During the month of Phalgoonu, there is a festival in honor of Krishna, when the "Hindus spend the night in singing and dancing and wandering about the streets besmeared with the dolu (a red) powder, in the daytime carrying a quantity of the same powder about with them, which, with much noise and rejoicing, they throw over the different passengers they may meet in their rambles. Music, dancing, fireworks, singing, and many obscenities take place on this occasion."[317]
On pages 434-435 of my work, "Scatalogic Rites of all Nations," are to be found extracts from various authorities in regard to the Hindu feast of Holi or Hulica, in which this statement occurs: "Troops of men and women, wreathed with flowers and drunk with bang, crowd the streets, carrying sacks full of bright-red vegetable powder. With this they assail the passers-by, covering them with clouds of dust, which soon dyes their clothes a startling color."
"Red powder (gulál) is a sign of a bad design of an adulterous character. During the Holi holidays, the Maháráj throws gulál on the breasts of female and male devotees."[318]
"In India, the devotees throw red powder on one another at the festival of the Huli, or vernal equinox. This red powder, the Hindoos say, is the imitation of the pollen of plants, the principle of fructification, the flower of the plant."[319]
The women of the East Indies (Brahmins), on the 18th of January, celebrate a feast in honor of the goddess Parvati: "Leur but est d'obtenir une longue vie pour leurs maris, & qu'elles ne deviennent jamais veuves. Elles font une Image de Parvati avec de la farine de riz & du grain rouge qu'elles y mêlent; elles l'ornent d'habits & de fleurs & après l'avoir ainsi servie pendant neuf jours, elles la portent le dixiéme dans un Palenquin hors de la Ville. Une foule de femmes mariées la suivent, on la jette ensuite dans un des étangs sacrez, où on la laisse, & chacune s'en retourne chez elle."[320]
Speaking of the methods in use among the Lamas for curing disease, Rev. James Gilmour says: "Throwing about small pinches of millet seed is a usual part of such a service."[321]
Dr. W. W. Rockhill described to me a Tibetan festival, which includes a procession of the God of Mercy, in which procession there are masked priests, holding blacksnake whips in their hands, and carrying bags of flour which they throw upon the people.
The use of these sacred powders during so many different religious festivals and ceremonies would seem to resemble closely that made by the Apache of hoddentin and the employment of kunque by the Zuñi and others; and from Asia it would seem that practices very similar in character found their way into Europe. Of the Spanish witches it is related:
When they entered people's houses they threw a powder on the faces of the inmates, who were thrown thereby into so deep a slumber that nothing could wake them, until the witches were gone.... Sometimes they threw these powders on the fruits of the field and produced hail which destroyed them. On these occasions the demon accompanied them in the form of a husbandman, and when they threw the powders they said:
"Polvos, polvos,
Pierda se tado,
Queden los nuestros,
Y abrasense otros."[322]