priest or elders, and with prayers for the departed and for the vouchsafing of seasonable rain and good crops.  The religious ceremonies over, the people give themselves up to feasting and to drinking the home-made beer, the preparation of which from fermented rice is one of a girl’s chief accomplishments.  “The Ho population,” wrote Dalton, “are at other seasons quiet and reserved in manner, and in their demeanor toward women gentle and decorous; even in their flirtations they never transcend the bounds of decency.  The girls, though full of spirits and somewhat saucy, have innate notions of propriety that make them modest in demeanor, though devoid of all prudery, and of the obscene abuse, so frequently heard from the lips of common women in Bengal, they appear to have no knowledge.  They are delicately sensitive under harsh language of any kind, and never use it to others; and since their adoption of clothing they are careful to drape themselves decently, as well as gracefully; but they throw all this aside during the magh feast.  Their nature appears to undergo a temporary change.  Sons and daughters revile their parents in gross language, and parents their children; men and women become almost like animals in the indulgence of their amorous propensities.  They enact all that was ever portrayed by prurient artists in a bacchanalian festival or pandean orgy; and as the light of the sun they adore, and the presence of numerous spectators, seems to be no restraint on their indulgence, it cannot be expected that chastity is preserved when the shades of night fall on such a scene of licentiousness and debauchery.”  While, however, thus representing the festival as a mere debauch, Dalton adds that relationships formed at this time generally end in marriage.  There is also a flower festival in April and May, of religious nature, but the dances at this festival are quieter in character.[133]

In Burmah the great festival of the year is the full moon of October, following the Buddhist Lent season (which is also the wet season), during which there is no sexual intercourse.  The other great festival is the New Year in March.[134]

In classical times the great festivals were held at the same time as in northern and modern Europe.  The brumalia took place in midwinter, when the days were shortest, and the rosalia, according to early custom in May or June, and at a later time about Easter.  After the establishment of Christianity the Church made constant efforts to suppress this latter festival, and it was referred to by an eighth century council as “a wicked and reprehensible holiday-making.”  These festivals appear to be intimately associated with Dionysus worship, and the flower-festival of Dionysus, as well as the Roman Liberales in honor of Bacchus, was celebrated in March with worship of Priapus.  The festivals of the Delian Apollo and of Artemis, both took place during the first week in May and the Roman Bacchanales in October.[135]