Note 139 — Volume II. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Festivals. 17. On the Râmnaumi of Chait they have the heads of their children shaved at the shrine of Juâla-mukhi Devi at Kota in the presence of the priest (panda) in charge of the temple. On that date they offer a goat and a burnt offering (hom). On the snake festival, Nâgpanchami, held on the fifth bright half of Sâwan, they will not plough, and make a white protective mark round the walls of their houses, oil the horns of the oxen, and give them salt. On the Dasahra, the tenth light half of Kuâr, they eat specially good food. On the feast of lamps, Diwâli, in the last day of the dark fortnight in Kârttik, they plaster the house, light lamps, and on that day the Ahîr herdsmen come and dance at the houses of their employers, and get some old clothes and a small money present. At the Til Sankrânt, in the end of the month of Pûs, they all eat rice boiled with pulse (khichari) after a Brâhman has first touched the food and blessed it. On the thirteenth light half of Pûs they bury the old year (Sambat gârna). There is a regular place outside the village in which a stake of the wood of the cotton tree (semal) is planted in the ground. Three days after all the villagers collect fuel round this, and on the day of the full moon (pûranmâshi) the village Brâhman fixes a time for burning the old year (Sambat). The fire is lit by the village Baiga, and then all the people apply fire to it, and parch stalks of barley in the fire and eat them. They also make small lumps of cowdung and throw them into the fire. Next morning all collect and sprinkle the ashes of the Sambat into the air. This is known as râkh urâna. After marking their foreheads with the ashes they return home. Next day, up to midday, the men sing abusive songs, and throw earth and cowdung at the women. After midday they bathe, put on clean clothes, throw about the powder of ground mica or talc (abîr), eat wheat cakes (pûri) fried in butter, and drink liquor. The feast winds up with a regular saturnalia in which decency and order are forgotten.139