The people of New Britain, according to Weisser (as quoted by Ploss and
Bartels), carefully guard their young girls from the young men. At certain
times, however, a loud trumpet is blown in the evening, and the girls are
then allowed to go away into the bush to mix freely with the young men. In
ancient Peru (according to an account derived from a pastoral letter of
Archbishop Villagomez of Lima), in December, when the fruit of the
_paltay_ is ripe, a festival was held, preceded by a five days' fast.
During the festival, which lasted six days and six nights, men and women
met together in a state of complete nudity at a certain spot among the
gardens, and all raced toward a certain hill. Every man who caught up with
a woman in the race was bound at once to have intercourse with her.
Very instructive, from our present point of view, is the account given by
Dalton, of the festivals of the various Bengal races. Thus the Hos (a
Kolarian tribe), of Bengal, are a purely agricultural people, and the
chief festival of the year with them is the _magh parah_. It is held in
the month of January, "when the granaries are full of grain, and the
people, to use their own expression, full of devilry." It is the festival
of the harvest-home, the termination of the year's toil, and is always
held at full moon. The festival is a _saturnalia_, when all rules of duty
and decorum are forgotten, and the utmost liberty is allowed to women and
girls, who become like bacchantes.
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