The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12) - Mirrors

212 The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12)§ 2. The Mother-cotton in the Punjaub.The Mother-cottonin the Punjaub.In the Punjaub, to the east of the Jumna, when the cottonboles begin to burst, it is usual to select the largest plant inthe field, sprinkle it with butter-milk and rice-water, and thenbind to it pieces of cotton taken from the other plants of thefield. This selected plant is called Sirdar or Bhogaldaí, thatis “mother-cotton,” from bhogla, a name sometimes given to alarge cotton-pod, and daí (for daiya), “a mother,” and after ithas been saluted, prayers are offered that the other plants mayresemble it in the richness of their produce. 573§ 3. The Barley Bride among the Berbers.The Barley Brideamong the Berbers.The conception of the corn-spirit as a bride seems to come outclearly in a ceremony still practised by the Berbers near Tangier,in Morocco. When the women assemble in the fields to weed thegreen barley or reap the crops, they take with them a straw figuredressed like a woman, and set it up among the corn. Suddenly agroup of horsemen from a neighbouring village gallops up andcarries off the straw puppet amid the screams and cries of thewomen. However, the ravished effigy is rescued by another bandof mounted men, and after a struggle it remains, more or lessdishevelled, in the hands of the women. That this pretendedabduction is a mimic marriage appears from a Berber customin accordance with which, at a real wedding, the bridegroomcarries off his seemingly unwilling bride on horseback, while shescreams and pretends to summon her friends to her rescue. Nofixed date is appointed for the simulated abduction of the straw573 H. M. Elliot, Supplemental Glossary of Terms used in the North-WesternProvinces, edited by J. Beames (London, 1869), i. 254.