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means of the presenter, and the station of those to whom they are presented.
RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
In many places in Bengal a curious practice is observed, called Báwanna bandhana, particularly by the females of the family. In the evening, one of the women takes a wisp of straw, and from the bundle picks out separate straws, which she ties singly to every article of furniture in the house, exclaiming "Bawanna pauti", implying, may the measure of corn be increased fifty-two fold,—pauti denoting a measure of grain. In the villages similar straws are attached to the Golas, or thatched granaries, in which the grain of the preceding harvest has been stored*.
Besides these private ceremonies, which expressively typify the feelings of satisfaction with which the re-approch of the sun was hailed by a people to whom the principal phenomena of the heavens were familiar, there are also public celebrations of the same event, expressing similar sentiments, but deriving a more local and peculiar complexion from the physical circumstances of the country, and the superstitions of its inhabitants.
According to the Kalpa Druma of Jayasinha, upon the authority of the Padma Purána, the whole month of Mágha is especially consecrated to Vishnu, to whom and to the Sun also prayers should be daily addressed,
*
[A similar enstom is met with in some parts of Germany; see A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, "Norddeutsche Sagen", Leipzig: 1848, p. 407. A. Wuttke, "Der deutsche Volksaberglaube ", Hamburg: 1860, p. 13 f.]
