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Let us glance at the ceremony as performed on a Tuesday night towards the
middle of the month of propitiation. In the darkest portion of the
_wadi_ stands a rude hut, containing the emblems of the Mother,
occupied for the time being by Rama Bhandari, who acts as a species of
medium between the goddess and his kinsmen. In front of the hut a space has
been cleared and levelled, flanked on one side by mats for the Bhandari
musicians, singers, drummers and cymbal-players, and on the other by four
or five chairs and a few wooden benches for the initiates in the mysteries;
and to the stems of several neighbouring trees lamps have been affixed
about five feet from the ground, which cast weird shadows across the
threshold of the goddess's home. Rama, the high-priest of this woodland
rite--a dark, thin man with a look of anxiety upon his face--enters the hut
with his assistant, Govind, while several fresh looking Bhandari boys take
up their position near the gong, cymbals, and drum, prepared when the hour
comes to hammer them with might and main. A pause--and Rama returns bearing
the symbol or idol of the Mother, followed by Govind carrying a lighted
saucer-lamp. The idol, for such we must perforce style it, is nothing more
nor less than a bright brass pot, full of water, set on a wooden stool
which is thickly covered with flowers. In the mouth of the water-pot rests
a husked cocoanut, with a hole in the upper end into which are thrust the
stems of a bouquet of jasmine, with long arms of jasmine hanging down on
either side. Now the water-pot is the shrine, the very home of Jarimari and
the thirty-eight cholera mothers. Behind the jasmine-wreathed stool Govind
places another stool bearing a tin tray full of uncooked rice, camphor, and
black and red scented powder; and close to it he piles the cocoanuts,
sugar, camphor, cakes, betel-nuts, and marigolds which the Bhandari
initiates have sent as an offering to Rama. He next produces a pile of
incense-sprinkled cinders, which he places in front of the goddess, and