During the British Raj, the officials of the colonial government ridiculed the temple traditions, while Christian missionaries launched a sustained attack on the moral outrage of sensuousness of Odissi and other Hindu temple dance arts. In 1872, a British civil servant named William Hunter watched a performance at the Jagannath temple in Puri, then wrote, Indecent ceremonies disgraced the ritual, and dancing girls with rolling eyes put the modest worshipper to the blush..., and then attacked them as idol-worshipping prostitutes who expressed their devotion with airy gyrations.