Storia do Mogor 281.24.4

281.24.4

When this ceremonial is over, all the things included in the offerings are hung round the cows' necks, and thus decked out, they are paraded through the town in procession to the sound of drums and trumpets. The owners allow the devout to take each a little of the offerings and eat it ; this is considered correct ; or you may even keep some as a relic during the coming year, until another festival supervenes. Whatever of these offerings is left they convey by groups and throw into the ponds. After this is done the superstitious throw over each other the would-be sanctified and holy water. They consider it to have been sanctified by those plants, et cetera, which had touched the cow. Particular care is taken that these plants shall not touch the ground, for fear of their being thereby contaminated. Finally, as the last stage, several women follow the procession and carefully gather up the cow-dung to be made into the ashes of which I have spoken ; it is from this cow-dung that it must be made. Thus finishes the ceremony. The truth is that the Malabar Christians do not follow out all these details. Only, on the previous day, they deliver their cows to an ordinary cowherd, making him some small payment, in return for which he charges himself with the performance of the rites in the mode he thinks best. Others content themselves with reddening the cows' horns and heads and wetting them with saffron water. Then they are loosed, and take part in the procession.