It was the practice, a few years ago, at every Dassara festival in Jeypore, Vizagapatam, to select a specially fine ram, wash it, shave its head, affix thereto red and white bottu and namam (sect marks) between the eyes and down the nose, and gird it with a new white cloth after the manner of a human being. The animal being then fastened in a sitting posture, certain puja (worship) was performed by a Brahman priest, and it was decapitated. The substitution of animals for human victims is indicated by various religious legends. Thus, a hind was substituted for Iphigenia, and a ram for Isaac. It was stated by the officers of the Meriah Agency that there was reason to believe that the Raja of Jeypore, when he was installed on his father's death in 1860-61, sacrificed a girl thirteen years of age at the shrine of the goddess Durga in the town of Jeypore. [167] It is noted, in the Gazetteer of the Vizagapatam district (1907), that "goats and buffaloes now-a-days take the place of human Meriah victims, but the belief in the superior efficacy of the latter dies hard, and every now and again revives. When the Rampa rebellion of 1879-80 spread in this district, several cases of human sacrifice occurred in the disturbed tracts. In 1880, two persons were convicted of attempting a Meriah sacrifice near Ambadala in Bissamkatak. In 1883, a man (a beggar and a stranger) was found at daybreak murdered in one of the temples in Jeypore, in circumstances which pointed to his having been slain as a Meriah; and, as late as 1886, a formal enquiry showed that there were ample grounds for the suspicion that the kidnapping of victims still went on in Bastar." As recently as 1902, a petition was presented to the District Magistrate of Ganjam, asking him to sanction the performance of a human sacrifice. The memory of the abandoned practice is kept green by one of the Kondh songs, for a translation of which we are indebted to Mr. J. E. Friend-Pereira. [168] "At the time of the great Kiabon (Campbell) Sahib's coming, the country was in darkness; it was enveloped in mist. Having sent paiks to collect the people of the land, they, having surrounded them, caught the Meriah sacrificers. Having caught the Meriah sacrificers, they brought them, and again they went and seized the evil councillors. Having seen the chains and shackles, the people were afraid; murder and bloodshed were quelled. Then the land became beautiful, and a certain Mokodella (Macpherson) Sahib came. He destroyed the lairs of the tigers and bears in the hills and rocks, and taught wisdom to the people. After the lapse of a month, he built bungalows and schools; and he advised them to learn reading and law. They learnt wisdom and reading; they acquired silver and gold. Then all the people became wealthy."