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Sex Workers - Serving the Goddess Yellamma

For the very poor, and the very pious, the devadasi system can still be seen as providing a way out of poverty while gaining access to the blessings of the gods, the two things that the most impoverished crave.

Yellamma was the wife of the powerful rishi Jamadagni. The couple and their four sons lived in a simple wooden hermitage by the lake. Here the sage punished his body and performed great feats of austerity. After the birth of his fourth child, these included a vow of chastity. Every day, Yellamma served her husband, and fetched water from the river for her husband’s rituals. She used a pot made of sand, and carried it home in the coils of a live snake.

One day, as Yellamma was fetching water, she saw a heavenly being, a gandharva, making love to his consort by the banks of the river. It was many years since Yellamma had enjoyed the pleasures of love, and the sight attracted her. Watching from behind a rock, and hearing the lovers’ cries of pleasure, she found herself longing to take the place of the beloved.

This sudden rush of desire destroyed her composure. When she crept away to get water for her husband, she found, to her horror, that she could no longer create a pot from sand, and that her yogic powers of concentration had vanished. When she returned home without the water, Jamadagni guessed what had happened, and in his rage he cursed his wife. According to Rani and Kaveri, within seconds Yellamma had become sickly and ugly, covered with boils and festering sores. She was turned out of her home, cursed to wander the roads of the Deccan, begging for alms.

Jamadagni belongs to that class of irascible holy men who fill Sanskrit literature with their fiery and unforgiving anger. In contrast, the goddess Yellamma, like Sita in the Ramayana, is a victim, suspected of infidelities she never committed, rejected by all. Though the story is full of sadness and injustice, devadasis—as those who have been dedicated, or “married,” to a god or a goddess are known—believe that the tale shows how the goddess is uniquely sympathetic to their fate. After all, their lives often resemble hers: they are cursed for crimes of love outside the bonds of marriage, rejected by their children, condemned like Yellamma to live on the roads, begging for favors, disfigured by sadness, and without the protection of a husband.

Elephant Hotel - Somers. New York

In 1804 a farmer and cattle merchant named Hachaliah Bailey acquired an African Elephant he named “Old Bet,” and she was one of the first elephants to come to America. Although Bailey had planned to use the elephant for heavy-duty work on the farm, the throngs of people who came to Somers to see the elephant gave him the inspiration for showmanship on a large scale, and he began exhibiting her throughout the northeast. His success in this venture attracted numerous partners and rivals from local families, who joined in the business of importing and exhibiting exotic animals. The resulting thriving menagerie business paralleled the development of the circus in America, and by the 1830’s the two forms of popular entertainment merged to form the basis of the modern American circus. In fact, the majority of early 19th century circus proprietors came from Somers and neighboring towns in northern Westchester and Putnam counties. This has led to Somers being titled “The Cradle of the American Circus.”

On July 24, 1816, Old Bet was killed while on tour near Alfred, Maine. Some staunch supporters of the Blue Laws (sinful to be entertained on a Sunday) decided to end the matter once and for all. As the elephant was being led into town just before daylight, on July 26, 1816, the group waylaid the party and fired a half dozen shots that killed her. Bailey memorialized her in 1825 with a statue and the Elephant Hotel in Somers, New York.