CHAPTER XXII
A DEMON, A FUNERAL, AND SOME SNAKES.
One should keep oneself five yards from a carriage, ten yards from a horse, one hundred yards 1 from an elephant ; but the distance one should keep from a wicked man cannot be measured.–Sloka.
A marked feature in the south of India is its devil-worship. It is not noticeable in the town of Madras, although it exists there as well as elsewhere ; but in the south it strikes the eye at once. Village temples and wayside shrines abound by the side of the road and in out-of-the-way spots. Passing down the line towards Tuticorin the traveller sees uncouth representations of animals arranged in rows before the temples. Under innumerable trees devil-stones are set up with small plat- forms before them to hold the offerings. Everywhere the devil is in evidence. It is usually said to be of the feminine gender. Nothing seems to satisfy it but blood. Thousands of goats are offered annually to these demons. The largest festival of the kind takes place at Puttoor, the suburb of Trichinopoly already mentioned. The legend of the foundation of the feast is as follows :
Once upon a time a female demon, Kolomayi by name, had a temple in Travancore. She was of a blood-thirsty nature and would accept nothing less than human beings from the people who offered her pujah. Children were often sacrificed before her image, but her wrath was not appeased. Sickness and famine afflicted the people ; these calamities with the holocaust of children threatened to
