Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/71

Rh or some other good fortune. The officiating Brahman is remunerated by a house cess, and he marks the donors on the forehead with turmeric.

The Biyārs of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh "bury the old year" on the 13th of the light half of the month Pūs (29th December, 1913). They plant in the ground a stake of the cotton tree, and the Baiga, or village medicine-man, sets it alight. Stalks of barley are parched in the fire and eaten, and lumps of cow dung are thrown into the fire. Next day the ashes are thrown about, and people mark their foreheads with them. On the third day the men sing songs, and fling earth and cow dung at the women, and throw about coloured powder. The feast ends in general debauchery.

The Red Karens of Burma set up a new post in or near the village every year in the month of April. The old posts are left standing, and are not renewed if they fall into decay. After the erection of the post there is a rude Maypole dance round it to the accompaniment of drums and gongs, and much drinking and eating of pig. That observant traveller, Dr. John Fryer, writing of the Karnātak, says: "In their Hooly, which is at their other Seed-time, I observed they cut a whole Tree down to the Roots, and lopped off the under-Branches till it became strait, they shoulder'd it with great Clamour, the Brachmin beginning a Note which they all followed: Thus they brought it into the Pale of their Pagoda, before which, easing it down at one end, the foremost made a Salam, and hoisted it with the same Noise again, and about they went three or four times repeating the same; which being finished, the Arch-Brachmin digs an hole, and baptizes