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RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
through syringes, using, at the same time, abusive and obscene language. In the villages, the men generally take part in the mischief, and persons of respectability and females are encountered with gross expressions, or sometimes with rough usage, and rarely, therefore, trust themselves out of their houses whilst the license continues.
The people of Orissa have no bonfire at the Dola Yátrá, but they observe the swinging and the scattering of the abíra; they have also some peculiar usages. Their Gosáins, Bralımans, followers of Chaitanya, carry in procession the images of the youthful Krishna to the houses of their disciples and their patrons, to whom they present some of the red powder and atr of roses, and receive presents of money and cloth in return.
The caste of Gopas, or cowherds, is everywhere prominently conspicuons in this ceremony, and especially so amongst the Uriyas; and at the Dola Yátrá, or Holí, they not only renew their own garments, but all the harness and equipments of their cattle; they also bathe them and paint their foreheads with sandal and turmeric. They themselves collect in parties, each under a leader or cliorægus, whom they follow through the streets, singing, and dancing, and leaping, as if wild with joy. A curious part of their proceeding, snggesting analogies, possibly accidental, with some almost obsolete usages amongst ourselves, is their being armed with slender wands; and as they go along, the leader every now and then
