Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 319

PRELIMINARY QUARRELS
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conies round.
Every one, indeed, arrives with a firm
determination to have a good fight and to make plenty of
noise over it.
The moment when the meal is ready and
the giver of the feast has invited his guests to come in
and partake of it, is generally the time that they consider
most suitable for the discussion of their pretended griev-
ances.
They stop the whole assemblage by uttering the
customary oath in the name of the prince or governor of
the province, and declare that no one shall begin to eat
until their grievances have been listened to, their wrongs
redressed, and the culprits punished.
And then the dispute
begins.
Some take one side and some another, but all par-
ticipate in it, and the quarrel becomes general.
They all
scream at the top of their voices, without listening to a
word any one else is saying they hurl the most disgusting
accusations at one another, mixed with horrible impreca-
tions and insults, without pausing to give either party
a chance of replying. Then their blood rises, and the
quarrel waxes warmer and warmer.
They proceed to
threatening gestures and rush towards each other, their
faces contorted with rage and fury.
Any one who did not
know the Hindu character would swear they were all going
to fly at each other's throats.
Their host, however, who
generally maintains a strict neutrality on these occasions,
continues to superintend his domestic arrangements with
the utmost composure, or else retires to some peaceful
corner and quietly smokes his pipe, a tranquil spectator
of the scene around him, knowing full well that the belli-
gerents must ultimately tire themselves out by the vehem-
ence of their cries and gesticulations, and that they will
calm down from sheer exhaustion. He then selects three
or four to act as arbitrators, and, placing himself with
them between the two parties, succeeds, after no little
difficulty, in restoring peace.
They then investigate the
cause of the quarrel, and try to arrange the affair so as to
satisfy both sides.
If this is impossible, the final decision
is put off till some future time, when the whole scene is
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