Note 58 — Chapter VI · SOME RURAL FESTIVALS AND CEREMONIES.

In the Eastern Panjâb grain must not be measured on the day of the new or full moon, and Saturday is a bad day for it. It must be begun at dawn, or sunset, or midnight, when the Bhûts are otherwise engaged. Four men go inside the enclosure line with a wooden measuring vessel, and no one must come near them till they have finished. They sit facing the north and spread a cloth on the ground. One fills the measure from the heap with the winnowing fan, another empties it on the cloth, substituting an empty one for it. The man who has the measure puts down for every measure filled a small heap of grains of corn, by which the account is kept. Perfect silence must be observed till the whole operation is finished, and especially all counting aloud of the number of measures must be avoided. But when once the grain is measured, it is safe from the Evil Eye; the people are at liberty to quarrel over the division of it.58