indophilia:

Living tableau

Periyachi Amman

Kali slaughters the demons and drinks their blood.

Frederick Horniman purchased this papier-maché figure in 1894 during a three-month tour of India and Ceylon. It is from Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), a city named after the goddess Kali, derived from ‘Kali Ghat’ meaning ‘Kali’s steps’.

The figure depicts Kali, the mother goddess and consort of Shiva, accompanied by a jackal. Kali personifies death and destruction. She is depicted with blood-red eyes, her tongue lolling out of her mouth to catch blood, and four arms. Kali holds a curved sword in one hand, the severed head of a demon in another, with her remaining two hands raised in blessing. Kali wears a necklace of severed heads and a girdle of severed hands. She is standing on Shiva, who clutches a discus in one hand and has snakes wrapped around his arms and waist. Both Kali and Shiva have a third eye in their foreheads.

To give you some idea of the size of this deity.

Intolerant of the offenses committed, the infuriated Goddess Kālī flashed her eyes and displayed her fierce, curved teeth. Her reddish eyes glowed, and she displayed her fearsome features. She assumed a frightening body, as if she were prepared to destroy the entire creation. Leaping violently from the altar, she immediately decapitated all the rogues and thieves with the very sword with which they had intended to kill Jaḍa Bharata. She then began to drink the hot blood that flowed from the necks of the beheaded rogues and thieves, as if this blood were liquor. Indeed, she drank this intoxicant with her associates, who were witches and female demons. Becoming intoxicated with this blood, they all began to sing very loudly and dance as though prepared to annihilate the entire universe. At the same time, they began to play with the heads of the rogues and thieves, tossing them about as if they were balls.

- Srimad Bhagavatam 5.9.18