IT is said that the village washerman has scarcely leisure to attend to his own domestic duties. This is no doubt true, for Munian, the washerman of Kélambakam, is the most hard-working member of the village. He rises early every morning and, with an earthen vessel, goes to the village in one direction, while his wife goes in another, to collect dirty clothes. On reaching the house of a villager, he informs the people of his arrival by making a noise which at once brings out a female, who hands over to him such clothes as require washing, with perhaps some special instructions in the case of particular clothes, and then supplies him with a handful of the Indian preparation called kulu—raggi flour cooked with broken rice— which he deposits in the earthen vessel. He returns home at about nine or ten o’clock. His wife returns at about the same time with a potful of kulu and a bundle of clothes. They then with their children partake of what they have collected from the villagers, and go to the river Palar with the dirty clothes to wash them. There, with scarcely any intermission, they toil hard in the heat of the sun, and by dusk they have washed the clothes that were entrusted to them in the morning. They then return to the village and arrange the clothes of each household with a precision which is most astonishing, and which most probably gave rise to the saying that a washerman is more useful than an educated person. After this, they set out to the village to deliver the clothes. This time, instead of a pot, they carry each a basket in which to carry the cooked rice supplied to them by the villagers. They return home at about nine or ten, take their supper and go to sleep, which they have richly earned after a hard day’s toil. Even this little rest is denied to the poor washerman whenever festivals are celebrated in the temple or when dramatic per- formances are given in the village, as on those occasions he is expected to prepare torches with torn clothes collected by himself, and look after the lights. Thus, Munian, the washerman of Kélambakam, with Lakshmi, his exemplary wife and useful assistant, willingly performs, without the least murmur, the arduous task allotted to him in his little village world.
Another member of the village, as useful and almost as hardworking as the washerman, is Kuppusami, the potter, who toils at his wheel day and night to supply the villagers with earthen vessels. He has to make earthen lamps, cooking vessels, huge jars for storing grain, bricks, tiles, &c., for building houses, drinking vessels and a hundred other things required for an Indian household. He has also to make figures of human shape, and such like things for use in the temple of the village deity. Any stranger going into the house of a Hindu will at once be struck with the useful- ness of the potter, when he finds whole rooms containing earthen vessels of different sizes and shapes arranged like conically shaped pillars, each containing some article of human con- sumption. On important festival occasions, such as the Pungul, Kuppusami has to supply every house in Kélambakam with new vessels, and, on occasions of marriage, he has to prepare big pots ornamented with quaint figures. His assistance is also sought after in accidents when bones are broken or fractured. I do not know how the potter has come to be regarded as the fittest person to treat such cases. Man, it is said, is made of clay by Brahma, who is often compared to a potter. And the potter, who makes figures of human form is expected to know the constitution of the human frame. Hence probably arose the idea that he is the fittest person to treat cases of fracture, &c. Kuppusami is skilful in the treatment of such cases, and his practice extends even to the neighbouring villages.
After the potter, comes Kailasam, the ambattan, the barber of the village. He also is a very useful member of Kélambakam. He is the village hair-dresser. He is also the musician of his village. Without music, no festival can be celebrated in the temple, no marriage or any other ceremony can take place in an Indian household; and on those occasions Kailasam and his people are required to play on the flute, beat drums, &c. Kailasam is also the surgeon of Kélambakam, and it is somewhat difficult to account for the fact that barbers have been allowed to practise surgery. They are considered to be the fittest persons to treat surgical cases, probably because, as barbers, they handle the knife. Thoyamma, the wife of Kailasam, is the midwife of the village. Her attendance is also required every day, morning and evening, to look after newly-born infants, to bathe them, to administer to them proper medicines and do many other things which need not be enumerated here.
Every village in Southern India has a temple built in honour of a goddess, who, it is said, guards the village from all kinds of pestilential diseases, such as smallpox, cholera, &c. The name of the goddess of Kélambakam is Angalammal, and the temple dedicated to her is situated a few furlongs from the village. Some lands in the village are allotted for the due performance of puja in the temple, and Angamuthu Pujaree, who performs the necessary ceremonies, enjoys those lands. When the country is afflicted with some pestilence, the pujaree levies all sorts of con- tributions from the simple villagers. To save them from infectious diseases, they present the deity with gold and silver ornaments, cloths, rice and vegetables, intoxicating liquors, sheep and fowls. These the pujaree appropriates to his own use. Worship in the temple of the village goddess is of a very low kind. Animals are sacrificed, intoxicating drugs are taken and crude songs are sung. Hideous dances also form part of the worship. Angamuthu Pujaree is a very intelligent man, and practises his trade with consummate skill. People from distant parts go to him on Thursdays, when, it is said, the spirit of the goddess Angalammal descends upon him and with such help he foretells events. With the pujaree the best art is to conceal art itself, and the more he fulfils this condition the more he succeeds and becomes popular. He has to be possessed of a certain amount of intelligence and tact if he is to perform his work aright. He has to weigh well all the circum- stances of a case, and then decide what are suitable answers to give. Angamuthu Pujaree often gives, like the oracle of Delphi, dubious answers to questions put to him.
