Note 47 — Chapter VI · SOME RURAL FESTIVALS AND CEREMONIES.
Reading edition
When the cotton is ripe and ready for picking, the women pickers go to the north or east quarters of the field with parched rice and sweetmeats. These directions are, of course, selected with reference to the Himâlaya, the home of the gods, and the rising sun. They pick two or three large pods, and then sit down and pull out the cotton in as long a string as possible without breaking it. They hang these threads on the largest cotton plant they can find in the field, round which they sit, and fill their mouths as full as possible with the parched rice, which they blow out as far as they can in each direction; the idea being, of course, the same as in the ceremony when the plant flowers. A fire offering is made and the picking commences.47