Note 8 — Chapter VI · SOME RURAL FESTIVALS AND CEREMONIES.

In Hoshangâbâd the ceremony is somewhat different. The ploughing is usually begun by the landlord, and all the cultivators collect and assist at the ceremony in his field before they go on to their own. “It is the custom for him to take a rupee and fasten it up in the leaf of the Palâsa tree with a thorn. He also folds up several empty leaves in the same way and covers them all with a heap of leaves. When he has done worship to the plough and bullocks, he yokes them and drives them through the heap, and all the cultivators then scramble for the leaf which contains the rupee. They then each plough their fields a little, and returning in a body, they are met by the daughter or sister of the landlord, who comes out to meet them with a brass vessel full of water, a light in one hand and the wheaten cakes in the other. The landlord and each of the cultivators of his caste put a rupee into her water vessel and take a bit of the cake, which they put on their heads. On the same day an earthen jar full of water is taken by each cultivator to his threshing-floor, and placed to stand on four lumps of earth, each of which bears the name of one of the four months of the rainy season. Next morning as many lumps as are wetted by the leaking of the water jar (which is very porous and always leaks), so many months of rain will there be, and the cultivator makes his arrangements for the sowing accordingly.”8