50 The Dasahra :
under the sacred kaui tree {prosopis spicigerd), possibly with the intention of associating the boy with its vigorous hfe. The guests present gifts to the barber, and the child is bathed and dressed in new raiment.^^ In Nepal this is the time fixed for the renewal of the services of all State officials, and all private or domestic servants commence or terminate their employment on this day, masters rewarding those who have given satisfaction.^'* It is also the time for starting trade. Last year at the town of Najibabad in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, owing to a squabble between the Muhammadans and the Hindus, the latter insisting on parading the sacred steel quoits {cJiakrd) and flags at the Dasahra, the ceremonies were abandoned, and the Dasahra being the day on which all new accounts are opened, every Hindu shop was closed and all business was at a standstill until the British officers intervened and settled the dispute.^^ At Hoshangabad in the Central Provinces it is said that on the night before the Dasahra the Sunars or goldsmiths hold a feast by the river bank, and take an oath that they will not disclose the amount of alloy which any fellow-craftsman may fraudulently mix with the precious metals which he works into jewellery.^^ Harvest and sowing, as we have seen, begin on this day. As might have been expected, this sometimes disturbs the farmer's arrangements. Thus, in Hoshangabad sowing should begin at the Dasahra; but in this part of the country ploughing
- 'E. H. Aitken, Gazeileer of Sittd {igoj), vol. A, p. 214.
- H. A. Oldfield, op. cit. vol ii. p. 343 et seq. Among the Santals the
Magh-sim festival, held in the month of Magh, when the jungle grass is cut, marks the end of the year. Servants are paid their wages and fresh engage- ments are entered into. On this occasion all the village officials go through the form of resigning their appointments, and all the cultivators give notice of throwing up their lands. — H. H. Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal (1891), vol. ii. p. 233.
- 5 The Pioneer Mail, 7th October, 1913, p. 14.
^^Ethnographic Survey, Central Provinces, part viii. (1911), p. 91 ; Census Report, Central Provinces (1911), vol. i. p. 239.
