Old Daniel | Page 4

the same year that he broke the stone serpents, he played a trick on some impostors who were taking part in a religious procession, which the shepherds of Singonahully and the neighbourhood had got up. The shepherds in the Mysore country are very ignorant and very superstitious. This may partly be accounted for from the fact that they live with their flocks in the open fields daily, from morning to night, associate little with their fellow-men, and seem shut out from all means of instruction. A very learned Brahmin, who was at one time the Reverend William Arthur's Canarese teacher, wrote a number of `Village Dialogues,' and in one of them the shepherd is most admirably described. The following extract is made in order to show the shepherd's ignorance, his creed, and his mode of worship. It is a fit introduction to the Shepherds' procession which little Daniel interrupted. The extract is part of a supposed dialogue between an English gentleman passing through the country and a shepherd, whom he happens to see near the public road:
The shepherd had a handkerchief round his head, a grey woollen blanket tied like a hood, and a six-cubit piece of cloth round his loins. Behind him came a flock of sheep, and behind the flock, in front, and on both sides there were barking dogs. The shepherd had a stick in his left hand, which he laid upon his left shoulder; in his right hand he had a long switch, and under the armpit a bag, in a small net of hemp-cord network; the net hung from the shoulder on the left side. Calling "Hus-si, hus-si, kiy-yo," to the sheep which were straggling on all four sides, he brought them together and drove them along; going sometimes before, and sometimes behind. Whilst he was going behind, he saw an English gentleman coming along in a travelling carriage, and said to himself, "Who in the world is this? A gentleman coming, as I'm alive! Why should I stay in his way? I'd better hide myself a bit." So he got behind a hedge, and fearing lest the sheep should stray, as he kept peeping and looking out every now and then, and huffing them with his cry, "Hus-si, hus-si," this gentleman saw him, and called out, "Ho Sir, Gowda, come here." Gowda is the head man of a village, and the word was used on this occasion respectfully. Hearing which, the shepherd said to himself, "What trouble has come now? He's calling me to come to him. If I go to him, I cannot tell what he may do to me. And if I don't go, I cannot tell what will happen. But they say that English gentlemen never do harm to anybody. Though I hear him, I'll just keep quiet as though I didn't hear, and if he calls again, I'll go." The gentleman, seeing the shepherd's great perplexity, and knowing that it was through fear that he did not come, again called out, "Ho Sir, Gowda, Gowda, come here; don't be afraid; I won't do anything to you; you need not give me anything; come here, come and have a talk." On which the shepherd thinking within himself, "If I don't go to him after this, he may get angry, and I can't tell what he will do," delayed a little, as though driving his sheep; when the gentleman again called, "Come." "There is no getting out of it, I must go," said the shepherd to himself; and came near, and stood with the stick across his shoulders, holding the ends of the stick on both sides with his hands, swinging the switch that he held in his right hand, stooping, moving his head from side to side, and shuffling his feet. Seeing the shepherd, who thus came and stood, the gentleman entered into conversation with him, as follows:
G. "Well, Sir, Gowda, who are you?"
S. "I am a shepherd, my lord."
G. "What is your name?"
S. "My name is Bit-tare Shikkanu, Sir." (The words mean, "If you let him go, you won't catch him again.")
G. "Bravo! If one let go your name, he won't catch it again, eh? Well, what is your god's name?"
S. "Bir-ap-pa is our god, Sir."
G. "Bir-ap-pa, eh? what is he like?"
S. "That's good, Sir. What should god be like? It is in this temple."
G. "How do you worship your god? and how often?"
S. "We worship our god once a year, or once in two years, or if we miss that, once in three years. When 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