" The ceremonies
open with a sacrifice to the village god of three fowls, a cock and
two hens, one of which must be black. Along with them are offered
flowers of the palas tree (_Butea frondosa_), bread made from
rice-flour, and sesamum seeds. These offerings are presented by the
village priest, who prays that during the year about to begin they
and their children may be preserved from all misfortune and
sickness, and that they may have seasonable rain and good crops.
Prayer is also made in some places for the souls of the dead. At
this time an evil spirit is supposed to infest the place, and to get
rid of it men, women, and children go in procession round and
through every part of the village with sticks in their hands, as if
beating for game, singing a wild chant, and shouting vociferously,
till they feel assured that the evil spirit must have fled. Then
they give themselves up to feasting and drinking rice-beer, till
they are in a fit state for the wild debauch which follows. The
festival now "becomes a saturnale, during which servants forget
their duty to their masters, children their reverence for parents,
men their respect for women, and women all notions of modesty,
delicacy, and gentleness; they become raging bacchantes.
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