Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/191

 ^^ Hook-Szvino^ijig-'^ hi India. 165

the festival was still ol)served, but that it had never attracted much attention.

In Canara the festival was still frequently observed, and the magistrate in submitting his report quotes one of his subordinate officers to the effect that it formed no part of the religious worship of the Hindoos, but was merely the fulhhnent of a vow made in time of extreme sickness ; further, that the practice was confined to the most important classes of the native community.

In Chingleput only 33 villages celebrated the festival.

In Tanjore the practice had up to that time prevailed at "jd) pagodas, the managers of which had, under the influence of the magistrate, given a written engagement to dis- continue it.

Of the twenty officers within whose jurisdiction the festival was more or less regularly and frequently cele- brated, only five assigned any cause for its performance, one reported that " it was not a religious ceremony for the Hindoo," while the remaining fourteen ignored this aspect" of the matter entirely. Indeed, broadly speaking, it may be said that the only interest taken in it was an official and, in some instances, also a humanitarian one, and, this being the case, the chief, if not the sole, value attaching to the reports is statistical. Beyond all possibility of question they prove the extreme prevalency of the practice at that date over nearly the whole of the Madras Presidency.

Various explanations accounting for the performance of the rite were put forward by the five officers who touched at all upon this side of the question, viz. : —

1. In North Arcot the festival was celebrated in

honour of the village goddess.

2. In South Arcot those who were swung were

generally acting under a religious vow.

3. In Masulipatam the festival took place for the

purpose of propitiating the deity.