The Plough.
Next comes the plough as a fetish. The carrying about of the plough and the prohibition common in Europe against moving it on Shrove Tuesday and other holidays have, like many other images of the same class, been connected with Phallicism.132 But, considering the respect which an agricultural people would naturally pay to the chief implement used in husbandry, it is simpler to class it with the other tool fetishes of a similar kind. In India, as in Europe on Plough Monday,133 there is a regular worship of the plough at the end of the sowing season, when the beam is coloured with turmeric, adorned with garlands, and brought home from the field in triumph. After that day it is considered unlucky to use it or lend it. The beam is put up in the village cattle track when rinderpest is about, as a charm to drive away the disease. Among some castes the polished share is fixed up in the marriage shed during the ceremony. Among the Orâons, the bride and bridegroom are made to stand on a curry stone, under which is placed a sheaf of corn resting on the plough yoke, and among the same people their god Darha is represented by a plough-share set upon an altar dedicated to him.134 Here we have the mystic influence of grain and iron combined with the agricultural implement fetish.