Note 10 — Chapter VI · SOME RURAL FESTIVALS AND CEREMONIES.

A curious rite is performed in Kulu at the rice planting. “Each family in turn keeps open house. The neighbours, men and women, collect at the rice-fields. As soon as a field is ready, the women enter it in line, each with a bundle of young rice in her hands, and advance dabbing the young plants into the slush as they go. The mistress of the house and her daughters, dressed in their gayest, take their stand in front of the line, and supply more bundles of plants as they are wanted. The women sing in chorus as they work; impromptu verses are often put in, which occasion a great deal of laughter. Two or three musicians are generally entertained by the master of the house, who also supplies food and drink of his best for the whole party. The day’s work often ends with a tremendous romp, in which every one throws mud at his neighbours, or tries to give him or her a roll in it. No such ceremony is observed in sowing other crops, rice having been formerly, in all probability, the most important crop. It is also the custom to make a rude image of a man in dough and to throw it away as a sacrifice to the Ishta Deotâ or household deity.”10 This can hardly be anything but a survival of an actual sacrifice to appease the field godlings at sowing time. The rude horseplay which goes on is like that at the Saturnalia and on the English Plough Monday.