Indian Antiquary Vol 55

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 17

JANUARY, 1926]
SPIRIT WORSHIP IN THE NILGIRIS
was from time to time thrown over her. After making some curious gestures, depicting anger or pleasure as she glanced slyly from out of the veil formed by her hair, she took up a neat silver-mounted cane which had been placed near her, and holding it upright, she began to move it as if she were grinding corn. Then she shut her eyes and gave out in a sing-song tone her name and the object of the visit, i.e., in her case of the possession by the spirit, with a movement of her arms which was half convulsive, half rotating.
Then we listened attentively to the oracle : "I am Kaniamma. I have come to bless my devotees. I am pleased with my visitor-the writer of these notes! He is such a noble soul. He has full faith in me. On his first visit to me! I promised to see him at his residence, and you will see that I work the miracle of appearing to him in a dream with my Mariamma. He is a good man and a sincere devotee. I will grant him his requests. Has he any to make ?”
The reply through an interpreter was: "No. He has no request to make, but wishes that a dream be properly interpreted to him. In the dream you appeared to him like a young woman of high degree and made an impossible request. What could be the meaning of this?"
Then said the Goddess : "Did I make any other demand?" The reply was: “No”.
Goddess : "I wish a solid temple to be built in this place and beautiful ornaments to be given to me".
Reply : "But this was not what you asked him to grant. Why did you make such an unnatural request? Why did you not ask him direct for such things? What can be the meaning of that request ?”
The Goddess was silent. Her representative could not guess what request she was supposed to have made, and the interpreter had been warned not to disclose it to her. She now violently rotated her head in such a way as to be able to throw searching glances at the interpreter and her questioner, but, poor thing, it was beyond her power to read the mind of her pseudodevotee. At last she burst out with : "I will appear to him again this very night in a dream and tell him what I want ". And then she dropped her head to the ground.
But the Goddess was wanted, and the old Pâjâri , the girl's father, requested her not to go, as there was another customer present. This was a native Christian midwife with her daughter, but she came forewarned by me. So the girl resumed her rotating motions and her sing-song oracle. After a while the Goddess told her that she had already helped her once and should do so again. Then she gave the writer a flower, and a pinch of ashes to the Christian devotee. The Pajari, the medium's father was, however, not yet satisfied. He whispered a hint to her that my introducer and interpreter, an old Brahman who accompanied me, had done so much for the family, also deserved recognition from the Goddess. The girl then gave him a lemon and a pinch of ashes, which he accepted with due reverence. Her final words were : "This highest of Hindu mortals, this Bhudev, this God upon the Earth, this educated man who speaks English and is employed in a responsible position let my Goddess bless him”. After this our request to be allowed to photograph the family was granted and we returned home.
I will now relate the events that led up to the performance above related. They were even more interesting than the oracle as delivered by the poor girl, so easily hocussedeven when helped by a cunning father. One Friday the old Brahman abovementioned, whom I may call Subrahmanyam, came to me and asked me to accompany him to an adjoining hill to mee a fine tamdsha (sic),- viz., a demoniacal performance by a Pariah girl, who, he said, was in spite of her birth as beautiful as a Brahman girl. He said also that his wife and daughters were going, besides many “ladies". As a student of ethnology, I felt of course greatly interested and said I would be ready in five minutes. We proceeded to the hut already mentioned, and there in
1 To be described further on.