Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/188

 1 62 ''■ Hook-Sivinging'" in India,

distance from all houses and roads, it had been stopped by the poHce on the ground that it was a nuisance and offensive to passengers on the public thoroughfares.

In Ganjam it was being generally observed, and the performance did not appear to be less frequent or attracti\e than formerly.

In North Arcot the ceremony was still taking place, but with decreasing frequency. The acting magistrate of this district submitted an interesting tabular statement showing the various villages etc. in the district where the festival had been, or was still being, celebrated, and the intervals at which it had been usually observed. He enumerated twenty-five villages, in four of which the ceremony had been discontinued during the last twenty years or less, two of which, however, contemplated its revival. In one village it was celebrated once in the course of ten years, in nine others once in the course of three, four, or five years, and in the remainder it was of annual occurrence. The festival was in all cases said to be held in honour of a goddess.

From the Salem district it was reported that the swinging festival was still generally observed, and that two men had very recently been killed in consequence of the pole from which they were suspended having accidentally snapped.

Throughout the district ofCuddapah the festival was being largely celebrated, and the Magistrate reported that it was not only as frequent and attractive as ever, but that the lower classes would be unwilling to submit to its suppres- sion.

In the Vizagapatam district it was being generally observed.

In Tanjore it was being celebrated in seventy-eight places, having been more or less recently discontinued in forty-seven others.

The District Magistrate of Tinnevelly reported that it