Note 45 — Feast of the Second New Year.

Bāyazīd Biyāt describes Humāyūn as holding a cooking festival in Badak͟hs͟hān. See A.N., i, translation, p. 496, n. 2. They cooked bug͟hra, which appears to be macaroni. The text wrongly has raqẓ az ʿis͟hq (love-dances). The real word, as the MSS. show, is arg͟hus͟htaq, which is a kind of dance (not a child’s game as in Johnson). It is described in Vullers, s.v., in accordance with the account in the Burhān-i-qāt̤iʿ. It is a dance by girls or young men, and is accompanied with singing and with clapping of hands, etc. Probably it is the dance described by Elphinstone in his account of Kabul, i, 311, where he says: “The great delight of all the western Afghans is to dance the Attun or Ghoomboor. From ten to twenty men or women stand up in a circle (in summer before their houses and tents, and in winter round a fire); a person stands within the circle to sing and play on some instrument. The dancers go through a number of attitudes and figures; shouting, clapping their hands, and snapping their fingers. Every now and then they join hands, and move slow or fast according to the music, all joining in chorus. When I was showed this, a love-song was sung to an extremely pretty tune, very simple, and not unlike a Scottish air.” Erskine’s translation is: “Custards and confections were presented, and the amusements of dancing girls and arghustak were introduced.” ↑