Frederick Ricketts Hemingway

“ It is believed that a barren tree will bear if a naked man cuts a piece off it on the day of an eclipse; that the nesting of a clay-building fly in a house foretells the birth of a child; that the appearance of a swarm of ants or a blood-sucker in the house foreshadows some benefit; that a child which sneezes on a winnowing fan or on the door-frame will meet with misfortune unless balls of boiled rice-flour are thrown over it ”

“ The people there, on the other hand, are accustomed to eking out a livelihood in bad seasons on toddy, gruel made from the pulp of tamarind, jack and mango seeds, and jungle roots. The delta produces vast quantities more food than is required for the subsistence of its own inhabitants, and also provides a constant field for labour; so that no one in the uplands need ever starve for want of work if he will make up his mind to travel so far.
Before the construction of the anicut, however, the whole district suffered cruelly on several occasions from terrible famines due to drought. ”

“ Once a year is celebrated a feast similar to the well-known Chaitra Saturnalia in the Vizagapatam Agency, whereat all the men go out and beat for game and those who return empty-handed are pelted with mud and filth by the women and not allowed to enter the village that night. This is called the Bhúdévi Pandigai, or festival of the earth goddess. In times of drought a festival to Bhíma, which lasts five days, is held. When rain appears, the Kóyas sacrifice a cow or pig to their patron. Dancing plays an important part at all these feasts and also at marriages. ”

“ The estate has now been surveyed; and it may be hoped that the Rája will introduce a regular settlement on the basis of the survey.
The town of Pithápuram is one of the least attractive places imaginable. The streets are narrow, winding, uneven and dusty, and the houses are poor in appearance. The Rája's residence is in striking contrast, being an imposing building of great size. ”

“ For irrigation, there are times when the canal should be kept low so that large quantities of water may not have to be passed into the drainages when they are already filled by rain-water; for navigation the canal should always be kept up to its full level. For irrigation, even when the river or other source of supply is low, it is often necessary to go on letting as much water as possible out of the canal to supply crops, thereby reducing the level and the depth in the canal, especially at its end ”

“ Some care is taken about the breeding of both sheep and goats. Most of the males are sold for meat, and only one or two superior animals are kept for breeding purposes.
Two local practices are of considerable importance to the improvement of the cattle. In almost every village a really good bull or two is set free to roam among the herds, and in the Agency the owners of cattle often set apart a superior animal, called the vittanam (seed) bull, to be used exclusively for crossing purposes. In many parts of the district, also, people castrate the inferior bulls. ”

“ It is considered very important for the soul in the next world that the body should have been adequately tattooed.
The hill Reddis (or Konda Reddis) area caste of jungle men having some characteristics in common with the Kóyas. They appear to be found only in the Rékapalle country, the hills in the north of the Pólavaram division and in Rampa, and still further north. They usually talk a rough Telugu, clipping their words so that it is often difficult to understand them; but it is said that some of them speak Kóya. They are of slighter build than the Kóyas and their villages are even smaller. ”

“ In 1724 the Subadar of the Deccan (Nizam) , who had long been virtually independent of Delhi, became so in fact, and appointed his own nominees as Nawábs of the provinces under him. Rustum Khán was appointed to Rajahmundry and is still known to local tradition as Háji Hussain.
The country was in great disorder. Zamindars, or farmers of the revenue, had generally availed themselves of the late political disturbances to usurp the rights and feeble authority of their Muhammadan superintendents. They defrauded the public treasury and squeezed with an iron hand the husband-man and manufacturer. ”

“ The ultimate foundation of the country above the gháts, [15] as of most of peninsular India, is gneiss. Various other kinds of rock of less but varying antiquity have been superimposed upon different parts of the district. The gneiss is usually uppermost throughout Bhadráchalam, Chódavaram and the eastern portion of Pólavaram, and, in the form of what is called Bezwáda gneiss, throughout Yellavaram and much of Tuni as well as in the north of Rajahmundry and Peddápuram taluks. ”

“ The wedding takes place in the bridegroom's house and lasts five days. A táli and a saffron-coloured thread are tied round the neck of the girl. If the marriage was effected by capture, matters are much simplified. The girl is made to kneel, the boy stoops over her, and water is poured over both of them. The boy then ties a saffron-coloured thread round her neck and the ceremony is over. Girls who consort with a man of low caste are purified by having their tongues branded with a hot golden needle and by being made to pass through seven arches of palmyra leaves, which are afterwards burnt. ”

“ Good omens are hearing a bell ring, a cannon go off, the braying of an ass, the cry of a Bráhmani kite, or, on first leaving the house, seeing a married woman, a corpse, flowers, water or a toddy pot. Talismans are commonly worn. A usual kind is a flat piece of metal with a figure of Hanumán on it. Another, made of leather with the skin of a lizard got from a Mádiga stitched into it, is hung round the shoulders of weak and sickly children. Women and houses are supposed often to be possessed of devils, whom only a professional sorcerer can exorcise. ”

