are taken out to commemorate the deaths of Hassan and Hussein, the grandsons of Muhammad. Many of the festivals and religious rituals in Birbhum, even though universal among most of the rest of greater Bengal, has some local specialities. For example, in the Durga puja the closing ceremony involves "Baich khela" which is a competition of circumscribing the village by men carrying on their shoulder the whole idol of goddess Durga and her companion icons on bamboo supports accompanied by many petromax lamps ("hajak light" in the local jargon), dhak beat, firecrackers and fanfare. The next day (ekadashi i.e. the eleventh lunar day) evening all the devotees go around in an event called "laru kurano" (meaning: picking up sweet cakes called naru). This event is marked by a representative group of these households visiting houses of all the relatives and acquaintances in the village with a plastic bag. At every home they are given sweetcakes which they collect and bring home, thus exchanging sweet cakes along with sweet greetings at least on this day of the year. People of Birbhum patronise folk entertainment programmes such as jatra, kavigan and alkap. They often travel long distances to watch jatra overnight, and return home next morning. Gramadevata In addition to being a confluence of Vaishnava, Shakta and Saiva cultures, Birbhum villages also observe prehistoric customs like the worship of a gramadevata (gram means village and devta means deity) in many forms at different places. One form of gramadevata popular in villages of Birbhum is Dharmathakur, symbolized by a stone, worshipped mainly by Bauri, Bagdi, Hari, Dom, etc. castes. In some places there are festivals called Dharmer Gajan. According to some authorities, these are transformed old deities and totems which continued even after these castes accepted Buddhism as a result of the oppression by the higher castes. Later on these old deities were equated to either Shiva or Buddha. Another gramadevata is the goddess of snakes - Manasa who might have been a transformation of the feminine snake totem to a form more acceptable to later society. Now Goddess Manasa is worshiped for protection from snake bite. Vajrayana Buddhists had an equivalent of Manasa named Janguli. In Manasamangal, the house made for Lakhinder was on top of Santhali mountains, which might have been a reference to Santhal Pargana which was historically a part of Birbhum. References Birbhum district Culture of West Bengal