Word: palanquin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...conch shells and cymbals sounded, the first flower-decked palanquin, bearing the leader of Hinduism's Maha Nirvana sect, moved toward the river bank near Allahabad where the Yamuna River meets the Ganges. Alongside marched a troop of elephants, trumpeting, their heaving bodies covered with garlands and painted symbols. Then through the police cordon flowed thousands of pilgrims from nine other ancient Hindu sects. Among them came a procession of Naga sadhus, celibate holy men who follow Shiva, the god of the forces of both life and destruction. They were all naked, except for a coating of sand...
...structure. One of the best known of these is Honoria Bailer Caulker of Sierra Leone, who in 1961 was elected paramount chief of the Shenge district (pop. 25,000). A Junoesque woman who stands 6 ft. 1 in., Madame Honoria enjoys such baubles as a white Mercedes, an open palanquin in which she is carried by her subjects, a golden mace presented to her chieftaincy by Queen Victoria, and an elaborate bathroom in which everything from bidet to bath salts is pink. She is accompanied on her official rounds by an official elephant-horn player, who blows great blasts...
...head covered with a cap of pounded gold and his body draped with charms, fetishes, talismans and armor, he looked like an Aztec god or a Shiva as he sat in his sumptuous palanquin at the sports stadium. Later, as 100,000 watched, the King danced, awkwardly, like a jewel-encrusted bear. Three times he fired his flintlock into the air, and was answered by the volleys of 400 muskets. Then he lumbered across the field, his mouth filled with green leaves, symbolizing his identification with the earth, to greet Ghanaian Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia and the other official...