When
the festivities were over, all the people gathered together and
expelled the spirits from the village by shouting, beating the posts
of the houses, and overturning everything under which a wily spirit
might be supposed to lurk. The explanation which the people gave to
a missionary was that they had entertained and feasted the spirits
and provided them with riches, and it was now time for them to take
their departure. Had they not seen the dances, and heard the songs,
and gorged themselves on the souls of the yams, and appropriated the
souls of the money and all the other fine things set out on the
platform? What more could the spirits want? So out they must go.
Among the Hos of North-Eastern India the great festival of the year
is the harvest home, held in January, when the granaries are full of
grain, and the people, to use their own expression, are full of
devilry. "They have a strange notion that at this period, men and
women are so overcharged with vicious propensities, that it is
absolutely necessary for the safety of the person to let off steam
by allowing for a time full vent to the passions.
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