head, with four or more faces, overshadowed by yaks’ tails, like huge plumes of
dark or scarlet wool. Sometimes the whole structure is adorned with faces of
polished metal, which gleam and reflect like mirrors in the sun. Moreover, it is
usually draped all around with a deep fringe of silky white yaks’ tails, depending
almost to the ground, and concealing the bodies of the bearers, so that the
tabernacle seems to crawl along upon its own feet.
To the service of the temple certain people are set apart in every village. In the
morning they sound an alarm in honour of the god with bell, and conch, and
cymbal, and again in the evening with a similar din they announce the close of
day. Ablutions are ignored by the villagers in their own case, but they will have
their goddess washed and dressed daily. They burn incense before her, and serve
her with offerings of leaves of wild mint.
Occasionally, all the tribes assemble at a religious festival, and each village
sends forth its ark, with the men and women attired in their brightest colours,
and glittering with all their jewels. The various processions, with dance and song
and gambol, proceed towards the appointed rendezvous; one of their little
temples, of rudely carved cedar-wood, situated in the calm shade of a group of
forest-trees. Near this temple is usually prepared a neatly-levelled space, covered
with green turf, or, perhaps, paved; and here the Khudas, or arks, are solemnly
deposited. For three days the festivities are kept up, and the sound of singing and
dancing seems continuous. Every now and then each village-company raises its
Khuda from the ground, and carries it in a little circle, sunwise, while the
nodding plumes seem to keep time to the rude chant of the simple worshippers,
and an outer ring of men, joining hands, follow the rhythm in fantastic dance.
Then the idol is set down; the people prepare their homage; the dance goes on;
and the women, in a long undulating chain, sunwise revolve around the mystic
Khuda.
Each woman, throwing one arm around her neighbour’s waist, keeps the other
free, and waves a plume-like chowni or yak’s tail, as she bows to the Khuda.
They do not all wave simultaneously, but in swift succession, so as to produce
the effect of a continuous graceful motion. If one of the women retire, from
fatigue, another slips into her place: sometimes the men form the circle, then
both men and women join, always carrying on the same evolutions, the same
circular motion. At nightfall the huge fires are kindled, and the lurid gleams of
pine-wood torches flicker athwart the darkness, while the echoes ring incessantly
with the monotonous clang of great trumpet-shells and tomtoms.