Indian Antiquary Vol 60

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

Page 265

DECEMBER, 1931)
THE GAYDANR FESTIVAL AND ITS PARALLELS
235
THE GÂYDANR FESTIVAL AND ITS PARALLELS.
(A Bihar Cattle Festival and the Cult of the Mother Goddess.) BY KALI PADA MITRA, M.A., B.L., PRINCIPAL, D. J. COLLEGE, MONGHYR.
(Continued from page 190.) Mr. Roy gays that this festival of Sohorai—their only festival connected with cattlehas been adopted by the Oraons from the Hindûs. This being so, we can infer that some of the features connected with the Sohorai festival which are now not ordinarily found, or which probably for want of sufficient observation have not been described, or which have been forgotten, belonged to the original Hindu festival from which it has been derived. Anyway they are very interesting. The following points deserve notice
(1) The date for the celebration of the festival is the day following the new moon day of the month of Kartik-thus coinciding with the day of the Hindu festival.
(2) Illumination on the Amavasya day agrees with the Hindu festival, and garsí vrata in Bengal (which I shall describe later on).
(3) Bathing of the cattle in some tank or stream is also done in connection with the gârsí vrata.
(4) Worship, feeding and adorning of the cow agrees with the Hindû festival.
(5) Sacrifice of fowl to the cattle-shed spirit Go Deota, who is also called Lachhmi, is not found in the Hindu festival.
(6) Leading the cattle outside the basli, as the Goâlâs do in Shahabad and other places. (7) Sacrifice of a black pig in the same manner as in the gáydan!.
(8) Adorning the pig, washing its feet, anointing its forehead with vermilion, giving it arua rice to feed upon, etc.-Cf. adorning the pig with a chaplet of flowers and scattering achhat about its snout.
(9) The purchase of the pig by public subscription and the publicity of the ceremony, as in the Hindû festival.
(10) Dressing of Oraon boys from head to foot in straw and decoration with flowers.
(11) Going from house to house with music and dance and begging for gifts, as at Cawnpore at the Govardhan festival (see Crooke, op. cit., p. 261).
(12) Driving away fleas and mosquitoes, as in the garsí vrata, navánna, etc., to be described later on.
(13) Dressing in paddy-straw like women with make-believe babies on their back,
The last four practices may have originally belonged to the Hindû festival, but are now forgotten,
I will here comment on (1) the dressing of Oraon boys in straw, and (2) dressing in paddy. straw like women and bearing make-believe habies on the back.
(1) The practice of dressing up a person in straw, or sheaf of corn (generally the last sheaf) is widely prevalent, the meaning of which is to supply a human duplicate for the corn spirit. "In Silesia the binder, and in Bavaria the cutter of the last sheaf is tied up in it. Simi. larly & person wrapt in branches of leaves represents the tree spirit. The decoration of the straw-dressed Oraon boys with flowers points to the same idea.
(2) In most cases the cutting and binding of the last sheaf, or for the matter of that, the harvesting, seems to have been, partly at least, the woman's business. She was therefore dresged up in straw in the first instance and her nearest approach would be a male attired like a female in straw; and the straw babies were like the harvest child of north Germany, where a puppet is made of the last sheaf of corn, and the corn spirit is conceived as a child. The Oraon youth in straw dressed as a female may represent the old corn, and the straw baby, the new corn spirit, probably suggesting and thereby securing by symbolical magic uninterrupted agricultural fertility.
After the sacrifice of the pig, the procession of the straw-dressed Oraon boys went with music and dance from house to house collecting grain and money. Another thing deserves