barbaric ornaments of the hill folk; and one subdivision names its children in the lowland fashion while the other continues to call them after the days of the week on which they were born. Both sections allow widow remarriage and divorce and both burn their dead.
The Gollas are the shepherds of the community, and say that their name is a contraction of the Sanskrit Gópála, 'protector of cows.' They also call themselves Kónárlu, the Telugu form of the corresponding Tamil title Kónán. They are 148,000 strong (more than in any other district), are most numerous in the southern taluks, and say that they are descended from the Golla kings of that country above alluded to (p. 28), the last of whom (five brothers) were overthrown and slain by kings from Nellore. Each Telugu New Year's Day, it is stated, Gollas come across from Gódávari and go round the Golla villages reciting the names of the progenitors of the fallen line and exhibiting paintings illustrative of their overthrow. The caste is now split into five endogainous subdivisions: the Erra Gollas, descended from a Bráhman father and so superior; the Gangeddu Gollas
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