The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1886-12-10
A FIGHT WITH A GIANT.
An Account of h Ram Lila Festival
in India-The One Great Carni-
val of the Hindoos.

The following account of the Ram
Lila festival in India, which has this
year been the occasion of serious riot
ing at Delhi and elsewhere, may be of
interest to our readers:
1t was a brilliant, blazing day in
October, and was the day of the great
religious festival of the Hindoos, known
as the Ram Lila. We were at Fyzabad
in Oudh, only six miles from one of the
greatest strongholds of Hindooism, the
sacred and ancient city of Ajudhia,
whose antiquity dates from mythology
cal times, some thousands of years be-
fore our Christian era, and whose
sanctity as the birthplace of the
monkey-god Thurman, and, also, that
of the hero Rama, one of the sacred
line of sun-begotten kings, is not sur
passed by any other of the cities on
earth.
We had been invited by the Mahara-
jah Man Singh to go and witness the
combat between Rama and the demon
giant Rayana, and when halfway to
Adiudhia found one of the maharaiah's
elephants waiting for us, a splendid
fellow with his face and ears and
trunk painted deliberately in brilliant
colors. He was covered with a cloth of
crimson and green and purple velvet
reaching to within a few inches of the
ground, and heavy with gold embroid-
cry, and on thu back was a silver
howdah. Having mounted, we pro-
ceeded in state with a native servant
perched up behind us. holding over
our honored head a huge red umbrella,
and were shortly met by a number of
native gentlemen on elephants nearly
as gorgeous as our own, who followed
us to the fete.
The road was thronged with dense
J crowds of men, women, and children
in bright, clean holiday clothes, with a
liberal sprinkljng of fakirs among
them, always distinguishable by their
absence of clothes and extreme dirti-
ness. Ascetics never have held that
cleanliness was next to goodness. One
holy man we passed who had painted
his whole body white, his coat of
paint being his only garment, land who
was apparently hanging from a tree.
Another was standing on his head with
four large fires burning close round
him, which seemed su%perfluous with
such a blazing gun overhead. Bells
were iangling, cymbals clashing, tom-
toms humping, all softened and har-
monized by the all-peryading hum of
the many-throated crowd. The scene
was one to be remembsred-the great
swaying dark masses of people their
white turbans standing as thick as ears
of corr in a wheat-field; the elephants
rising above the level of the crowd and
majestically cleaving it asunder as they
STROBE silently onward; the countless
domes of mosques and temples stand
ing out sharp and clear in the white
sunlight against the deep blue sky; the
flat roots and the tops of the walls and
balconies covered with swarming
crowds of women, brilliant as a
kaleidoscope.
And now we were close to the scene
of action, and SO tightly wedged were
the people that the elephants could no
longer force a passage. Towering
twenty feet or more above all surround
ing objects we saw the huge uncouth
figure of the giant Ravana, made OF
bamboo framework covered with paper
and calico, being drawn to and fro, with
arms outspread, on a little wheeled
platform, while two boys representing
Rama and his brother attacked him
from an elephant with bows and ar
rows, and crowds of boys with monkey
masks and tails, representing Hunu-
mans monkey army, made o~nslaughts
with fierce shouts and blows. Our ele-
plant was not very stanch, and when
the shouts of battle rose shrill and
savage he would turn short round,
spreading CONSERVATION and nearly de-
molishing a sWeatmeat stall that was
unwisely near his heels. The interest
of the crowd in the combat was intense
and breathless, and when at last the
giant was overthrown all struggled
wildly to get a blow at him, while a
mighty roar Of triumph filled the air,
mingled with the firing of guns and the
deep trumpeting of the elephants, who
thoroughly infected with the excitement
of the moment. In a mlracuiously
short time the giant was torn TO shreds
and his mangled remains scattered lar
and wide with vengeful energy. Hun
uman and their beloved Rama had won
the victory.
This IS the one great carnival OF the
Hindoos. and when, as sometimes hap
mems. its date comedies. with that OF
The GREAT Mohammedan feast OF the
Mohurrum, there is always great risk
Of a collision.
The Ram Lila has another interest
connected with natural history as being
the date on which, according to native
scientific observation, bugs leave off
hhitinc. The natives say ''they get
weaker for Il month before the Ram
lila. but after that their mouths are