# Vizagapatam/Gazetteer/Bissamkatak Taluk

BISSAMKATAK TALUK.
This taluk was formed in 1884 out of Gunupur, and consists of the northernmost portion of the tongue of land which forces its way up between the Ganjám maliahs on the east and Kálahandi State on the west. The extreme north of it drops down into the valley of the Tél, but all the rest drains into the Vamsadhára. It is bounded on the west by the Nimgiri range, a remarkable and steep-sided mass of hills which rises in one place to 4,968 feet, and on the east by the hills of the Chandrapur and Bijápur muttas, inhabited by Kuttiya Khonds and covered with the sál forest referred to on p. 120 above. The southern portion contains a good deal of fine, open, dry cultivation resembling that of the adjoining Ráyagada taluk and consisting of valleys of fertile, light soil winding in and out among scattered low hills and dotted with tamarind, jack, mango and other trees, including some fine old banyans. In this land, wonderful tobacco is grown. It is exported in large quantities to Kálahandi and the Central Provinces, merchants coming even from Raipur and Sambalpur to buy it, but the people of this district pronounce it too fullflavoured. A great deal of paddy is also raised in the damper hollows and is exported to Gunupur. In the central and northern portions of the taluk the valleys are narrower and more shut in with jungle, but the soil is still rich, especially round about Ambadála. According to the census figures, 36 per cent, of the people speak Uriya and 43 per cent, talk Khond. The latter consist of the Désya Khonds, who are comparatively civilized and occupy the north-western corner, and the wild Kuttiya Khonds, who dwell on the hills between Dongasúrada and Karlaghati and the eastern frontier of the taluk, and are seldom found elsewhere in the district.
The only place of any note in the taluk is its head-quarters —
Bissamkatak, called by the natives Bissamkóta, a village of 2,026 inhabitants. It lies close to the beautiful Nimgiris at the point where the tracks running northwards from Ráyagada and Gunupur meet, and is 1,114 feet above the sea. The name means 'poisonous fort' and is usually supposed to have been earned by the virulence of the malaria there, which is a byword throughout the district. ​The place is the residence of the Tát Rája, 'commander of the troops,' a feudatory of Jeypore who is required to pay an annual tribute of Rs. 15,000 and attend on the Mahárája at Dasara with a retinue of 500 paiks. The family are Shristi Karnams, a community who in the low country are usually accountants with a reputation for undue subtlety, but in the hills are a martial people. They have been here 1 for eight generations. The first of them, Krishna Tát Rája, came from Pedda Kimedi in Ganjám, cleared the jungle and received, it is said, a copper plate patta for Rs. 2,500 from the then Rája of Jeypore, Raghunátha Krishna Deo (1686-1708). His son, Pítámbara, built the mud fort in which the family still reside. He was succeeded by Sómanáth, and then by Rámachandra. The latter, when at Jeypore on one occasion, refused to make obeisance to the son of the Rája, Rámachandra Deo, and the latter shortly afterwards imprisoned him for fourteen months in Jeypore, where he died. His son Krishnachandra succeeded to the estate, but, hearing that the new Jeypore Rája, Vikrama Deo, was preparing hostilities, fled to one place after another and at last went to Kalyána Singapur (thirteen miles to the west of Bissamkatak), the Rája of which assisted him, and stayed there with his son four years until his death. He had been away from his estate for 17 years, and the Jeypore officials who had administered it during that time so mismanaged matters that the pátros rose against them, went to Kalyána Singapur, brought his son, Naréndra, to Bissamkatak and set him up as their Tát Rája. Four fights between the Bissamkatak and Jeypore troops occurred, the latter were defeated every time, and Vikrama Deo then left Naréndra Tát Rája in possession of the estate but gave him no patta.
