Old Daniel | Page 5

the worship is made, there is a great
gathering, numbers of people come--wind instruments, cymbals,
tambourines, drums, flags, beggars, devotees, stoics, bearskin-capped
shepherd-priests,--and as for brahmins, they are without number; they
abound wherever you look. Besides these, shops, cocoa-nuts, plantain
bunches, and bundles of betel leaves, innumerable mountebanks,
ballad-singers, tumblers, companies of stage-players; all these, a great
gathering, Sir. Then worshipping god, presenting flowers, lighted wave
offerings, offerings of money, of ornaments, votive offerings, and
consecrated cattle; persons who give their hair, cocoa-nut scramblers,
lamp bearers, offerers of fruit and flowers,--many people come together,
and we worship our god Bir-ap-pa."
G. "Is the temple, where your god is, very clean?"
S. "Yes, Sir. If god's place is not clean, what is? God is set up in a stone
temple. Once a year, or once in six months, if we open the door we
open it; if we don't, we don't. Nobody goes there at all except at the
feast. If a temple like this is not clean, what is, Sir?"
G. "But don't you sweep the floor and sprinkle it with water every
day?"
S. "Who is to sweep it every day, eh? Once in six months, once in three
months, or once a year, the priest opens the door, and if there be a feast
or full moon, he sprinkles and sweeps a little, colours and whitewashes
the walls with red earth and with white earth, streaks them, brings
mango leaves and makes them into festoons over the door; and if we
worship and bring flowers, we do; and if we don't, we don't. Such a god
is our god, Sir."
G. "Bravo! a very fine god indeed! But what do you do to this god at
the feast? Tell us a bit, and let us hear."
S. "What can I tell you, Sir? We are silly shepherds; all our language
seems queer to you."

G. "Never mind, tell me, Gowda."
S. "Well, Sir, eight days before the feast, the priest must get his head
shaved, bathe himself in water, and take but one meal a-day. Having
thus taken but one meal a-day for eight days, he, on the feast-day
worships the god in the temple, praises it, prostrates himself, and begs
it to do us all good. He then comes out and kneels in the court of the
temple, near a stone pillar in front of the god. He shuts his eyes, and
rests on his hands and knees. When he has taken this position, all who
have come to the festival to worship our god Bir-ap-pa, bring
cocoa-nuts, and going up to the pillar where the priest is kneeling, they
take the cocoa-nuts in their hands, and press upon one another, each
crying, `I am first, I am first.' Then ten of the most respectable people
come out, stand apart from the rest, make the people who are pressing
forward stand back, and take the cocoa-nuts, which the people have
brought, into their own hands. Four others, strong men, stand near the
priest; the elders hand the cocoa-nuts to them; and they keep on
breaking them on the priest's head; the priest, all the time, having his
eyes shut, is down on his hands and knees before Bir-ap-pa, holding
out his shaven head, until great heaps of cocoa-nut fragments are piled
up as high as an elephant on both sides of him. And though so many
nuts are dashed against his bare skin, the priest feels no pain, and never
utters a sound which indicates suffering. Such a glorious god is our god,
Sir. No matter what trouble threatens he wards it off. He always takes
care of us."
G. "How is it, master shepherd, that you do such a silly thing as this?
There is a trick in breaking the cocoa-nuts on the head of the priest. The
people who break the cocoa-nuts are clever jugglers. They have a store
of cocoa-nuts which have been previously broken and stuck together
again. They substitute one for the other, and so deceive the people."
S. "How it is, Sir, I don't know. You are a gentleman and you
understand it. I only say what everybody says, Sir."
The above dialogue shows a shepherd's creed, his ignorance, and his
mode of worship. And it was a festival, a procession, and worship such
as this that the shepherds of Singonahully were celebrating when

Daniel interfered. The following is his own account.
CHAPTER SIX.
THE CRY OF "SNAKES! SNAKES!"
After some of the ceremonies had been performed in honour of the
shepherds' god, Bir-ap-pa, certain consecrated things were carried by
the priest, and others by his wife, to a particular tank, or artificial lake,
where special washings and other purifying ceremonies had to be
performed. The shepherds and their relations were accompanied by