Note 5 — B

It is recorded5, in connection with the legends of the Badagas, that “in the heart of the Banagudi shōla, not far from the Doddūru group of cromlechs, is an odd little shrine to Karairāya, consisting of a ruined stone hut surrounded by a low wall, within which are a tiny cromlech, some sacred water-worn stones, and sundry little pottery images representing a tiger, a mounted man, and some dogs. These keep in memory, it is said, a Badaga who was slain in combat with a tiger; and annually a festival is held, at which new images are placed there, and vows are paid. A Kurumba makes fire by friction and burns incense, throws sanctified water over the numerous goats brought to be sacrificed, to see if they will shiver in the manner always held necessary in sacrificial victims, and then slays, one after the other, those which have shown themselves duly qualified. Hulikal Drūg, usually known as the Drūg, is a precipitous bluff at the very end of the range which borders on the south the great ravine which runs up to Coonoor. It is named from the neighbouring village of Hulikal, or tiger’s stone, and the story goes that this latter is so called because in it a Badaga killed a notorious man-eater which had long been the terror of the country side. The spot where the beast was buried is shown near the Pillaiyar temple to the south of Hulikal village, and is marked by three stones. Burton says there used formerly to be a stone image of the slain tiger thereabouts. Some two miles south-east of Kōnakarai in a place known as Kōttai-hāda, or the fort flat, lie the remains of the old fort Udaiya Rāya Kōta. Badaga tradition gives a fairly detailed account of Udaiya Rāya. It says he was a chief who collected the taxes for the Ummattūr Rājas, and that he had also a fort at Kullanthorai, near Sirumugai, the remains of which are still to be seen. He married a woman of Netlingi hamlet of Nedugula, named Muddu Gavari, but she died by the wrath of the gods because she persuaded him to celebrate the annual fire-walking festival in front of the fort, instead of at the customary spot by the Mahālingasvāmi temple about half a mile off. Ānaikatti is a hamlet situated in the jungle of the Moyar valley. The stream which flows past it tumbles over a pretty fall on the slopes of Bīrmukkū (Bimaka) hill. The Badagas call the spot Kuduraihallo, or the ravine of the horse, and say the name was given it because a Badaga, covered with shame at finding that his wife gave him first sort rice but his brother who lived with them only second sort, committed suicide by jumping his horse down the fall.”