Note 11 — Chapter VI · SOME RURAL FESTIVALS AND CEREMONIES.

Going on to the Drâvidian races, the Mundas have a feast in May at the time of sowing for the first rice crop. “It is held in honour of the ancestral shades and other spirits, who, if unpropitiated, would prevent the seed from germinating. A he-goat and a cock are sacrificed.” Again in June they have a festival to propitiate the local gods, that they may bless the crops. “In the Mundâri villages everyone plants a branch of the Bel tree in his land, and contributes to the general offering, which is made by the priest in the sacred grove, a fowl, a pitcher of beer, and a handful of rice.” In July, again, each cultivator sacrifices a fowl, and after some mysterious rites, a wing is stripped off and inserted in a cleft of a bamboo, and stuck up in the rice-field or dung-heap. If this is omitted, the rice crop, it is supposed, will not come to maturity. It appears more like a charm than a sacrifice. Among the Kols of Chota Nâgpur, there is a special dance, “the women follow the men and change their attitudes and positions in obedience to signals from them.” In one special figure “the women all kneel and pat the ground with their hands, in tune of music, as if coaxing the earth to be fertile.”11