Indian Antiquary Vol 60

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

Page 218

190
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ OCTOBER, 1931
with a hearty feed and light lamps in the cattle shed at night, is really a festival of the Hinduized pastoral caste of Ahîrs. The Oraons have easily borrowed and assimilated that festival as it is in consonance with their own Gôensali Nád puja." The latter puja is this: "A fowl is fed on a handful of arua rice placed on the floor by the head of the family and then pushed outside (túkkô ôthôrná). The fowl is then sacrificed to the Gôensali Nád or Gohar Deotâ or Gônred by another man. While sacrificing the fowl the man says, "Hatram kala, etc., or 'Now I have sacrificed to thee. Go away, carrying with thee all sickness and sins. Do not afflict us with sickness and other calamities."" This is obviously a vicarious offering and suggests the idea of the scapegoat. The Bataks of Sumatra set free a swallow with a prayer that "the curse may fall upon the bird and fly away with it." The Greeks did the same with the swallow. Transference of sin, evil, curse or disease to an animal and then sacrificing it with a view to get rid of it, is a widely prevalent practice.
I make no apology for giving the following description of the Sohorai festival on account of its important bearing on the subject.
Mr. Roy says (pp. 230 ff.): "In the evening of the Amâwas or New Moon day in the month of Kartik, a number of newly made earthen lamps (kachcha dia) fed with oil, are lighted in all the rooms, cattle sheds, manure pits and kitchen gardens, upland fields and trees attached to the house of each Oraon family. The lamps, if possible, are kept burning the whole night. Incense (dhaan), if available, is also burnt in the cowshed. In each house a special meal is prepared for the cattle by boiling together úrid (Phaseolus Roxburghii), mâruá (Eleusine corocana), and bôdi (Vigna Catiang).
"On the following morning, at about 10 A.M., the cattle are bathed in some tank or pool or stream, and then taken into the family cattle shed, where some female member of the family sprinkles rice-beer on the hoofs of the cattle. The cattle are then given slices of the spiked tuber called of (Colocasia antiquorum) mixed with salt to eat, and are given a hearty feed of the arid, márud and bôdi grains boiled overnight. The horns, forehead and hoofs of the cattle are then anointed with vermilion diluted in oil.
"In a few families a fowl is then sacrificed to its presiding spirit Gordid or Gohar Deotá or cattle shed spirit, who is also sometimes called by the name of the Hindu goddess of wealth, Lachhmi. After the cattle have been thus fed, they are taken by the young bachelors (jônkhar) of the village to the village pasture ground or to some tanr or upland outside the basti or inhabited part of the village. There the village Ahir (Máhrds) or cattle herd with cowbell (tharki) in one hand and a staff in the other meets them.
"Some families who own buffaloes sacrifice to Gordid a black pig in the following manner. They first wash the hoofs of the buffaloes and anoint their horns and forehead with vermilion diluted in oil, then the pig is offered a handful of arud rice to feed on, and its feet are washed and its forehead anointed with vermilion diluted in oil and with rice flour moistened in water. The pig is then dragged over the ground and thus taken, struggling and squeaking, to the place where the buffaloes have been let loose. The buffaloes, excited and frightened by the squeaking and grunting of the pigs, gore the pig to death with their horns. Ordinarily the pig is purchased by subscription from all the villagers who may own buffaloes, and the ceremony is a public one.
"On this day and the following day, a few young Oraon boys, dressed from head to foot in straw and decked with flowers mainly surguja (Guizotia abyssinica), go from house to house playing on drums and dancing, begging for gifts of rice and other grains and vegetables as also coins, and drive away fleas and mosquitoes. One or two of them dress themselves in paddy straw like women with make-believe babies on their back. These boys are called dunda and their begging and flea-driving is known as dásá-másá."
(To be continued.)