I was myself present with some of my friends at one of these meetings in the temple of the village goddess. There were then present people from distant villages. There were mothers with sick children. Near relatives of persons supposed to be the victims of sorcerers were there, anxiously waiting to get the blessing of the goddess through her favoured servant, the pujaree. There were collected in that motley assembly barren women anxious to get children, young bachelors eagerly waiting to know when they would get fair wives, and persons attacked with various kinds of disorders. There were about three hundred persons present on the occasion, some of whom came from places ten or twelve miles distant from Kélambakam. The goddess was neatly clothed and adorned with flowers. There was a black cane near the deity, which was afterwards used by the pujaree for driving out devils. Fruits and flowers and other presents there were in abundance, and there were also one or two bottles of intoxicating liquors, camphor and other things. The pujaree, after bathing and besmearing his body with ash, came and sat before Angalammal, to the immense delight of the expectant crowd. His assistants, with jingling instruments, sang some curious songs extolling the virtues of the goddess. The pujaree was all the while sitting in deep meditation. Then suddenly he swooned and fell down. Shortly after, he rose, took some liquor, and with a vigour and energy that would have done credit to the strongest acrobat, danced and jumped and made a most hideous and disgusting noise. Camphor was soon lighted. He took a long sword and inflicted all sorts of wounds on his body. The spirit of the goddess, it was said, had now fairly descended on him, and the terror-stricken people all gazed upon him with contending hopes and fears, to catch eagerly whatever was vouchsafed to them by their goddess through her servant. Then in deep clear tones, Angamuthu Pujaree uttered the follow- ing words: “A person of the male sex has come here to question me regarding a female relative. Let him come forward.” There was deep silence and no one ventured to come forward. Again the pujaree said in a threaten- ing tone: “I know the person. He is come here. Let him step forward without the least delay and kneel before me. If he does not, I will punish him.” Immediately, a middle-aged person knelt before the pujaree and said : “Have mercy upon me O mother, I have come here to ask you if my sick wife will recover.” The pujaree answered : “Your wife would have recovered long ago ; but you have incurred my displeasure and to appease my anger you must. sacrifice a sheep, and then your wife will recover.” So saying the pujaree gave some ash to the supplicant to be smeared over his. wife’s body. Then said the pujaree : “ A barren woman is here to ask me to bless her with a child. Where is she ?” In due course, a young woman came forward, and to her he said : “ You must for the next forty days bathe early in the morning and go round my temple nine times daily. You must take only one meal a day. And at the end of these forty days you must present me with a new cloth. You shall then be blessed with a child.” After receiving some ash, the young woman retired. Then again the pujaree said : “ A mother is. come here with a sick child ; let me see her.” Immediately a sorrow-stricken woman placed a sick child before him. He threw some ash on the child and said : “Your child will recover in a fortnight, but do not fail to offer me a fowl.”
“Yes, mother, I will do so,” said the woman, and retired. In this way the pujaree put general questions, and people with various requests came forward. Suitable replies were vouchsafed to them, but the pujaree in every instance took care to ask various kinds of offerings. In the end, two things startled me, and I for a time at least thought the pujaree a veritable seer. The pujaree said: “A young man is come here to test me with a lemon concealed about him. He wishes to know when he will get married. Let him stand before me.” Out stepped the young man, and, trembling with fear, delivered the lemon which he had kept concealed. Then again, the favoured servant of the goddess said: “An old man came to me last Thursday and said that, owing to the doings of a sorcerer, his son was suffering from various kinds of disorders.” When the old man came forward, he continued : “Your enemy with the help of a sorcerer hid last month at midnight an earthen vessel in which are deposited human bones. So long as that vessel remains where it is, your son will not recover. Go now, with a dozen people from the assembly, and take out the vessel which is buried in the north-eastern corner of the cattle-shed of your house, some four feet and a half from the wall. Take it out and bring it to me.” Immediately a number of people left the assembly and the pujaree went on attending to those who remained. Those who went, found in the exact spot described by the pujaree a vessel answering to his descrip- tion, which they unearthed and brought to him, to the great amazement of the people assembled. The pujaree took it, and addressing the old man, said: " Go now. Your son will from this moment be all right." So saying he uttered an unintelligible mantram and dashed the vessel to the ground.
With regard to the first of the above incidents, I came to know a few days afterwards that the young man who came with the lemon un- wittingly confided his secret to Appalacharri, one of the pujaree’s secret agents, who freely mingled with the people as spectators. Appa- lacharri went and gave the information to the pujaree beforehand. The only possible explana- tion of the second is that the pujaree’s assist- ants must themselves have buried the vessel with its contents.
The pujaree, it will thus be seen, is a most deceitful person practising his trade with success among the ignorant villagers. Happily under the benign British rule education is spreading fast, and the intelligence of the country is ad- vancing at a rapid rate, and the day is not far distant when the wretched class of men, one of whom I have in the above pages tried to depict, will soon have vanished off the face of the land.