[From Sir Walter Elliot, _On the Characteristics of the Population of Central India_, in _Journal of the Ethnological Society of London_, N. S. i. 94 (1869).] In the north-east corner of the central mountainous region represented on the map, between the Mahanadi and Godavery rivers, is found a tribe which has preserved its normal character remarkably free from change and from external influence. The Konds, or, as they call themselves, the Kuingas, although only discovered within the last thirty-five years, are better known than most of the other barbarous tribes from the fact that for ages they have been in the habit of sacrificing human victims in great numbers to secure the favour of the deities presiding over their dwellings, fields, hills, &c., but especially of the earth-goddess. The successful efforts employed to abolish this barbarous rite have made the subject familiar to all, and it is remarkable that such knowledge should have failed to attract attention to a practice precisely similar in its objects and in its details, which is observed in every village of Southern India, with this single difference, that a buffalo is substituted for a human victim. My attention was early drawn to this practice, which is called the festival of the village goddess (_Devi_, or _Grama Devati_), the descriptions of which led me to believe it might throw light on the early condition of the servile classes, and resolving to witness its celebrations, I repaired to the village of Serúr, in the Southern Mahratta country, in March, 1829. It would occupy too much time to describe the ceremony in full, which is the less necessary as the details vary in different places; but the general features are always the same. The temple of the goddess is a mean structure outside the village. The officiating priests are the Parias, who, on this occasion, and on it alone, are exempt from the degrading condition which excludes them from the village, and from contact with the inhabitants. With them are included the Mangs or workers in leather, the Asádis or Dásaris, _paria_ dancing-girls devoted to the service of the temple, the musician in attendance on them called Rániga, who acts also as a sort of jester or buffoon, and a functionary called Pót-raj, who officiates as _pujári_ to a rural god named also Pót-raj, to whom a small altar is erected behind the temple of the village goddess. He is armed with a long whip, which he cracks with great dexterity, and to which also at various parts of the ceremony divine honours are paid. All the members of the village community take part in the festival with the hereditary district officers, many of them Brahmans. The shepherds or _Dhangars_ of the neighbouring villages are also invited, and they attend with their priests called _Virgars_ or _Irgars_, accompanied by the _dhol_ or big drum peculiar to their caste. But the whole is under the guidance and management of the Parias.