The following note on a Kondh funeral dance in the Ganjam Maliahs is from the pen of an eye-witness. [176] "The dead Patro is, as usual, a hill Uriya, of ancient lineage, no less than that of the great totem of nola bompsa or the ancestral wood-pigeon that laid its eggs in the hollow of a bamboo, from which this family sprang. Various and most interesting are the totems of the Maliahs. In passing, I may mention another curious totem, that of the pea-fowl, two eggs of which a man brought home to his wife, who laid them in an earthen pot, and from them sprang a man-child, the progenitor of a famous family. But to return to the Patro. Before sunset, mourned by his two wives, the younger and favourite one carrying a young child of light bamboo colour, he had been burnt, without much ceremony, in an open grassy spot, his ashes scattered to the four winds of heaven, and the spot marked by wooden posts driven deep into the soil. Not now would be celebrated the funeral obsequies, but a month hence on the accession of his eldest son, the future Patro, a fair lad of eighteen years. As the day for the obsequies drew near, an unusual bustle filled the air. Potters from the low country arrived, and hundreds upon hundreds of earthen pots of all sizes and shapes were turned, and piled in great heaps near the village. Huge buffaloes, unconscious of their approaching fate, lay tethered near, or wallowing in bovine luxury in a swamp hard by. Messengers had been sent far and near to all the Patros, Molikos, and Bissoyis. Even the Kuttiya Khonds were not left out. The auspicious morning at length dawned, when a distinguished company began to arrive, each chief with his followers, and in many cases his wives and little children, all dressed in their best, and bent on enjoying everything to the utmost. I noticed fine stalwart men from Udiagiri on the edge of the ghauts, together with Khonds from more civilised Baliguda, and Khonds from cold and breezy Daringabadi, cheerful in spite of the numbers of their relatives that had found a horrid tomb inside a man-eating tiger that since 1886 (together with another ally lately started) had carried off more than four hundred of their kith and kin. Distinguished amongst even that wild horde for savagery were the Khonds from the Kuttiya country, who live on tops of hills, and whose women are seldom, if ever, seen. These are remarkable for their enormous quantities of frizzly hair tied in huge chignons over the right brow, and decorated with feathers of every hue--the jay, the parrot, the peacock and the white quills of the paddy-bird predominating. Their short, sturdy limbs are hung in every direction with necklaces and curious blue beads and cut agates, said to be dug out of ancient burial places and cromlechs in Central India. Certain it is that almost no inducement will prevail on a Khond to voluntarily part with these precious heirlooms. As each fresh detachment arrived,