less than twice. Most Shánárs take about fifty trees but some climb as many as SIXTY. Surely few people in the world can be reckoned more hardworking than they.

The juice taken home, the peasant's wife boils it continuously over a slow fire: the watery part is gradually evaporated, and a lump of coarse black-looking sugar is left behind. That sugar is the food of the people: with the very poor it is their wealth: and often is it put into the plate at the Communion table as an offering to the Lord. The following singular fact cannot be forgotten here. Though holding in their hands, on the largest scale, the means of making spirits, the Shánárs, as a people, do not allow their palm-juice to ferment: they are hence not at all a drunken race. The Ilavas, on the other hand, their neighbours in Travancore, who live on the cocoanut, always ferment palm-juice and do drink to excess.

Such is the common life of those Shánárs who stand on a level with the poorer classes of the labouring population: whose days are spent in excessive toil which yields them little more than their necessary food. They are distinguished among their tribe as Paniaris or climbers. All however are not so hardly situated. Some among them, constituting a better class, are Nádáns or land-holders; possessing small estates of their own. Such persons of course employ others to climb their trees: or if that be unnecesary, hire out their land for rent, payable in money or palm-sugar. Others, again have improved their circumstances by trade, especially among the christians; and it is always observed that the first thing done by a man, who is rising in the world, is to hire others to climb his trees. The Paniaris or climbers are of course the poorest of all.

THE SHANAR RELIGION DEVIL WORSHIP.*

In religion the Shánárs are to a very small extent Hindus. They are of course not Hindus in caste; since they are not by birth and origin, members of the Hindu community: though in respect to their social position they occupy a higher place than the Parias. But they do pay some honour to several of the Hindu gods, of whom two or three

An admirable account of the Shánárs and their worship, with that of the progress of the gospel among them, has been published in a little pamphlet, entitled The Tinevelly Shánárs, by the Rev. R. Caldwell; one of the most able missionaries in South India.

resemble their own deities; and especially attend the great annual festivals at Trichendúr and Alvar-Tinnevelly. Their own indigenous religion is of an entirely different kind. Of a Supreme God, creator and ruler of all, they have no idea whatever. In their oaths, they sometimes speak of the Lord, but the term conveys no meaning. During several years however the heathen Shánárs have become extensively acquainted with the notion of God, through the conversations and discourses of missionsionaries, catechists, and christians in general. Nor as heathen do they know any thing of a future state. They have no belief in transmigration (as all Hindus in North India have): nor in the immortality of the soul. They have no notion of a judgment and no sense of responsibility to a superior being.

The

The distinguishing feature of their religion is the direct WORSHIP or DEVILS; that is, not merely of gods and idols, reckoned as such by christians, according to the statement of the Apostle Paul; but they worship beings who to them are actual bonâ fide devils. These devils are in their ideas connected with men, now dead, as if the disembodied SPIRIT of the dead man had remained alive to do all kinds of mischief. character of these devils is believed invariably to be full of malignity, and hatred towards mankind. The people never appeal to them for blessings and gifts, they never attribute to them feelings of gentleness or compassion: they believe them only capable of doing harm.-How true a representation of those whom the Bible describes by that name!These devils are believed to be of the same castes and classes, as all the dead whom they represent. There are male and female devils: highcaste and low-caste devils: bráhmin and sudra and paria devils: devils of Hindu origin and also foreign devils. In one village, an English officer, named Pole, was worshipped as such. They are supposed to reside in dark and foul abodes: in umbrageous trees, in uninhabited wastes; in dark and gloomy shades: in forests: in ruined houses: wherever in fact circumstances tend to inspire fear. All evil is believed to arise from their agency. It is they from whom spring losses in trade, failures in agriculture, and accidents to life and limb. They blast the rice crop, or the standing corn: they dry the juices of the palm on sultry days; or withhold the rain of heaven from the parched earth. They bring disease on men and cattle; or overthrow the forests by heavy storms. They frighten the timid in the dark night; the howling noises and shrill screams, heard in darkness among the trees on windy nights, are their voices and it is they who revel in the awful hurricane. Sometimes also

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it is believed they possess men. If a man is affected with sunstroke, some devil has entered him: if another's head swims, the same cause is assigned. Hysterics, staring eyes, and epilepsy, of course, are attributed to their possessions. To drive such a devil away, various methods are employed. Sometimes a dose of medicine suffices. Sometimes a severe beating with a shoe or a broom is administered: or a plentiful supply of low abuse; sometimes sacrifices are resorted to.

