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Bengali Ceremonial in America - Charak Puja Festival in Mexico.
~ photo - National Museum
Bengali Ceremony in America -Hewitt, referring to the practice of penance in India and America, writes: 👇
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~ photo - National Museum
Bengali Ceremony in America -Hewitt, referring to the practice of penance in India and America, writes: 👇
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"It is still preserved in India, in the ceremony of swinging the young sun-god in August; also the Dakota (U.S.A.) swinging- penance is exactly like that annually performed in Bengal by the devotees, who swing themselves on hooks at the Charak-pooja,
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while the preparations for cutting down the mystery tree are very like those observed in Chota-Nagpore, in cutting down the Kurrum tree (Naudea parvifolia), at the barley festival in August, and in both cases, those who cut the tree must fast.
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It is all but utterly impossible that this peculiar form of swinging-penance should have originated independently both among the Bengalis and Dakotas (in America), and when the numerous other coincidences between Hindu, Chinese, Japanese, and American myth and ritual,
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especially the measurement of time, both in India and America, by the Pleiades, Orion, the Pole Star and Great Bear, are also taken into account.
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From remote antiquity the American continent and its inhabitants were known to the adventurous Bengali Hindu colonists, traders, gold and silversmiths, religious preachers and messengers of culture,
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who were responsible for the spread of similar forms of cult, civilisation and religious philosophies whose immortal imprints have been dis- covered all over the vast continent of America.
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