Note 6 — Chapter VI · SOME RURAL FESTIVALS AND CEREMONIES.
Reading edition
In Râjputâna the custom is less elaborate. The first day of ploughing after the rains begin is known as the Halsotiya festival. Omens being favourable, the villagers proceed to the fields, each household carrying a new earthen pot, coloured with turmeric, the virtues of which have been already explained, and full of Bâjra millet. Looking to the north, the home of the gods, they make an obeisance to the earth, and then a selected man ploughs five furrows. The ploughman’s hands and the bullock’s hoofs are rubbed with henna, and the former receives a dinner of delicacies.6