To these devils NO TEMPLES are built. The most general form of building made in their honour is that of a pyramid of mud, plaistered and whitewashed, having the figure of a devil in front. Immense multitudes of these pyramids are found all over the Shánár country. A better kind of house is a small thatched shed, open in front; in which the people deposit some half dozen idols or devils, and various gifts of small value. Many of these figures are representations of Bhodrokáli, a form of terror among the Hindus. Others are formed with buffalo heads: most are females, and are represented in the very act of devouring children. These superior houses are for devils of bráhmin extraction or for the different forms of Kali. All these erections, whether of the better or more common kind, are termed pé-coils i. e. devil-temples. In the whole system there is not a single idea of beauty, or of mercy to a sinner's soul. The service presented to the demons is of two kinds, DEVIL-DANCING and DEVIL SACRIFICES. The former is suggested by some ominous occurrence, and usually leads to the latter. When the former is required, the people assemble near one of the pyramids or devil-sheds, and after enjoying for a time the usual energetic beating of drums, proceed to sacrifice an animal, as a fowl, or sheep or goat, according to the peculiar taste of the devil to be honoured. Some one, usually though not exclusively a professional performer, then comes forward to dance. He puts on his feet a pair of tinkling bangles; wraps round him a cloth covered with figures of devils; sets free his long black hair; takes in his hand a jingling staff; and to the sound of drums and horns and the deep tones of the devil-bow, slowly begins to dance. After a time he will stop, drink off a large portion of the kid's blood just offered in sacrifice, and then, animated with fresh enthusiasm, his eyes staring, his long hair streaming in the wind, whirl round and round with mad excitement. To increase this excitement he will cut himself with the sacrificial knife; or lash himself with a formidable whip, until the proper pitch of frantic earnestness is obtained. After dancing some time, to the great joy of the spectators, who express their satisfaction by horrid yells, he sits down

and is now consulted by the people as inspired. Questions are put to him, as to what devil has possessed a certain woman in the village with fever, or has blown down a cow-house, or frightened a child. The few vague murmurs that he may utter in reply, or the signs that he may make, are interpreted as sure indications of the cause of such evils. Generally he will mention by name some notorious person, recently dead, as the cause of the disasters: and declare that to appease him, a fowl or kid must be offered in the usual way. On a set day, the appointed sacrifices are presented. A number of cooking vessels are brought to the pyramid; there the fowl or kid is slaughtered, and with rice and the usual accompaniments is cooked and eaten on the spot. All who choose to come are permitted to share in the ceremonies and in the feast that concludes them. Missionaries have seldom been able to obtain a sight of these ceremonies, especially of the dancing. The people are ashamed of it: they hide their shame however under the avowal that their devils cannot cope with Europeans. A missionary was once building his house, exactly where a devil pyramid used to stand, in a place which was by the heathen still thought to be a resort of his. Soon after heavy rain fell, and the unfinished walls were somewhat injured. This was reported to be the devil's doing: but the missionary persevered. The rains again damaged it, as they will do in the rainy season: but he went on and in due time completely finished the house as he had intended. The heathen then reported that the devil, disgusted with the missionary's obstinacy, had left the neighbourhood. Strange and absurd as these things may seem to us, the poor Shánárs have believed them thoroughly, have believed them for hundreds of years. There is reason indeed to believe that this is the primitive worship of all the aborigines and has existed in India since the day they entered the land. What a proof does it furnish that, as nothing is too hard for the Lord; so there is no folly, no superstition, too low and too degraded for the settled belief of man.

As a consequence of such a religious belief, it will be readily understood that the Shánárs do not stand very high in a moral point of view. Having scarcely any sense of responsibility, they do not hesitate to follow the way of evil when open before them. Hence among them, as amongst other Hindus, there exist open, habitual, and shameless lying; vice and immorality of all degrees; fawning to the great, oppression of the poor; total disregard of truth and honour: no kindness to the brute creation, and no compassion towards their fellow-men. The Shánárs are a simpler people than the brahmins, and their lying is therefore not so smooth, so

accomplished and so clever. Their knowledge too and their intelligence are not equal to those of the higher castes: still it is true "they are all gone out of the way: there is none that doeth good, no not one.”

Their simple village life and the absence of caste among them, although they are treated by others as a separate caste, render them more open to the gospel than many other tribes in Hindustán. When they once feel the power of the gospel, they find few obstacles to a public profession of it: and the readiness of the people to act in a body tells even more in favour of the gospel than against it: so that when a man of influence in a village becomes a christian, he is almost certain to be followed by a number of families from among his neighbours. This gregarious feeling and the absence of caste bonds, will greatly explain the fact that of this singular people no less than 52,000 are now under regular instruction in christian congregations,

FIRST SUCCESS OF THE GOSPEL.

The introduction of CHRISTIANITY among this remarkable people must be regarded as a matter of deep interest. During the flourishing period of the Tranquebar mission, nothing was done for the Shánárs, then far away from the missionaries' sphere of labour : their very existence I presume was unknown. Towards the end of the last century however, some christians from Tranquebar, and then from Trichinopoly, found their way into Tinnevelly and gathered a number of disciples in Palamcottah, its chief town. About the year 1780, Swartz himself visited the place and baptized a few from among the Romanists. In 1785, he visited it again, and finding that the congregation had increased to a hundred and sixty persons, left with them two catechists and a school-master. One of the catechists, named SATTIA-NADEN was an able teacher, a man of great personal influence and a consistent faithful christian. Under his instructions, the little church at Palamcottah increased in numbers, knowledge and strength and such confidence did Swartz and the other missionaries place in him, that he was at length ordained by them to the ministry of that flock. Swartz gives him the highest character; declaring that for humility and disinterestedness, for love to souls and desire to benefit them, for great consistency and remarkable talent in teaching and preaching, he never saw his equal among the natives of the country. In 1791 a young and active missionary, Mr. Janicke, newly arrived from Germany, was appointed to the charge of this increasing station, and set about his