“ The great wealth of the delta taluks comes from agricultural pursuits, the income from which is not liable to tax, and the incidence in several of these is low.
The revenue from stamps is very large in proportion to the population, the receipts per mille of the inhabitants from judicial stamps being higher in only two other districts and those from non-judicial stamps in only four others. Of the total stamp revenue, by far the largest amount is paid by the Cocanada and Rajahmundry taluks, owing no doubt to the existence of the Judge's and Sub-Judge's courts at their head-quarters. ”

“ Several large rice-husking mills are at work in the district. The most important is that owned by the Coringa Rice Mills Company at Georgepet near Coringa, which employs a hundred men. There are also three more in Cocanada and four in Rajahmundry, two of which are not now working Another at Amalápuram has also stopped work for the present. The mills buy the paddy outright and export the husked rice, and do not husk paddy for payment, as is sometimes done.
There are several indigo factories in the Amalápuram taluk, of which seven employ 30 men or more in the season. ”

“ A pregnant woman should not see an eclipse, or her child will be born deformed. The pains of childbirth are relieved by turning the face of the bull god in a Saivite temple away from the emblem of Siva, or by the woman's touching a ring made of a mixture of gold, silver, copper, lead and iron by a fasting blacksmith on the day of an eclipse. A child whose first tooth comes in the upper jaw is supposed to foreshadow evil to its maternal uncle ”

“ Cattle are usually fed on paddy straw in the plains and cholam straw in the Agency. In the central delta and in Rajahmundry taluk they are also given sunn hemp (janumu) , which is much grown there. In Amalápuram, where grazing is especially scarce, they are fed on rice husk, horse-gram and gingelly oil-cake. When the crops are on the ground and there is no particular work for the cattle, i.e., from August to December, they are sent from the plains to graze in the forests in the Yellavaram and Chódavaram hills. The Pithápuram ryots drive theirs to Tuni. ”

“ Rice is the most widely grown crop, but the areas under tobacco and castor are considerable. Nine per cent, of the cultivable land is unoccupied, and the incidence of the land revenue per head is only Rs. I-IO-II. The number of educational institutions in Rajahmundry town results in the people being more literate than in any other taluk, and over ten per cent, of the male population can read and write. ”

“ The crowbar method of preparing the ground is partly adopted for the sake of economy, and so in this system manuring is also generally dispensed with. The jaggery which results is inferior, but the difference in the cost of cultivation is said to more than counterbalance this drawback. The land is dug up with the crowbar in January, and the clods are left to weather for ten days, when they are broken up and roughly powdered. The soil is not rendered sufficiently fine to be formed into plots without water, and the field has to be flooded. ”

“ The Company's troops marched up to Gútála to bring her to order, and when they arrived she was discovered with her son in a room in the palace in which were two large open vessels of gunpowder. She threatened that if she was touched she would destroy herself and all that were near, and the Company's officer prudently retired. The lady was ultimately pacified, and surrendered quietly. She was taken to Masulipatam, Vijayagópála was detained at Rajahmundry, and Mangapati was recognized as zamindar of the united estates of Gútála and Pólavaram. Narasimha remained in charge of Kottapalli. ”

“ The metalled roads in the uplands are generally good, and so are some of those in the delta; but the latter have great difficulties to contend with. They have usually to be made on a rich alluvial soil saturated by irrigation water for many months in the year, and the lead for metal is nearly always long, and in some cases amounts to as many as 40 miles. The numerous navigable canals enable this metal to be transported at less cost than usual, but it often has to be carted by road for four, five and even six miles from the canal-side depots to the places where it is required. ”

“ The principal advantage of the system is that it economises space, a small or slow-growing crop being raised in the intervals between spreading or quickly-maturing plants.
In the delta and the Agency, manuring is rare; but it is frequent elsewhere. Ragi, tobacco and gingelly are thought to require it more than other crops. Fields are ploughed from four to six times, but twice is considered enough for horse-gram. Tobacco and onions seem to be always transplanted and cambu and ragi generally so. The seedlings are laid in a furrow and covered by ploughing another furrow alongside the first. ”

“ Wood-carving of excellent quality is done in a number of places. In almost all considerable villages there are a few Múchis or Kamsalas who can carve furniture and door-frames, and make the váhanams, or carved platforms on which gods are carried. The work at Cocanada, Drákshárámam, Rajahmundry, Dowlaishweram and Sivakódu is especially noteworthy. A few stone-carvers are to be found at Rajahmundry, Jégurupádu in the same taluk, Venkatayyapálaiyam in Rámachandrapuram, and Vúbalanka in Amalápuram. They chiefly make images of the gods. ”

