the Hindu
celebrations.

We begin with the more popular New Year's, the Pongol:[41] The
interesting feature of this South India festival is that the Hindus
have done their best to alter its divinities and failed. They have,
indeed, for Indra and Agni got Krishna formally accepted as the god in
whose honor it is supposed to be held, but the feast remains a native
festival, and no one really thinks of the Puranic gods in connection
with it. Europe also has seen such dynamic alterations of divinities
in cases where feasts would insist till patrons of an orthodox kind
were foisted upon them to give an air of propriety to that which
remained heathenish.[42] The Pongol is a New Year's festival lasting
for three days. The first day is for Indra; the second, for (Agni)
S[=u]rya;[43] the third (to which is added, as a wind-up, a fourth
day), for cattle. The whole feast is a harvest-home and celebration of
cattle. The chief ceremony is the cooking of rice, which is put to
boil with great solemnity, and luck for the next year is argued from
its boiling well. If it does so a universal shout arises,[44] all rush
about, congratulate, and give presents to each other, and merry-making
follows. On the cattle-days the beasts are led about with painted
horns and decorated with ribbons, and are then chased and robbed by
the boys. The image of Ganeca is the only one seen, and his worship is
rather perfunctory. On the evening of the last day the women have a
party, paying obeisance to a peacock, and indulging in a family
reunion of very simple character. On this occasion the girl-wife may
return for a few hours to her mother. It is the only general fete for
women during the year.

Not unlike this festival of the extreme south is the New Year's
celebration at the mouth of the Ganges. Here there is a grand fair and
jewels are cast into the river as propitiation to the river-goddess.
Not long ago it was quite customary to fling children also into the
river, but this usage has now been abolished.[45] Offerings are made
to the Manes, general and particular, and to the All-gods. As with the
Pongol, the feast is one of good-fellowship where presents are
distributed, and its limit is the end of the third day. After this the
festivities have no religious character. Thousands of pilgrims
assemble for this fete. Wilson, who gives an account of this
celebration, compares the ancient Roman New Year's, with the _mutui
amoris pignora_ which were sent at