Henry Whitehead
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 54
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II NAMES, CHARACTERS, AND FUNCTIONS OF THE VILLAGE GODS () The names of village deities are legion. Some of them have an obvious meaning, many are quite unintelligible to the people themselves, and I have often failed to get any clue to their origin, even from native pandits. They differ in almost every district, and often the deities worshipped in one village will be quite unknown in other villages five or six miles off. In Masulipatam on the East Coast, in the Telugu country, the following were given me as the names of the village deities worshipped in the district, vis. Mutyalamma, the pearl goddess (amma or amman is only a female termination); Chinnintamma, the goddess who is head of the house; Challalamma, the goddess presiding over buttermilk; Ghantalamma, the goddess who goes with bells; Yaparamma, the goddess who transacts business; Mamillamma, the goddess who sits under a mango tree; Gangamma, the water goddess, who in this district is the protectress against small-pox. But, at a village about twenty miles from Masulipatam, I found that fifteen different goddesses were worshipped in the neighbourhood, of whom only four were identical with those of Masulipatam. Some were named after the villages from which they had been imported, e.g. Addankamma, the goddess from Addanki, and Pandilamma, the goddess from Pandil; others had names derived from common objects of country life, e.g. Wanamalamma, the goddess of the tope, Balamma, the goddess of the cart, and Sitalamma, the water goddess. In the Ellore district, farther west, the deities worshipped are chiefly Gangamma, who is sometimes called Mahalakshmi (one of the names of Vishnu's wife), and sometimes Chamalamma (another name of Kali, the wife of Siva), and Poleramma, ...