" The
leader of a war party and his attendant bore the ark by turns, but they
never set it on the ground nor would they themselves sit on the bare
earth while they were carrying it against the enemy. Where stones were
plentiful they rested the ark on them; but where no stones were to be
found, they deposited it on short logs. "The Indian ark is deemed so
sacred and dangerous to be touched, either by their own sanctified
warriors, or the spoiling enemy, that they durst not touch it upon any
account. It is not to be meddled with by any, except the war chieftain
and his waiter, under the penalty of incurring great evil. Nor would the
most inveterate enemy touch it in the woods, for the very same reason."
After their return home they used to hang the ark on the leader's
red-painted war pole.[26] At Sipi, near Simla, in Northern India, an
annual fair is held, at which men purchase wives. A square box with a
domed top figures prominently at the fair. It is fixed on two poles to
be carried on men's shoulders, and long heavily-plaited petticoats hang
from it nearly to the ground. Three sides of the box are adorned with
the head and shoulders of a female figure and the fourth side with a
black yak's tail. Four men bear the poles, each carrying an axe in his
right hand. They dance round, with a swinging rhythmical step, to the
music of drums and a pipe. The dance goes on for hours and is thought to
avert ill-luck from the fair.
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