52 The Dasahra :
"a religious or magical rite specially designed to bestow fertility on women as well as to ensure a supply of game and rain." ^ It is a good start for the season's hunting on which many of these tribes depend. We have seen that part of the Dasahra rites is the expedition to a sacred tree, at which arrows are shot, and the leaves are carried away as trophies,'^ possibly symbols of a good season for raids and sport. In the Konkan the village headman, when the time comes for manuring the rice fields, opens the season by plucking a leaf from the tree occupied by a spirit, a feat which no one else dares to perform ; he also takes the com- mand in the annual hunt, and offers part of the game at the village spirit-shrine.'^ The Badagas of Madras, just before the ploughing begins, catch two fowls in a net, and make a pretence of spearing them. Then the net is fixed in a game-path in the jungle, and some wild animals, a sdnibhar stag {cervus unicolor), if possible, is driven into it and slain, the flesh being divided among the villagers.^ The dates of these annual hunts are not clearly defined, but generaWy occur in spring and autumn, both critical periods for farming. The Santals used to have their hunt in the hot season, just before the rains broke, but violent thunderstorms interfered with it, and some beaters were killed by lightning. So they fixed it earlier in the year, in May. The dates, however, vary in different parts of their country. While the goodman is hunting, his wife is obliged to keep looking into a bowl of water till, to her eyes, it turns into blood, which ensures a successful result — a good piece of sympathetic magic. Before the hunt sacrifices are offered, apparently to the forest gods, the headman is tied to a tree, only his hands being left loose to enable him to concentrate his attention on his magic-working. In the evening there is a council to decide tribal affairs with much
'* Totemism and Exogamy (1910), vol. iii. p. 200, note 2. '*P. 2,6, supra. ^ Folk- Lore, vol. xxii. (1911), p. 230.
•*E. Thurston, op. cit. vol. i. p. lor.
