Dr. Caldwell Has Given A Striking Account Of The Practice Of Devil-Dancing
Among The Shanars Of Tinnevelly, Which Forms A Perfect Parallel In Modern
Language To Our Traveller's Description Of A Scene Of Which He Also Had
Manifestly Been An Eye-Witness:
"When the preparations are completed and
the devil-dance is about to commence, the music is at first comparatively
slow; the dancer seems impassive and sullen, and he either stands still or
moves about in gloomy silence.
Gradually, as the music becomes quicker and
louder, his excitement begins to rise. Sometimes, to help him to work
himself up into a frenzy, he uses medicated draughts, cuts and lacerates
himself till the blood flows, lashes himself with a huge whip, presses a
burning torch to his breast, drinks the blood which flows from his own
wounds, or drains the blood of the sacrifice, putting the throat of the
decapitated goat to his mouth. Then, as if he had acquired new life, he
begins to brandish his staff of bells, and to dance with a quick but wild
unsteady step. Suddenly the afflatus descends; there is no mistaking that
glare, or those frantic leaps. He snorts, he stares, he gyrates. The demon
has now taken bodily possession of him, and though he retains the power of
utterance and motion, both are under the demon's control, and his separate
consciousness is in abeyance. The bystanders signalise the event by
raising a long shout, attended with a peculiar vibratory noise, caused by
the motion of the hand and tongue, or the tongue alone.
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