Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/88

 76 The Holi : a Vernal Festival of the Hindus.

baton dance {tipria), in which twenty or thirty young men move in a circle to the sound of a drum and pipe, each armed with a bludgeon, which they clash alternately against the sticks of the dancers before and behind them. Besides dancing, they play games, such as Tiger and Sheep, Fox and Dog, and Prisoner's Base. They also wrestle and perform feats of strength at the stone which embodies the demon Vetala.'^ When we remember the probable origin of the term Holi, and that a part of the rite is bawling and beating the mouth with the back of the hand, which elsewhere seems to be a sign of mourning,'^ we may suspect that this is the wailing for the death of a vegetation deity, whose image has been consumed in the fire, perhaps combined with rejoicings for his resurrection, the orgiastic ritual of the present day disguising the primitive form of the observance.

Lastly, divination is practised by observing the smoke of the Holi fire. This is an ancient practice, since in the Atharvaveda we find mention of a functionary, known as "He of the Dung-smoke" (Sakadhuma), who used to predict weather for a traveller by observing the smoke of burning cow dung.'^ Omens are also taken from the smoke of the fire-sacrifice {Jiomd), and in Borneo from that of the funeral pyre."'' In Gujarat, on the morning of the third of the light fortnight of the month Baisakh, a man sits in the open with a burning cow-dung cake in his hand. If the smoke moves towards the sun, there will be heavy rain ; if it forms a wreath and passes high over his head, there will

"^^ Bombay Gazetteer, vol. xviii. (1885), Part i., p. 293.

■^-J. G. Frazer, The Scapegoat, pp. 135, 207.

" M. Bloomfield, Hymn of the Atha}~'aveda, Sacred Books of the East, vol. xlii. (1897), p. 532. But this interpretation is not free from difficulty. A. A. Macdonell and A. B. Keith, Vedic Index of Names etc., vol. ii. p. 346.

'^ North Indian Notes and Queries, vol. v. (1896), p. 199 ; H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo {iSg6), vol. i., p. 1 37. For divination at Midsummer rites, see J. G. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 2nd ed. (1907), pp. 210 ef seq.