Harkness, Henry: A description of a singular aboriginal race inhabiting the summit of the Neilgherry Hills, or Blue Mountains of Coimbatoor, in the Southern Peninsula of India (London, 1832)

74 COHATAR VILLAGES.

at Oatacamund, and the scenery, though less grand, pos-
sesses still many beauties. Graceful curvatures unite the
swelling knolls, crowning the summits of which are seen
the Burgher's simple dwellings; while to their very
eaves, stretching up the acclivity, are varied fields of
barley, wheat, or mustard seed, or of the beautiful kirie,
waving its purple and golden tops to and fro with every
breeze. The season changes; instead of the wheat and
barley, appear the deep-green koralee, the drooping sha-
mie, or the gorgeous poppy, sometimes separate, some-
times intermixed, and growing together.

Almost every part in this vicinity admitting of easy
cultivation, the different classes of the Burghers and the
Cohatars have pretty generally availed themselves of it,
and contrasted with the grandeur of the surrounding per-
spective, Cotagherry and its neighbourhood presents, on
the whole, a lively and interesting scene.

The Cohatar villages or houses differ but little from
those of the Burgher, except that they are not generally
so neat nor so clean. In every one of the former there
are two buildings, which are appropriated to sacred pur-
poses. They are of rude construction, being little more
than pent-roof sheds, thatched with grass, open at one
end, and surrounded with a low wall of stone. One of
these buildings is dedicated to a god, whom they call
Camataraya; the other to the Sacti, or goddess. In
neither, however, is there any image or symbol. On one