“ The artificial regeneration of the mangrove has been undertaken during the past three years in the Coringa reserve, a valuable swamp forest about twelve miles from the important fire wood market at Cocanada. Natural reproduction is hindered by the unsuitability of the ground under the trees, which, being raised year after year by silt, becomes hard and dry during the season (the north-east monsoon) when the seed falls, and allows the seed to be carried away by the tide before it can take root. ”

“ This dry crop season is called the payiru or aparalu season.
Many varieties of paddy are grown in the district. The ryots divide them according to two main principles of classification; namely, the time a variety takes to mature—whether it is long (pedda) or short (pinna or punasa) —and its colour—whether 'white' or 'black.' The varieties raised in the delta taluks, with their unfailing irrigation, naturally differ from those grown in the uplands of Peddpuram and Tuni, and both differ again from the favourite species in the different climate of Bhadráchalam. ”

“ Traders from the low country had taken advantage of the simplicity of the hill men, 'who would much sooner walk into a tiger's den than put in an appearance in the Rajahmundry court,' to make unfair contracts with them, and then, if these were not fulfilled according to the traders' own interpretation, to file suits against them, obtain ex parte decrees, and distrain as much of their property as they could lay hands on. ”

“ The relations of the Musalmans with their Hindu neighbours are on the whole friendly; though petty disputes sometimes arise at festival times, when the processions or observances of the one offend the other. Followers of the faith are generally engaged in menial work or petty trade, and few of them are wealthy. They have no local places of pilgrimage, though the Muhammadans of Draksharamam in Ramachandrapuram taluk say that the darga of their local saint was once regularly visited by the pious of the district. ”

“ Núkálamma of Kándrakóta in Peddápuram taluk, Mávullamma of Márédipáka in Rámachandrapuram and Sómalamma of Rajahmundry are famous almost throughout the district. These village goddesses are ordinarily worshipped only on the occasion of their annual festival. A buffalo and a number of sheep and fowls are then sacrificed to them. The fowls are killed at the four corners of the village; the buffalo is slain at about midnight on the last day of the festival, its blood is collected in a pot, and grain of various kinds is put into it. ”

“ The Chódavaram division comprises most of what was in former times known as 'the Rampa country,' from the village of that name which stands just north of Chódavaram village. Its history is sketched in the account of Rampa below. Almost all the division is occupied by the Eastern Gháts, and four-fifths of it consists of forest. The density of the population is as low as 32 persons to the square mile. There is only one metalled road in the division, namely that from the headquarters to Rajahmundry, but the road from the former to Dévipatam is partially maintained. ”

“ The Madras Railway crosses the north of it, and a branch runs through the heart of it to its head-quarters, the busy sea-port of Cocanada. This town and the old port of Coringa are connected with the interior by good waterways. Roads are plentiful and, on the whole, good. Trade is consequently large, and many important firms are located at Cocanada, but industries are few. Rice-milling at Cocanada and sugar-refining at Samalkot are the only considerable undertakings, and the indigenous industries are of an elementary kind. Coarse weaving goes on at several places ”

“ The temple in the village, which is built on the top of a small hillock and is not remarkable architecturally, is supported by an endowment from the treasury of the Nizam of Hyderabad, which amounts to Rs. 19,000 a year but small sums from which are diverted to the upkeep of the temple at Parnasála and those in Hyderabad territory at Mótigadda and Viruvandi opposite Chintalagúdem and Turubáka in this taluk. Legend says that the first beginnings of the Bhadráchalam shrine were made by a bairági who took up his abode there, built a small temple and carved a rude image of Ráma. ”

“ A deep hollow way passed along the skirt of the camp, behind which appeared a considerable number of Europeans regularly drawn up, as if to defend the passage of the hollow way, and several shot were fired from heavy cannon planted to defend the approach. Just as the English troops came near, and the first division of the Europeans stept out to give their fire, the field-pieces were arrived within shot; on which all the enemy went to the right-about, abandoned their camp, and retreated, seemingly every man as he listed, in the utmost confusion ”

“ A reserve about one hundred strong under an inspector and two sergeants is maintained at Rajahmundry, and consists of picked men, better armed and drilled than the others, who are qualified to deal with disturbances. As a rule the inspectors' divisions are included within the limits of only one taluk or revenue division, but a few unimportant exceptions occur. Dowlaishweram in Rajahmundry taluk, for example, is included in the limits of the Álamúr station, and Pithápuram lies entirely in the Súriyaraopéta (Cocanada) police division. ”

“ King, 'the pent-up waters tear their way with, I have been told, a surface so strangely concave on the cross section that adventurous boatmen glide along the bottom of a trough whose sides rise up to a good height and hide away the immediate banks; and out of this gorge away towards the open country of the Gódávari district the river has such a fall that the sensation produced on the mind of the traveller is said to be that of sliding down an inclined plane.'* [8] Native boatmen are much afraid of navigating the river at such times ”