7 2 The Holi : a Vernal Festival of the Hindus.
The last of the distinctive Holi observances is the pro- cession. These processions seem to be practically confined to Western and Central India. At Ajmer, the Oswal merchants have a procession, in which a man known as the Rao or "Chief" is dressed up as a bridegroom and, seated on a cot, is carried in procession through their quarter. Men and women pour red water through syringes on the Rao, who carries an open umbrella to ward off the deluge. At Beawar in Rajputana, a similar figure, called Badshah, " King," is led through the streets amidst singing and dancing, and is pelted with red powder. After the fete the Badshah in his robes is taken to pay his respec-ts to the British Magistrate.^" Another observer thus describes the scene in Central India : — " The most remarkable incident of the day was a procession. . . . The principal figure in it was a fat merchant, who, after having been fully intoxicated, represented the companion of Holica. Bestriding a small donkey, his face smeared with ochre, a string of the most heterogeneous objects round his neck, and his head covered with flowers, he moved along, held upon the donkey by two staggering acolytes ; and behind him came the travesty of a royal parasol, made out of the bottom of an old basket fastened on to a cane. His cortege consisted of a drunken and vociferous crowd of half-naked men and women, who howled and rolled themselves on the ground, like the chorus of the antique Silenus, and naked children, decked with flowers, ran in front, blowing earthenware horns or beating cracked tomtoms [drums]. In this order the procession traversed the mela, or fair, swollen by all the vagabonds on its route, and assailed by a shower of harmless projectiles, such as sacks of purple powder or rotten fruit. When it reached the plain a halt was made, and the crowd danced round the pseudo-Silenus, indulging in plentiful libations of the mowrah spirit." *^'^ In Bombay, one of the most notable
^^ Gazetteer A jnier-Menvara (1904), p. 40.
®^ L. Rousselet, India audits Native Princes (1878), p. 345, with a drawing.
