THREE miles from Ramapatam, one of the stations of the Telugu mission, and on the high road leading from Nellore to Ongole, is a small village called Tettoo. Here we have a chapel, where a school and regular Sunday services are maintained.
In the early part of last year cholera was very prevalent in all that region. Many people died of it in the villages, and also travelers by the road and the canal. A woman traveling to Madras was attacked by it and died at Tettoo, under a mango tree, just opposite our chapel. As she died of cholera the people would not allow her to be buried in the village, but cast her body out among the cactus and thorn bushes near the jungle, and threw some earth over it.
About three months afterwards a very superstitious man, one of the potters of the village, on returning home one evening, reported that as he was passing the place where the woman had been buried, he heard a voice, as if it were her spirit, saying that if he would clear away the cactus and build her a proper tomb he would be cured of a disease from which he was suffering. As soon as he told his foolish fancy or willful falsehood, it was believed, and those who heard it told it to others. And the next day they went to the place and began clearing the ground, and brought stones and mortar, and built a tomb over the remains of the woman. And soon people began to flock to the place from all quarters to be cured of their infirmities and diseases. The blind, the lame, the lepers, those who were supposed to be possessed by evil spirits, and all sorts of ailing ones, came to worship. Most of them could not tell what they worshiped, whether it was the grave or the body or the spirit of the deceased woman, and when questioned they would say they came because others came, and they did as others did.
So rapidly did the superstition spread that within a few weeks thousands were coming, not only sick people, but also their relatives and friends, and multitudes more out of mere curiosity, and all sorts of tramps and adventurers, fortune tellers, jugglers, acrobats, religious beggars, etc. People came hundreds of miles, Hindus of all castes, and Mohammedans, rich people and poor, old and young. Within a month or six weeks from the time the folly commenced, the crowds had increased so that there were ten thousand people there at one time. Shopkeepers set up booths made of mats for the sale of supplies for the worshipers, peddlers of all sorts of trinkets flocked to the place, and side shows of various kinds were started.
The great majority of the worshipers were women, and the manner of their worship was as follows: They first went to the place where the woman died, under the mango tree, and there each one paid a small fee, equal to about two-thirds of a cent. The money was received by two men, who sat there for that purpose, and it was placed in safe keeping by the village officials. The promoters of the worship had taken the clothes of the dead woman, or at least what they said were her clothes, and tied them up in a bundle and hung them on the tree under which she died. And they had also the old dirty, ragged palmleaf mat on which she lay when dying. After the worshipers had paid their fee, they first walked round the tree several times with clasped hands and bowed heads, and then devoutly pressed their foreheads against the bundle of clothes and kissed them, and then walked round the old mat and bowed reverently to it, and, coming to the spot where the body of the woman had lain as soon as she was dead, each one took up a pinch of earth from the place and put it in her mouth and swallowed it.
Although each one took only as much of this sacred earth as could be held between the thumb and finger, the number of worshipers was so great that within two months an excavation had been made in the ground about six feet wide and two feet deep. They then went to the tank, or artificial lake, near by, which was muddy and thick with the tramping and bathing of the multitudes, and, having immersed themselves there, they went to the tomb, about a quarter of a mile distant, and, after having walked around it several times, presenting offerings of cocoanuts and sweetmeats and burning sticks of scented wood, they prostrated themselves, in their wet clothes, flat on the ground, with their faces to the earth, and their hands stretched out in an imploring attitude toward the grave. And there they would lie for hours, motionless, in concentric ranks, the head of all lying towards the sacred spot. We walked round about them on several occasions and among the prostrate ranks, and on one afternoon we made a rough estimate as to their number, and concluded that there must have been nearly a thousand women lying thus, their minds fixed on the poor, wretched victim of cholera, and hoping for some help or blessing. I think it was the most pitiable sight I ever witnessed, the poor lost creatures, in the depths of their depraved superstition.