Note 26 — Chapter VII · TREE AND SERPENT WORSHIP.

There is a custom of offering children to the deities Yallamma and Khandoba in fulfilment of vows made in order to get a child. The child is taken to the temple of these deities, accompanied with music. The temple ministrant asks the child to stand on a wooden board on a heap of rice in front of the deity, and puts into its hands a paradi—a flat basket of bamboo, tying to its neck the darshana of the deity. A female child is married to the dagger—Katyár—of the deity. When once this ceremony has been performed, parents abandon their rights to such children. When these children come of age, the males can marry but the females cannot. The latter earns her livelihood begging jogava in the name of the goddess Amba with a paradi in her hand. A male child offered to the goddess Yallamma is called jogata, and a female, jogatin. Children dedicated to the goddess Máyáka are called Jogi and Jogin. Children offered to Firangái and Ambábái are called Bhutya (male) and Bhutin (female).26