Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/153

Rh case it is held about the time when the moon goes down, and in the latter before the moon appears on the top of a mountain. When the day of the ceremony is fixed by the chief, the men of the group first go out hunting, and the game killed is kept for the coming feast, while the women are engaged in pounding rice and millet and preparing liquor. On the afternoon before the feast day new fire is prepared in each house and communication with other houses is suspended. In the meantime the following tabu, called Pijiri, must be observed. New fire is made by means of friction, and the pump-drill is used for this purpose. This fire must be kept until the feast days are over, during which period it is not allowed to be lent to others. It is also tabu to touch hemp, needles, or spinning wheels, and every household puts hemp and hemp string in a storeroom before the feast day. Members of the group engaged in the ritual are not allowed to communicate with the outside world during the period. A member of the family who is absent must return, and a visitor to the family must go home on the day before the feast. Any new arrival during the feast must stay outside the village or in a neighbouring village till the feast is over. A man who violates this rule is killed or has to pay compensation. No one is allowed to use a needle, drill, comb, or knife made of metal. If such things must be used they are made of bamboo.

On the first day of the feast hundreds of small round pastes are prepared at the chief's house, and when the night arrives a man from each family in the group assembles at his house. When these men arrive the chief starts from his house, accompanied by a man or two, towards the east or west, the direction being determined each year. The party carries torches and a bamboo basket, in which seeds of rice, millet and sorghum, pastes, and a piece of boar's meat are placed, with a bamboo tube containing spirits, while the chief carries a small hoe in his hand. When the party