Indian Antiquary Vol 60

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 216

188
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
OCTOBER, 1931
known to be jealous and vicious. My servant's reply was that it was for luck to the animal that he did it, and I believe he was quite right.
In the morning there had been a crude worship of the cows in the cowshed, at which the cows were fed and circular stamps were made with liquefied red ochre and a blue colour on their hides by means of earthen chilams (pipe-bowls made of baked clay), and the horns carefully painted with red ochre pounded in oil, technically called chumánd, or 'touching.'
On personal enquiry I have learnt that the festival is observed throughout the districts of Monghyr, Patna, Shahabad, Muzaffarpur, Saran and Manbhům. In the village of Kalyanpur, near Bariarpur, it is celebrated with much éclat, and buffaloes and elephants are brought out, besides cows that have recently calved. The trumpeting elephants catch up the pig and dash out its brains. In a Saran village a double enclosure is improvised by means of a low bamboo partition running east and west, at the northern side of which are marshalled the cows and at the southern the buffaloes, facing at the further end the dâhrá or dagra, i.e., the pig secured by cords. A third pig is bound by both the fore and hind pair of feet with stretched ropes placed in the hands of two or three Goalds standing at the opposite ends, east and west, who swing it from the north to the south enclosure and back again with thuds. They are good sized hogs. The size depends on the means of the local Goalas, and there seems to be no special significance in the smallness or bigness of the victims or in their number. The introduction of the elephant is merely for spectacular effect. At the SAran village, after the victims were gored to death, the names of Goraiya Baba and Jogi Bir were invoked. The Chamârs and Doms take away the carcases to feast on them. I am informed that in Shahâbâd when the animal survives the rough treatment, a pointed bamboo is thrust into its chest to despatch it finally.
Buchanan mentions that the Goalas of Bihar celebrate the festival at the divált, when they tie a pig by the foet and drive their cattle over the animal till it is crushed to death, after which they boil and eat the meat in the fields. Next day is the Govardhan, when women of all castes pray to a mass of cowdung made in human form and distribute the sacred dung to their relatives, “to whom at the same time they threaten death as impending from some accident which is considered as abuse," abusive language being a well-known prophylactic against evil.
I enquired of an experienced Goald in this neighbourhood if the Goalds do eat the meat of the pig killed in the gaydáns. He replied in the negative, saying it was not banaiyá or wild. On further enquiry it appeared that they do not now eat even the banaiya (wild) boar, not to speak of the gharaiya (domesticated) pig. On the other hand, a certain gentleman tells me that he heard that Goalas used to eat the meat, but the practice has been discontinued. My informant from Shahabad district tells me that even now the Goalås do eat the pig killed in the gáydant. First of all they roast the carcase and then, cutting it up, boil and eat the meat, all the Goalds sharing in the feast. And this is confirmed by Mr. Oldham. He (in the Indian Antiquary of August 1928, p. 137) says: “One of the most peculiar features of the festival as observed in Shahabad....is the eating of the pig after it has been killed. It is not a case of the wild boar, the flesh of which is relished by so many tribes and castes that are accustomed to the chase (among whom the Ahirs, moreover, cannot be classed): the pig in question is a village pig, the flesh of which is only eaten ordinarily by the most despised castes, regarded by all orthodox Hindös as quite outside the pale, and between whom and the Ahirs there is a wide gap." Speaking generally of the Ahirs' position in the social order, he says (p. 138): "These Ahirs as a general rule lead an orthodox life, and except on the occasion of this particular festival I have never heard of their eating village pig."
1 Martin's Eastern India, vol. I, p. 194 ff. · W. Crooke, Religion and Folklore of Northern India, Oxford, 1926, pp. 260, 261, (The italics are mine.)