circle and commenced dancing with the rest, but more wildly. He held a short staff in his hand, with which, from time to time, he struck the bedizened poles, one by one, and lowering it as he struck. The chief dancer with the odd-shaped instrument waxed more and more vehement in his dance; the inspired grew more and more maniacal; the music more and more rapid; the incantation more and more solemn and earnest; till at last, amid a general lowering of the heads of the decked bamboo poles, so that they met and formed a canopy over him, the Déódá went off in an affected fit, and the ceremony closed without any revelation--a circumstance which must be ascribed to the presence of the sceptical strangers; for it is faith alone that worketh miracles and only among and for the faithful. This ceremony is performed annually by the Rajah of Sikim's orders, or rather with his sanction of the usages of his subjects; is addressed to the sun, the moon, the elemental gods, and, above all, to the rivers; and is designed to ensure health and plenty in the coming year, as well as to ascertain, beforehand, its promise or prospect through the revelations of the Déódá. With regard to the festival sacred to the national or homebred (noöni) gods, called Aihuno[19] by the Bodo, and Pochima páká by the Dhimáls, it is to be observed that the rite, like the separate class of deities adored thereby, is more distinctively Bodo than Dhimál. With both people the pre-eminence of water among the elements is conspicuous; but whereas the river gods of the Dhimáls have nearly absorbed all the rest, elementary or other, the household gods of the Bodo stand conspicuously distinguished from the fluviatile deities. The Pochima and Timáng of the Dhimáls are one or both rivers: the Bátho and Mainang of the Bodo are neither of them rivers, and their interparietal rites are as clearly distinguished from the rites performed abroad to the fluviatile and other elemental gods. However, the rites of Báthó and Mainou are _participated_ by deities of elementary and watery nature, and, on the other hand, the Dhimáls assert that Pochima and Timai have a twofold character, one of river gods (Dhorla and Tishta), and one of supreme gods; and they that are adored, separately, in these two characters, the Pochima páká, or home-rite of October, being appropriated to them in the latter capacity of that of supreme gods. I have not witnessed the Pochima páká, and therefore speak with hesitation. The Ai húnó is performed as follows. The friends and family being assembled, including as many persons as the master of the house can afford to feast, the Déóshi or priest enters the enclosure or yard of the house, in the centre of which is invariably planted a Sij or Euphorbia, as the representative of Bátho who is the family as well as national god of the Bodo. The Báthó, thus represented, the Déóshi offers prayers, and sacrifices a cock. He then proceeds into the house, adores Mainou, and sacrifices to her a hog.