Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/85

 The Holi: a Vci'nal Festival of tlw Hindus, 'j'x,

observances at the Holi festival is the Varghoda, or " Bride- groom inounted on a horse " procession of the Pathari Prabhus, who are Government servants, clerks, and pleaders. On this day a beggar boy was selected to act the part of bridegroom {inir). He was mounted on a horse with his face to the tail and decked in tinsel. He paraded the city followed by a line of carts full of men disguised as dancing-girls, monkeys, and the like, and with persons dressed to represent popular and unpopular citizens or countrymen, and bearing appropriate mottoes and legends. ^■- By another account, the part of bridegroom was taken by a Brahman, who was paid five rupees for the performance. He was dressed in a coat (jdnia), and wore a cone-shaped, snuff-coloured turban, and rode on a horse, with a very long Chinese umbrella over his head. Some years ago the dis- orderly conduct at the procession led to its prohibition by the police authorities, but this was withdrawn in deference to an appeal by the Prabhu community. For seven years the procession was discontinued owing to the ravages of plague. I am not informed that it has since that time been revived.''"^^

We are at once reminded by these processions of the Persian Ride of the Beardless One, which has recently been discussed by Dr. Frazer.^* An early account is that of Albiruni : ^■' " BaJiar-casJui, the feast of the Riding of Alkmisaj. This day was the beginning of spring at the time of the Kisras. Then a thin-bearded (Kausaj) man used to ride about, fanning himself with a fan to express his rejoicing at the end of the cold season and the coming of the warm season. This custom is in Persia still kept up

®- Gazetteer Bombay City and Island (1909), vol. i., pp. 175 <;/ seq.

^^Balaji Sitaram Kothare, Hindu Holidays (1904), p. 99.

^ The Golden Bough, 3rd edition. Part vi. (1913), The Scapegoat, pp. 402 ct seq. : Sir R. Burton, A Thotisand Nights and a N'ight (1893), vol. iii., p. 93 «., quoting Richardson, Dissertation, p. Iii.


 * ^ The Chronology of Ancient Nations (1879), p. 211.