June, 1873.] NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY. 171 decapitato the buffalo themselves. With the Coorgs the Paruva is superintended by the M u k k a t i s, i. e. arrangers, who are either Coorgs or other Sudras. * Near the source of tho Kaveri river is the temple, and within it the idol of K a v e r i A m - m a, i. e. Mother Kaveri. The service of this deity is quite Brahmanical, and my opinion is that the deity is an importation from the plains. The Amma’s Tantris, or owners, are Tuju Brahmans. I do not find that the Coorgs are water-worshippers, though they have adopted also something in this respect from the Brahmans ; and besides they have no tangible profit from this river in their own country. Another deity with purely (Tulu) Brahma¬ nical puja, whom somo people declare to be identical with Subrahmanya, is Iguttappa (Igutta-Appa), i. e. Father Igutta. Ho is prayed to for rain, and invoked at the harvest-festival. Might this deity not be the same with the Tami]aVeguttuva-avatara, i.e.the Bud- dha-avatara of Vishnu* ? Besides Veguttava the form V 5 g u 11 a is also correct. It seems to be quite certain that many centu¬ ries ago the Coorgs, and with them most pro¬ bably others of the Dravidian tribes, were mere ghost and demon worshippers without any ray of light to alleviate their fear. Have Brahma¬ nical innovations in any way ameliorated their spiritual condition, or has even tho contrary taken place ? The discussion of questions of such a character is of much interest. Merkara, 22nd April 1873. NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY. I.—SNAKES. BY W. F. SINCLAIR, Bo. C. S., KHANDESH. It is the common belief of Khandesh, the Dekhan, and Central Provinces that the amphis- bcena or slow-worm, (mandup) changes its head to its tail, and back, every year. Also that its bite causes leprosy. At Christmas 1870, I shot a short, thick, clouded snake known as Jogl (I suppose because it is lazy and venomous). My police orderly, a Maratha from Anjanvel in Ratnagiri, said: “ There are lots of these in my country. If they bite a man or a buffalo, he swells up to the shape of this snake, and spots like those on the snake come all over his body.” The beaters, Thakurs of the Ghats, knew nothing of this belief, though they held the snake in so much dread that one man threw away the stick with which he had crushed its head. I have often met with this snake in the Dekhan and Khandesh, and never found this belief current anywhere above the Ghat; but it is certainly poisonous. Compare the sjiake in Dante by whose bite a man was turned into a snake and vice versaf. In the year 1865, or there¬ abouts, a snake with fur or hair upon its body is said to have appeared near Bhima Shan¬ kar, the source of the Bhima river in the Sahyadri hills. It is described as having been about four feet long, and covered with a soft curly wool; and tho people worshipped it for a season until it disappeared, My informant was very hazy about dates and details. Perhaps the creature was suffering from some furry fungous disease, such as fish are liable to. The little river Y e £ on the high plateau, known as the Pet Pathar, in Talnka Kher of the Puna District, is inhabited by great num¬ bers of D h a m a n s, the large water-snake with yellow netlike markings on his back. The belief of those parts is that the Dhaman is powerless to injure man or beast except the buffalo; but if a buffalo so much as sees a Dhaman he dies of it—the idea of the basilisk ! Further east it is sometimes believed that the Dhaman drowns bathers by coiling round their limbs. It is really quite harmless to any creature above the size of a water-rat. The natives of the Ghats hold a small snake called the P h u r s a in much dread ; and the Bombay Government have honoured it by bracketing it with the cobra, and putting a price on its head. The Kolis, who ordinarily bury their dead, have so great an abhorrence for four sorts of death that they will not bury the victims of any of the proscribed means of exit from this world. Three of the four are cholera, small-pox, and the bite of the Phursa. The fourth I have forgotten ; but in these cases they make forks of saplings, pick up the deceased, and pitchfork him over the nearest cliff. Ziegenbalg, p, 8. f Inferno, c. xxv.
