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JANUARY, 1894.]
THE DEVIL WORSHIP OF THE TULUVAS.
Flowers and rice, púvarri or húakli, are thrown on the pombada, as the means of transferring the Bhata from one person to another. There is a Canarese and Tuļu proverb "throwing flowers on a Bhâta,” which is applied to a man provoked into a fury by some remark. C.
The Bhúta stories are sung, not by the man possessed by the Bhûta, but by some other person, male or female : frequently by the wife of the pombada representing the Bhůta. C.
There is in Mangalore, and not far from the place where the ceremony which I saw was conducted, & stone called Guttyamma, before which a ceremony is performed once in 60 years (once in 19 years, and a former Bhůta-priest told me it had taken place thrice in his life time. C.). The stone is said to tremble sympathetically with the medium, as he dances. This cyclic festival occurred last in 1871.20 Both ceremonies are largely attended, not only by the members of the two castes given to this worship, but by Bantas also and even Brahmans, who seem to regard it as an excellent entertainment and a laudable usage. At the festival to-day (23rd March 1872) several persons had come from Mulki in order to be present. B.
This stone (Guttyamma), placed between two temples which are situated near one another, belongs to the Malayalam-speaking Billavars in Mangalore. The festival is called Kalliyața. Oil is poured over the stone, etc.
. v. Note on a printed slip attached to Burnell's "Description" by Major B. C. Temple.
Attached to the original MS. "description" above printed, are pages 51 and 52 of some perodical, apparently belonging to the Basel Mission and printed in German type. Unfortunately these pages have been cut in half, so that only the top halves are now in existence.
The fragment of p. 51 seems to contain accounts of the Basel Mission, and the commencement of an article :- Das Bewegung im Tululand, nach einem Bericht von Missionar Brige130 in Mangalur vom 17 Februar.
The upper half of page 52 contains, however, the plate given below and a short description thereof, which is of much interest in the present connection, I give a translation of it.
>> Burnell was writing in 1872.
> Author of a Thru Grammar, published in 1872.
