The Mikirs

by Edward Stack

Funeral Ceremonies.

The funeral is the most elaborate, costly, and important of all the ceremonies performed by the Mikirs. Such ceremonies are considered obligatory in all cases except that of a child who has been born dead, or who has died before the after-birth has left the mother; such a child is buried without any ceremony. Victims of small-pox or cholera are buried shortly after death, but the funeral service is performed for them later on, the bones being sometimes dug up and duly cremated. When a person is killed by a tiger, if the body or clothes are found, they are buried at a distance from the village, because the tiger is supposed to visit the burial-place. Such persons cannot gain admittance to Jòm-āròng unless there are elaborate funeral ceremonies performed for them. Being killed by a tiger is generally imputed to the victim’s sin. His spirit is believed to dwell in the most dreary of the places where dead men’s spirits go; there is no notion (such as is found among some races in India) that it animates the tiger who killed him. Except in these cases the dead are disposed of by cremation, the burnt bones being afterwards buried.

The elaborateness of the funeral depends on the means of the family. The description which follows applies to a case where the household is well-to-do. In any case the body is kept in the house for one day after death; if a regular service is held, it may lie as long as from a week to twelve days.

The body lies in the kut. The persons occupied with the funeral ceremonies live in the hòng-phārlā; the rest of the family cook and eat in the kàm, but the officiants, male and female, must go across a stream or creek to cook and eat. As already mentioned, the old women of the family wash and lay out the corpse. Then beer is prepared, rice husked and got ready, and a convenient day fixed for the service. If the house has not a big enough hòng (front platform), the neighbours join and build one on to it. From the date of the death, each household in the village gives a man to sleep in the house (in the hòng-phārlā). When it is settled that the beer and rice required can be provided in four or five days, the village lads are summoned about 8 o’clock in the evening. They bring their drum (chèng), and drum up to the tikup (front yard); they drum there awhile, and then, while one keeps time with the drum, dance by pairs, holding in their left hands shields (chòng-kechèngnàn), and in their right hands sticks. They go round twice in a circle; then they all dance round, holding each the other’s hands (this is called chomàng-kàn, “Khasi dance”). After an hour spent in this way they go back to the gaoṅbura’s house to sleep. Early next morning they come without beat of drum, and dance the chomàng-kàn to the drum; they then dance the shield-dance as before (chòng-kechèngnàn) to the drum, and go home. Next night they come as before, but a little later, and go through the same ceremonies. Next morning they proceed as before, and in the usual course they kill a fowl and roast it in pieces on spits in the tikup, and eat it there. The third and last night is that of the kàn-pī (“great dance”).

Meantime, during the day, the rīsōmār have to work at getting ready the tèlē—the stout bamboo to which the corpse is to be slung: the bànjār—a bamboo ornamented with curled shavings (bū) hung in tufts to projecting arms; and the serōsō—shorter bamboo sticks similarly ornamented and tipped with leaves. The men have to go to the therī (village burning-place) and prepare there a chang or platform, with logs for burning the body arranged under it; this chang is built in a peculiar manner, known only to adepts. The uchēpī (a skilled old woman) is summoned to prepare the viaticum for the dead, and the duhuidī, with an assistant, who beat the two drums which have now been hung up in the kàm-āthèngthòt: the duhuidī is one skilled in tolling on these drums. Then comes the girl called obòkpī (not necessarily a maid), that is, the “carrier” of the dead man; but in place of the dead she carries on her back a gourd for holding beer; she must belong to his mother’s kur. Also the nihu, the maternal uncle or other male representative of the mother’s kur, and the ingjīr-ārlo, sister’s husband, or father’s sister’s husband, of the deceased; it is his office to kill the goat for the dead, if they can afford one.

About midnight the villagers, with torches, drums, and the attendant rīsōmār, assemble in the tikup. The neighbouring villages, if so minded, may come too (āròng ārī is the phrase for the contingents as they arrive). Each contingent is welcomed with the drum, and joins in the drumming concert; the lads and girls are dressed in their best, and provided with betel. The chief of the village lads (klèng-sārpo) then calls the other rīsōmār to touch (not taste) the beer, hòr kāchemē.[8] Then follows the shield-dance, first by the rīsōmār of the village, then by the outside contingents in order of arrival or merit. Then all together take hands and dance in a circle. The young women join in the line, taking hold of the lads’ coats, while the lads take hold of them by the belt (vànkòk); the girls cover their heads and faces with a black scarf (jīsō ke-īk): the petticoat is a red-striped Mikir ēṛī cloth. Near the first cock-crow, seven young men go up on the hòng or house-platform from the dancing, with the duhuidī and his assistant; one lad goes in and dances in the inside of kàm, in the space by the partition-wall (nòksèk), while the six others stand at the door (hòngthū, or inghàp ànghō = “door’s mouth”), and dance there. The six whoop three times together as they dance. After a quarter of an hour they return to the circle of dancers in the tikup. At dawn they go up again, and dance till sunrise. The circle breaks up at daylight, and then follows the shield-dance. Then all the drums go round the circle where they dance ten to twenty times, playing a different tune each time. Then, while they all drum standing, a pig is brought forth, tied up for killing. The rīsōmār in successive parties recount over the tied-up pig the history of the funeral service; this is called phàk āphū kācholàng. Then the pig is killed and cut up for the rīsōmār, and for the men engaged in the funeral service. The latter have to cook and eat their shares of the meat, which is given in leaf-bundles (òk-bòr) or on spits (òk-kròn), beyond the river. The rīsōmār also get their shares in the same way, and cook them in the dancing-ring. A small piece of flesh is cooked by the uchēpī for the dead man, and this is put in the plate of the dead and carried by the ingjīr-ārlo up to the body in the kut, the duhuidī tolling the drum as he goes in; this ceremony is called kāsolē. Meantime the old experienced men, braving the horrid stench, have been performing certain rites[9] about the body. The remainder of the cooked flesh, with rice, is distributed to the young girls. The rīsōmār then, provided with rice, beer, salt, chillies, and greens from the dead man’s house, disperse to houses in the village to eat, and the officiants go off beyond the river to prepare and eat their food. This part of the ceremony is called rīsō kāchirū, “the lads’ entertainment.”

