Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 1.djvu/66

Rh as if they belonged to one body. The Coles have musical voices, and a great variety of simple melodies.

The dances are seen to greatest advantage at the great periodical festivals called "Jatras." These are held at appointed places and seasons, and when the day comes, all take a holiday and proceed to the spot in their best array. The approach of the groups from the different villages, with their banners and drums, vaktails, waving horns, and cymbals sounding, marshalled into alternate ranks of boys and girls, all keeping perfect step and "dress"—boys and girls, with headdresses of feathers and with flowers in their hair, the numerous brass ornaments of the young men glittering in the sun—has a very pleasing effect.

In large villages where there are Oraons, or a mixture of Oraons and Moondahs, there is a building opening on the "arena" called a "Dhoomcooriah," in which all the unmarried men and boys of the village are obliged to sleep. Anyone absenting himself and sleeping elsewhere in the village is fined. In this building the flags, musical instruments, and other " property " used at the festivals, are kept. They have a regular system of fagging in the "Dhoomcooriah." The small boys have to shampoo the limbs of their luxurious masters, and obey all orders of the elders, who also systematically bully them, to make them, as is alleged, hardy. In some villages the unmarried girls have a house to themselves, an old woman being appointed, as a duenna, to look after them.

There is very little restriction on the social intercourse between the young men and the girls. If too close an intimacy be detected, the parties are brought before the "Purha" and fined, and if the usual arrangements can be effected, they are made to marry. If a girl is known to have gone astray with a "Dikko," or stranger, she is turned out of the village, and will not be allowed to associate with her former companions, unless her parents can afford to pay a very heavy fine for her re-admission, and then the damsel must submit to have her head shaved, as a punishment to her and warning to others. (Information supplied by Major Dalton.)