________________
392
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[SEPTEMBER, 1902.
on the Travancore Hills is no joke. The Palliyâr's After some delay, a procession was seen coming highest architectural feat is a lean-to, against a from the temple. There were about 500 men, bank or rock, with some perishable plantain-leaves each with a stick in his hand, decorated with as thatch. If it lasts for a night or two, it does coloured paper and paper flowers. From where very well, for the wanderer is off again as soon as we stood we could only see these wands above the leaves dry. He cultivates nothing, not even the heads of the people, and thus follow the a sweet potnto; be keeps no animal except a stray movements of the men who carried them. The dog or two. An axe, a knife (vettukathi) and a pot pathway of hot cinders W.8, perhaps, fifteen are all the impediments he carries. An expert yards long. The fire-walkers came to the end of honey-hunter, he will risk his neck climbing lofty it, walked-not very quickly-along it, and went trees or precipitous cliffs.
back to the temple. We could not see how hot A species of sago palm furnishes him with a glairy,
the cinders were. But judging from the look of glutinous fluid on which he thrives, and such them, when we first arrived on the scene, and tbe small animals as the iguana, the hugdeer, and the length of time that elapsed before this ceremony tortoise, and the larvue of hives are never failing took place, I should think that the walking over luxuries. He levies contributions on every edible the pathway was not such a very bazardous ope. kind of berry in the magnificent flora of the coun- ration after all. The previous market-day we try over which he roves, and when times are really met a young man, who was to go through the cere. hard, in periods of drought, the forest contractor mony, and asked him why he did it. He told us for minor forest produce comes to his rescue with he had been ill and had promised the god he a small pecuniary advance. In return for this the would go through this performance if he recovered Palliyar collects dammer, wax, honey, cardamoms, He got better, and so was carrying out his part of inja (a bark nised in bathing by the nativ 38), and the contruct. This was the third year that he had similar products. He is not so truth-telling as the done it, he said. moro primitive (in some ways) Kannikar or Munnan. The Palliyar, knowing the benefits of a civil.
The Car Festival should have taken place a ised life, boldly prefers the hand-to-mouth method few days after the one just described, but owing of his existence, and, unless he alters his mode of
to certain repairs to the vehicle not having been living, will, in a few years at most, be numbered
completed in time, it had to be postponed a while, with "forgottea peoples" who have disappeared
The car (the one at Anthiyur is a small one) is a from the earth.
ponderous wooden construction, ornamented with G. F. D'Penna.
carved representations of gods and goddesses. It
has six wheels, four at the corners, where wheels A FIRE AND CAR FESTIVAL, TRAVANCORE. usually are, and two smaller ones in the centre of THE Car Festival here described was preceded
the thing, as an extra support. On to this founat an interval of some few days by what we may
dation is fixed a superstructure of scaffolding,
covered with coloured cloth and tinsel, the domed describe as the 'Fire-walking Foast. The
root being surmounted by a scarlet umbrella. object of this feast' is to enable the devotees
Inside this structure sits the goddess with her of the goddess Amman -- better known, per
attendants. The latter have fans to mitigate the haps, by the name Kali - to walk down a
heat and keep the flies off the image. The car is pathway of hot cinders.
drawn by means of great chains and cables The appointed morning was a beautiful one,
attached to it. It takes about 500 men and an the sun shedding its bright rays on all the immense amount of noise to move the thing at all, country-side.
They get it started at last, and take it about three The proceedings opened early i Amman being yarde, when a wheel drops into a hole in the carried on a wonderfully decorated car on the road, and the car stops with a jerk. Then men shoulder of a large number of her admirers to come with grent levers and try to get the wheel on meet her friend from a neighbouring village. He to level ground. Others bring coconuts, which or she, I know not which, had come in on horse- they break on the wheels, letting the water back earlier in the day. We went on past the run over them. Difficulty in moving the car is meeting place to the open space in front of this put down to insufficient coconuts, and men are temple, where a large crowd from Anthiyur despatched in all directions for more. The people in Travancoro and the neighbouring villages drew the car in the cool of the evening, and took had collected to watch the ceremony. We made three or four evenings to get it round the village, our way through the crowd to the place where a distance of about half-a-mile. the poople were to walk on the fire.
G. F. D'PENHA.
