(M32) Further, I have conjectured that as representatives of Jupiter and Juno respectively the Flamen and Flaminica at Rome may have annually celebrated a Sacred Marriage for the purpose of ensuring the fertility of the powers of nature.(146) This conjecture also may be supported by an analogous custom which is still observed in India. We have seen how among the Oraons, a primitive hill-tribe of Bengal, the marriage of the Sun and the Earth is annually celebrated by a priest and priestess who personate respectively the god of the Sun and the goddess of the Earth.(147) The ceremony of the Sacred Marriage has been described more fully by a Jesuit missionary, who was intimately acquainted with the people and their native religion. The rite is celebrated in the month of May, when the _sal_ tree is in bloom, and the festival takes its native name (_khaddi_) from the flower of the tree. It is the greatest festival of the year. “The object of this feast is to celebrate the mystical marriage of the Sun-god (_Bhagawan_) with the Goddess-earth (_Dharti-mai_), to induce them to be fruitful and give good crops.” At the same time all the minor deities or demons of the village are propitiated, in order that they may not hinder the beneficent activity of the Sun God and the Earth Goddess. On the eve of the appointed day no man may plough his fields, and the priest, accompanied by some of the villagers, repairs to the sacred grove, where he beats a drum and invites all the invisible guests to the great feast that will await them on the morrow. Next morning very early, before cock-crow, an acolyte steals out as quietly as possible to the sacred spring to fetch water in a new earthen pot. This holy water is full of all kinds of blessings for the crops. The priest has prepared a place for it in the middle of his house surrounded by cotton threads of diverse colours. So sacred is the water that it would be defiled and lose all its virtue, were any profane eye to fall on it before it entered the priest’s house. During the morning the acolyte and the priest’s deputy go round from house to house collecting victims for the sacrifice. In the afternoon the people all gather at the sacred grove, and the priest proceeds to consummate the sacrifice. The first victims to be immolated are a white cock for the Sun God and a black hen for the Earth Goddess; and as the feast is the marriage of these great deities the marriage service is performed over the two fowls before they are hurried into eternity. Amongst other things both birds are marked with vermilion just as a bride and bridegroom are marked at a human marriage; and the earth is also smeared with vermilion, as if it were a real bride, on the spot where the sacrifice is offered. Sacrifices of fowls or goats to the minor deities or demons follow. The bodies of the victims are collected by the village boys, who cook them on the spot; all the heads go to the sacrificers. The