“Small Hunt”
The opening of the village takes place in stages with the beginning of the hunting rituals, when the men leave the village. On the day of the small hunt (tingri bet), which follows the basi porbo, the paths are still closed, and the girls demand pajor. Visits between villages begin only with the “great hunt” (boro bet) on the following day. Besides the ongoing visiting and celebrating, two ritual events take place on the day of the small hunt. First, the village's small boys act out a hunt and bring down a “leaf stag” (dal somor); second, the pujari distributes seeds at the shrine of the village goddess.
The hunt complex is inaugurated by a staged ritual performance; both the time and the actors are designated by the boro dissari. An unmarried young woman (“village sister,” ga bouni) throws dung at a Gadaba man as he leaves his house with his ax and so drives him out of the village to hunt. The young boys then “arm” themselves with axes and sticks and leave the village to ascend a hill, accompanied by drumming. They act out beating the bushes for game, “bring down” the game in the form of some branches and shrubs (the “leaf stag”), and parade triumphantly into the village, their prize tied to carrying poles like real game. The wall around the hundi shrine is opened, and the boys dance around the village goddess in the inner space and finally lay their prize down before the shrine. Likewise in the inner space is the pujari’s wife, who lights incense and greets the hunters with tika. On the plaza in front of the village goddess, the men begin to dance demsa, soon joined by the women.
Late in the afternoon, the pujari goes with a winnowing fan of seeds[1] [2] to the village goddess's shrine, where many men and women have already gathered with new cloths and are crowding around the shrine’s outer wall. Within the wall, there remains only the village sister who had earlier cast dung to press for a hunt, along with the pujari. She now carries a new clay pot of water on her head.
In front of the closed shrine, the pujari sacrifices a red chick, after which he squats in front of the girl, who pours the water over him. As soon as he climbs on top of the village goddess's shrine, still dripping with water, and picks up his winnowing fan, the people in the crowd spread out their cloths. The pujari takes the seeds from the fan and throws them in all directions, and the men and women try to catch them with their cloths. Whoever succeeds returns home and ritually buries the seeds in the fields or gardens behind his house or scatters them on the manure pile (which later fertilizes the millet fields).
- [1] The following seeds are included: squash (kumda), rice (dan), millet (mandia and suen), andNiger seed (olsi). The seeds are supposed to come from the pujari’s house (not from bion utrani)and also from the houses of the Munduli.
- [2] This deity is associated with the village as a whole and is not identical with the stones keptin individual houses that bear the same name, as described above for the Kirsani.
