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women carry cattle-dung manure to their fields. It is not permissible, to cut down trees or manure the fields until the new mango blossoms have come out and the Māgh-jātrā festival in January as well as the Am-nua ceremony, which follows shortly afterwards, have been performed, and paddy cannot be sown unless the Tirtia-muți ceremony has been celebrated in Baisakh (April). These ceremonies will be described in a subsequent chapter. Women are not allowed to cut trees or plough the fields, but they may break clods of earth in the fields; this is generally done with axe-handles. In these months also the men cut down from the jungles trees which are taken to their fields and burnt for ash-manure; and men and more particularly women dig for edible roots, yams and tubers. As soon as there is a shower of rain the men plough their fields; and then again when the weather is dry they bring to the fields wood for burning into manure or apply cattle-dung manure to the fields. In the months of Chait and Baisakh (MarchMay) men also go out to hunt deer, wild pigs or other animals. Between March and May, when the streams are almost dry, boys and men catch fish with their hands. Boys and girls give such help to their parents as they can in household and field work. They also draw water and look after the cattle. Between the months of Magh and Baisakh the work of repairing and building of houses is also undertaken. In Baisakh and Jaiṣṭho (April-June) the fields are sown by the men with paddy, the uplands being sown after the lowlands, if any. In Aṣarh (July) transplantation is made in the bil lands, if any, men and women both taking part in the operations, but the subsequent reploughing and levelling of the fields are the business of the men alone. In Sraban and Bhādo (August-September) both men and women weed the rice fields. In Bhado (August) gōra or upland rice is harvested and rāsi (sesamum), makāi (maize) and a few other grains and vegetables are sown on the uplands; and wet lands, if any, are embanked to store water in them. In Aswin (September-October) both men and women harvest the gōra (upland) rice, and in Kartik (October) the bil

(lowland) rice, if any. In Aghan (November) the harvested lowland rice is threshed and winnowed. Such is the yearly routine. The period between the sprouting of the crops and the harvesting is one of great anxiety and sleepless vigilance. Most of the male population of a village have to be in their fields at night to protect the crops from the ravages of wild elephants, bears and other animals. A kind of rude scaffolding is perched on some tree in the field to serve as the resting-place of the watchers, and logs of wood are kept burning at the foot of the tree where the men by turns warm themselves. In the day-time women too may be seen helping the men to protect the ripening corn from birds and beasts. On a day in October when I arrived at noon at a Pābṛi settlement of about forty families, I found the whole adult male population and many of the women thus engaged in their fields.

This arduous round of duties is, however, relieved now and then by pūjās and festivals which mark the termination of one stage of labour and the beginning of another, such as the Māgh-jātrā festival in January when old fire in all the houses is extinguished and new fire is ceremonially kindled by friction of two pieces of wood by the Dihuri with eyes covered over with riceflour cakes, all the villagers kindle their own new fire from this sacred fire and rice is boiled in milk over it and offered to the ancestor spirits. It is only after this ceremony that the forest trees may be felled. The Am-nuã festival of the new mango blossoms is celebrated in February, after which alone the fields may be manured; the Tirtia-muți festival in April on which day sowing operations have to be commenced with a ceremonial sowing; the Ashāri Pūjā in July when sacrifices are offered to the tutelary deities (Gram-Sri, etc.) for rains and good crops, and the Bihiṛā Pūjā at the same time after which alone transplantation of lowland rice may be undertaken; the Gāmhā Punai festival in August when the Pabri celebrates his temporary respite from agricultural labours by making a feast of rice-flour cakes and other delicacies and giving absolute rest for two days to the cattle of the village, washing their hoofs, besmearing their forehead and horns with

sesamum oil and pounded turmeric and giving them raw rice as well as fried rice (khai) to eat and burning earthen lamps at night in the cattle-sheds; the Bar and Nua-khāi festivals in September when with appropriate ceremonies the first sheaves of upland rice are reaped by each cultivator from his field and new rice eaten after offering the same to the gods; and finally in some villages the Karam-jātra festival in October or November and the Pous jātrā festival in December, both pure festivals of rejoicing and merriment, the former after the harvesting but before the threshing of the rice crops and the latter after the rice has been harvested, threshed and garnered. These feasts and festivals will be described in detail in a subsequent chapter.

During respite from field labours men make gourd drinking vessels, bamboo sticks and bows, wooden pestles, mortars and the threshing apparatus called dhenki; and in the winter and spring their girls weave mats of wild date palms (Flix sylvestris). The girls of a village go in a body to the jungles and collect date-palm leaves and sal leaves, and gather yams for food and dry leaves for fuel. Women make cups and plates of the sal leaves. From Magh (January) to Baiśākh (April), bachelors and maidens often visit other villages for dancing. When at home they dance at the darbar ground after the evening meal. Bachelors sleep together in the Manda-ghar save in the months of Bhadra, Aswin and Kartik (middle of August to middle of November) when they mostly guard their kāmān cultivation.

The following is the programme of a day's work that was gone through by a Pabri family during my visit to their village in October. The family consisted of Chandan Pābṛi, his wife and a younger brother. As they had harvested their gōṛā paddy and had no wet cultivation they were not required to guard their fields. At cockerow the two brothers got up, washed their faces, lighted a sal-leaf cigarette (phikā) ia the fire that is always kept burning in the house so long as there is anyone in it. Then Chandan and his brother took a plough and went to the threshing floor where they threshed gōṛā rice. Chandan's wife, who had a baby in her arms, got up shortly after her husband,

washed her face and went with a winnowing basket to the threshing floor, and husked the threshed rice. The men tied up the rice in a bundle (het) which the woman carried home on her head. Chandan's wife then prepared the mid-day meal which consisted of boiled rice and baitaṛu, or pumpkin sliced and boiled in water. After all had had their midday bath the men first took their meals and then the women. Chandan and his wife then went to the jungle, the former to collect fuel-wood and the latter to dig for yams, of which different varieties are used for food, and to gather such fruits as jungle-figs (dumar), parai, jaulua, etc. On their return home, the woman boiled rice and sag-leaves for the evening meal. After taking their meals they went to sleep,-the husband apart from the wife, as custom forbids a Pabri Bhuiya to sleep with his wife so long as she continues to suckle her baby.

VII.-Ho Riddles.

(Continued from page 358, volume II.)

By Girindra Nath Sarkar, B. A.
kui hende

23. Asel

chatu

dupilānā. Of fair complexion a girl black an earthen pot carried on

her head.

Adan redom chikānā mār [kājime7.

If you know what it is

say.

[Translation.]

A girl of fair complexion carried a black earthen pot on her head. If you know, say what it is.

Answer. Soso * (a marking nut).
24. Jiam doya kām

dāiā
Grandmother's back not [you] climb up can
Adān redom chikānā mār [kājime].
If you know what it is, say

[Translation.]

You cannot climb up [your] grandmother's back. If you know, say what it is.

Answer.-Ginil (a wall).

25. Jiam tikitā

ā

kām

ud dāiā

Grandmother cooked pot-herb not [you] devour can Adan redom chikānā mār [kājime].

If you know what it is say.

[Translation.]

You cannot devour pot-herb cooked [by] grandmother. If you know, tell me what it is.

Answer.-Bo2-ub1 (hair1 of the head2).

* The answer to riddle No. 12 published in the last issue of the "Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society "is Songsong. Both Sonsong and Soso are used by the Hos to mean a marking nut.

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