fire on each occasion are gathered by the people and preserved in the
house of the master of the ceremonies.[22]

[The ceremony apparently intended to fertilize the mango trees.]

The meaning of these ceremonies is not explained by the authorities who
describe them; but we may conjecture that they are intended to fertilize
the mango trees and cause them to bear a good crop of fruit. The central
feature of the whole ritual is a wild mango tree, so young that it has
never flowered: the men who cut it down, carry it into the village, and
dance at the festival, are forbidden to eat mangoes: pigs are killed in
order that their dying squeals may move the mango trees to bear fruit:
at the end of the ceremonies pieces of young green mangoes are solemnly
placed in the mouths of the fasting men and are by them spurted out
towards the setting sun in order that the luminary may carry the
fragments to every part of the country; and finally when after a longer
or shorter interval the tree is wholly consumed, its place is supplied
by another. All these circumstances are explained simply and naturally
by the supposition that the young mango tree is taken as a
representative of mangoes generally, that the dances are intended to
quicken it, and that it is preserved, like a May-pole of old in England,
as a sort of general fund of vegetable life, till the fund being
exhausted by the destruction of the tree it is renewed by the
importation of a fresh young tree from the forest. We can therefore
understand why, as a storehouse of vital energy, the tree should be
carefully kept from contact with the ground, lest the pent-up and
concentrated energy should escape and dribbling away into the earth be
dissipated to no purpose.

[Sacred objects of various sorts not allowed to touch the ground.]