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.
When they have expended all their energies the revellers bring the festival to a close, and each village-company bears back its patron-goddess to her own little sanctuary.
Whether, as some surmise, this ceremony is associated with any tradition of Noah's Ark, we cannot pretend to determine. But it is certain that some legends of the Flood still linger among the hillmen. There is a popular myth which tells of a mighty ship built by Manu and the Seven Sages, in which they stored the seed of all kinds of life, and of its being rescued by Brahma when the Deluge overwhelmed the primitive earth. Brahma, it says, drew the great vessel for many days until he reached a high peak of the Himalayas, where he moored it securely. In memory whereof, the peak has ever since borne the name of _Naubandhana_.
Mr. W. Simpson, who has seen much of India and the Indians, describes an Ark-festival which he witnessed in a Himalayan valley. After indulging in the usual ceremonial ablutions, the people of the district assembled at the village of Coatee to do honour to its patron-goddess. The Khuda was brought out, and with dance and music, conducted in noisy procession through the deep shades of the forest and its lonesome glens, until they reached a certain grove, in which a small temple was situated. The Khuda was then deposited on the paved space in front; and an aged priest washed all the brazen faces with mint leaves and water previous to offering up incense, flowers, fruit, and bread.
A number of playful young kids were next brought forward. The priest sprinkled them with water. On the ground lay a large flat brazen dish, and one of the villagers stood beside it with a sacred hatchet, rudely ornamented. At a single blow he struck off the head of a kid. The priest's assistant raised the head, and muttering certain words, presented it to the Khuda. Dipping his finger into the blood, he flicked some drops upon the carven image, and placed the head with the other offerings. Meanwhile, the kid's body had been so disposed that all its blood dripped into the brazen vessel; and when two or three animals had been sacrificed and the dish was full, one of the men lifted it up, and, first presenting it to the Khuda, turned round, and swang the body against the whitewashed wall of the temple, so as to empty it of blood. This ceremony was thrice repeated.