"There is," Mr. G. F. Paddison writes, "rather a curious custom in connection with a village goddess. Close to her shrine a swing is kept. On this swing, once a year at the great village festival, thorns are placed, and the village priest or priestess sits on them without harm. If the pujari is a male, he has been made neuter. But, if the village is not fortunate enough to possess a eunuch, a woman performs the ceremony. [At the fire-walking ceremony at Nuvagode in Ganjam, the priest sits on a thorny swing, and is endowed with prophetic powers.] When there is small-pox or other epidemic disease in a village, a little go-cart is built, composed of a box on legs fixed to a small board on wheels. In this box is placed a little clay image, or anything else holy, and carried away to a distant place, and left there. A white flag is hoisted, which looks like quarantine, but is really intended, I think, to draw the goddess back to her shrine. Vaccination is regarded as a religious ceremony, and the Gadabas, I believe, invariably present the vaccinator as the officiating priest with rice." The Gadabas, like other hill tribes, name their children after the day of the week on which they are born. On the plains, however, some give their children low-country names, e.g., Ramudu, Lachigadu, Arjanna, etc. Males are, as a rule, burnt; but, if a person dies in the night or on a rainy day, the corpse is sometimes buried. Women and children are usually buried, presumably because they are not thought worth the fuel necessary for cremation. Only relations are permitted to touch a corpse. Death pollution is observed for three days, during which the caste occupation must not be engaged in. Stone slabs are erected to the memory of the dead, and sacrifices are offered to them now and again.