(M220) Thus we see that people swing in order to procure a plentiful supply of fish and game as well as good crops. In such cases the notion seems to be that the ceremony promotes fertility, whether in the vegetable or the animal kingdom; though why it should be supposed to do so, I confess myself unable to explain. There seem to be some reasons for thinking that the Indian rite of swinging on hooks run through the flesh of the performer is also resorted to, at least in some cases, from a belief in its fertilising virtue. Thus Hamilton tells us that at Karwar, on the west coast of India, a feast is held at the end of May or beginning of June in honour of the infernal gods, “with a divination or conjuration to know the fate of the ensuing crop of corn.” Men were hung from a pole by means of tenter-hooks inserted in the flesh of their backs; and the pole with the men dangling from it was then dragged for more than a mile over ploughed ground from one sacred grove to another, preceded by a young girl who carried a pot of fire on her head. When the second grove was reached, the men were let down and taken off the hooks, and the girl fell into the usual prophetic frenzy, after which she unfolded to the priests the revelation with which she had just been favoured by the terrestrial gods. In each of the groves a shapeless black stone, daubed with red lead to stand for a mouth, eyes, and ears, appears to have represented the indwelling divinity.(735) Sometimes this custom of swinging on hooks, which is known among the Hindoos as _Churuk Puja_, seems to be intended to propitiate demons. Some Santals asked Mr. V. Ball to be allowed to perform it because their women and children were dying of sickness, and their cattle were being killed by wild beasts; they believed that these misfortunes befell them because the evil spirits had not been appeased.(736) These same Santals celebrate a swinging festival of a less barbarous sort about the month of February. Eight men sit in chairs and rotate round posts in a sort of revolving swing, like the merry-go-rounds which are so dear to children at English fairs.(737) At the Nauroz and Eed festivals in Dardistan the women swing on ropes suspended from trees.(738) During the rainy season in Behar young women swing in their houses, while they sing songs appropriate to the season. The period during which they indulge in this pastime, if a mere pastime it be, is strictly limited; it begins with a festival which usually falls on the twenty-fifth of the month Jeyt and ends with another festival which commonly takes place on the twenty-fifth of the month Asin. No one would think of swinging at any other time of the year.(739) It is possible that this last custom may be nothing more than a pastime meant to while away some of the tedious hours of the inclement season; but its limitation to a certain clearly-defined portion of the year seems rather to point to a religious or magical origin.