Читать книгу The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 3 - Robert Vane Russell - Страница 71

The original Gond festivals were associated with the first eating of the new crops and fruits. In Chait (March) a festival called Chaitrai is observed in Bastar. A pig or fowl with some liquor is offered to the village god, and the new urad and semi beans of the year’s crop are placed before him uncooked. The people dance and sing the whole night and begin eating the new pulse and beans. In Bhādon (August) is the Nawākhai or eating of the new rice. The old and new grain is mixed and offered raw to the ancestors, a goat is sacrificed, and they begin to eat the new crop of rice. Similarly when the mahua flowers, from which country spirit is made, first appear, they proceed to the forest and worship under a sāj tree.

Before sowing rice or millet they have a rite called Bījphūtni or breaking the seed. Some grain, fowls and a pig are collected from the villagers by subscription. The grain is offered to the god and then distributed to all the villagers, who sow it in their fields for luck.