Four years later (1855) disputes arose between Vikrama Deo and his son Rámachandra Deo and the latter went off and occupied Gunupur and other taluks. To secure to his cause the help of the Bissamkatak paiks, he sent for Naréndra to Gunupur, presented him with a turban and elephant, and made him Rája Rámachandra succeeded to the Jeypore estate three years later, and on 8th January 1864 patta and muchilika were exchanged between him and Naréndra Tát Rája by which the latter agreed to pay the enhanced kattubadi of Rs. 5,000. Naréndra died on 9th May 1876. His son Rámachandra was asked to pay an additional Rs. 2,000 kattubadi, went to Jeypore to protest, and at length left the place without leave. This so angered the Jeypore Rája that he determined to attach the property. He was dissuaded by the then Agent, Mr. Goodrich, and eventually Rámachandra Tát ​Rája returned to Jeypore and agreed in 1877 to pay a kattubadi of Rs. 15,000 and to attend the Dasara with 500 paiks. He was given a patta allowing him to enjoy the estate in perpetuity on these terms, but for some years refused either to pay anything or go to the Dasara. He died in October 1889 and his heir, Naréndra, being a minor, the estate was administered by Government, The minor was educated at Párvatípur and Vizagapatam and married a daughter of the Belgám zamindar. He came of age on the 20th July 1903, but almost at once refused to attend the Dasara at Jeypore and has since declined to pay any tribute either. The Mahárája of Jeypore has now filed a suit to recover possession of the estate.
The Tát Rája's flef consists of eight muttas comprising some 500 Khond villages with a gross rental of about Rs. 40,000. Two of the muttas— Jagdalpur and Ambadála — are under pátros who pay an annual kattubadi (which the Rája claims to be entitled to raise if Jeypore raises his tribute) and in certain cases render feudal service. The relations between them and the Tát Rája have not always been satisfactory. The feudal tenure which once prevailed in these secluded areas is breaking down with the advance of new ideas, and the pátros have questioned the Tat Rája's authority to enhance their kattubadi because his own has been raised. The other muttas are managed directly by the Rája himself, nearly all the villages being rented out.
The Bissamkatak country was formerly one of the worst centres of Meriah sacrifice. In 1851, when a fight between the Jeypore and Bissamkatak troops was imminent, Col. Campbell found confined in the Tát Rája's residence a young boy who had been purchased to be offered up to propitiate Manaksuro (? Manikésvara), the god of war, as soon as hostilities began. In 1854, however, the Tát Rája prevented any of his people from going to get morsels of the flesh of a Meriah who had been sacrificed at Ráyabijji, by threatening to set his peons to shoot them down if they did; and the authorities gave him a double-barrelled rifle in appreciation of this achievement. At the Dasara four buffaloes, instead of human victims, are now sacrificed to the four goddesses Márkama, Tákuráni, Durgi and Nyámarázu. The Khonds come in great numbers for the event, and after the pújári has given the animals one blow they rush in and kill them with their tangis and each carry off a portion of the flesh. This is not buried in the earth to secure good crops, as is apparently done in Ganjám,1 but is eaten in a convivial fashion and washed down with much strong drink. ​The balli játra ('sand feast') is also a great day in Bissamkatak. It takes place in September-October. The people go in procession to the river, whence five men bring five baskets of sand to a building called the balli ghoro, or 'sand house.' In these are planted the nine kinds of grain. On the twelfth day, by which time the seeds have sprouted, a swing, the seat of which is covered with sharp nails, is set up before them, and on this a bezzu (medicine-man and exorcist) is swung,while goats and pigeons are sacrificed by those who have taken vows to do so. The bezzu then also performs a fire-walking of the ordinary kind. He spends most of the three nights before this day in dancing wildly and working himself up into a state of excitement, during which he prophesies both good and evil and pretends to grant boons (such as children to the childless and health to the sick) to those who ask them.
Similar feasts occur at Kutragada, Gudári, Gunupur and other places round, and buffaloes are often sacrificed at them instead of only goats and pigeons.
* ↑ 1 Mr. H. G. Turner, in G.O., No. 3386, Judicial, dated 24th December 1883.
* ↑ 1 Ganjám District Manual, 86-7.