Then two or three of the rīsōmār take a cock on the road to the burning-place, and kill, cook, and eat it there. A small pig is killed by the other lads where they dance, and the head and one leg are sent to the road-side rīsōmār. The blood is caught in a bamboo-joint, and smeared on the bànjār, which is set up in the road like a maypole; it is a thick bamboo about seven feet long, with sticks projecting on three sides, from which hang tassels of curled bamboo shavings (bànjār ābū) These shavings also are smeared with the blood, so as to look like flowers. Six shorter pieces of bamboo, three feet long, also ornamented with tufts of shavings, are called serōsōs, and these too are smeared with blood: likewise the tèlē for carrying the corpse to the pyre. Six young men, each taking a serōsō, dance round the bànjār.

The uchēpī has now prepared all the food. The obòkpī takes the beer-gourd on her back, and one egg in her hand, and the uchēpī a beer-gourd, and they break the egg and the gourd against the tèlē as it lies upon the house-ladder (dòndòn). The duhuidī tolls the drum, and dancing as before takes place on the hòng and in the kàm, but not with the serōsōs. The uchēpī and the obòkpī then go on to the burning-place. The tèlē is now taken up by the old men into the house, and the corpse tied to it and brought down; all the dead man’s clothes are hung over the bamboo. Then a pair of ducks and another of pigeons are killed by the nihu, and a goat by the ingjīr-ārlo, each previously going thrice round the dancing circle with the sun. The goat is called hòngvàt-ābī; the heads are thrown to the rīsōmār, the rest of the meat kept and cooked later on by those who remain. Preceded by the duhuidī and his assistant tolling the drums, they all march in procession, carrying the bànjār and serōsōs, to the burning-place. The body is untied from the tèlē and placed on the pyre, which is lighted. While the pyre is burning, knowing women sing the kāchārhē—a chant describing the dead man’s life, whither he is going on leaving this earth, how he will see his dead relations, and the messages he has to carry to them. A few of the lads dance while the cremation is proceeding.

The body is thoroughly burnt, and the bones that remain are tied up in a cloth and buried. The tèlē is either laid down whole or cut into three pieces, which are split again into six, and placed in the little house which is then erected over the grave. This is built with the bànjār and the serōsōs, the former being in the middle and the latter used as props for the roof. The food prepared by the uchēpī is now placed on a flat stone over the grave, and the ceremony is at an end.

The company, returning, clean and wash the house, and cook and eat and drink on the hòng. On coming back from the cremation, the nihu gets some money, clothes, salt, and a knife. He shares the salt with his own kur, if any are present. The ingjīr-ārlo next morning has to clean up the dancing ring (ròng-rū kàngrū, or tikup kārkòk).

The ceremonies of the funeral are performed by the neighbours and cunning men and women of the village, and the old people of the family. The wife, children, parents, brothers and sisters of the dead sit beside him and mourn, in spite of corruption, or even sleep beside the decomposing corpse. “It is genuine grief, a national characteristic. Even after the funeral service, they remember and mourn; and the death of another renews their grief.” The mourners continue their lamentation, heedless of the dancing.

If a great man, such as a mauzadar (bikhōyā) or leading gaoṅbura (sārlār, sārthē), dies, in addition to the ceremonial described above, there is another, called Làngtuk (“the well”). A well or pit is dug outside the village, four-square, with sides ten to fifteen feet: it need not be carried down to the water; stairs are made to the bottom. At the corners are planted various trees. A tall upright stone (lòng-chòng) and a broad flat stone (lòng-pàk), supported on short uprights, are brought and set up, as in the Khasi hills. The rīsōmār come and dance there the whole day, with manifold apparatus. The uchēpī sings and places food of different kinds on the flat stone for the dead man; his clothes and umbrella are put upon the tall stone, with flowers. A fowl is killed for the well at the bottom of the pit, and a goat, two ducks, and two pigeons are killed at the top, and their heads thrown to the rīsōmār. Then the people of thirty to forty villages assemble. The uchēpī sings extemporaneously before the memorial stone, and the people dance and eat there until dark. After dark the company go to the house and perform the usual service already described. The làngtuk is very costly, for people have to be fed at two places, and double the quantity of food for an ordinary funeral has to be provided.