All the rice thus plucked by him he dries
along with his own, and then gives it back to the respective owners,
who have it ground and boiled. When it is boiled the women take it
back, with an egg, to the priest, who offers the egg in sacrifice
and returns the rice to the women. Of this rice every member of the
family, down to the youngest child, must partake. After this
ceremony every one is free to get in his rice.
Amongst the Burghers or Badagas, a tribe of the Neilgherry Hills in
Southern India, the first handful of seed is sown and the first
sheaf reaped by a Curumbar, a man of a different tribe, the members
of which the Burghers regard as sorcerers. The grain contained in
the first sheaf "is that day reduced to meal, made into cakes, and,
being offered as a first-fruit oblation, is, together with the
remainder of the sacrificed animal, partaken of by the Burgher and
the whole of his family, as the meat of a federal offering and
sacrifice." Among the Hindoos of Southern India the eating of the
new rice is the occasion of a family festival called Pongol.
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