Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 2.djvu/86

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HISTORY OF INDIA.

[Book IV-

VD. —

Festival of Kali.

guislied by their loose robes and their foreheads liberally besprinkled with ver- milion. "Two or three of them are decked in speckled or party-coloured garments, uttering ludicrous unmeaning sounds, and playing off all sorts of antic gestures not unlike the merry-andrews on the stage of a country fair. Two or three with garlands of flowers hanging about their neck, or tied round the head, have their sides transpierced with iron rods, which project in front, and meet at an angular point, to which is affixed a small vessel in the form of a shovel.

Devotees of Kali.' — From Soltykoflf.

Two or three, covered with ashes, carry in their hands iron spits or rods of different lengths, small bamboo canes or Imkah tubes, hard twisted cords oi- living snakes whose fangs have been extracted, bending their limbs into unsightly attitudes and chanting legendary songs. Two or three more are the beaiers of musical instruments — horned trumpets, gongs, tinkling cymbals, and large hoarse drums, surmounted with towering bunches of black and white ostrich feathers." Then instruments blown or beaten lustily make loud and discordant music. Besides the groups of devotees who move along in succession as far as the eye can reach, others are seen advancing and spreading over the southern side of the plain where the temple stands, with flags and other pageants, and with portable stages "on which men and women are engaged in ridiculous, and often worse than ridiculous, pantomimic performances." The temple is surrounded by a high wall and a court, and the principal access to it is by a gate on the west side. Opposite to this gate stands a party of Brahmins

' In Mra. Belnos' Manners in Benpal, are two groups of devotees of Kali, and from these we have selected some of the principal figures. One of tlje men dressed in red silk, with female ornaments, and bells on his feet, was dancing with a water-snake, alive, thrust through his tongue, Iiolding it only by its tail; the reptile curling its head and hissing. Another man, in similar dress, held in his hand an iron shovel with two pointed handles, which were

thrust through both his sides; the shovel had red-hot coals, on which from time to time the devotee threw some kind of powder which blazed up. One man had a bamboo, nearly three inches in circumference, bored through his tongue; another had two ropes run through his sides, the four ends of which were held by two men, whilst he danced backwards and forwards, with as much unconcern as if the ropes only went through his garments.