Recurring sicknesses and troubles are ascribed to Thèng-thòn or Òk-làngno, a devil (hī-ī); he is propitiated with a goat and a pig, or two or three fowls. A man gasping in sickness is being strangled by Thèng-thòn. If, notwithstanding invocations of the gods, sickness grows worse, a sacrifice is offered to Thèng-thòn without summoning the diviner or sàng-kelàng-ābàng.
Mr. Stack gives the following as the names of the chief diseases (besides those already mentioned), the averting of which forms the main object of worship: goitre, phun-kàng (“swollen throat”); phthisis, sī-ī (also cough); stone, ingthàk; diarrhœa, pòk-kàngsī; rheumatism, kēchē-āsē (“Khasi fever”); neuralgia, bàb āsē; small-pox, pī-āmīr (“the Mother’s flowers”); black leprosy, sī-ĭ; white leprosy, āròk; elephantiasis, kèng-tòng (kèng, leg; ingtòng, funnel-shaped basket); dysentery, pòk kāpāvī (“bleeding of belly”).
The house-gods come down in the family; no others would be sacrificed to if the family were uniformly prosperous.
All natural objects of a striking or imposing character have their divinity. The sun (ārnī) and moon (chiklo) are regarded as divine, but are not specially propitiated. But localities of an impressive kind, such as mountains,[3] waterfalls, deep pools in rivers, great boulders, have each their ārnàm, who is concerned in the affairs of men and has to be placated by sacrifice. The expression ārnàm do, used of a place, means, generally, to be haunted by something felt as mighty or terrible. All waterfalls (làngsun), in particular, have their ārnàms. In Bāguri mauza there are two great waterfalls in the Diyaung river which are specially venerated as divine; one of these, the Làng-kàngtòng (“Rolling-down water”), can be heard half a day’s journey off. Similarly, there are places where a river goes underground (làng-lut); these also have their ārnàm.[4] Such local divinities of the jungle are propitiated chiefly to avert mischief from tigers, which are a terrible plague in many parts of the Mikir hills.
There is no worship of trees or animals.
Làm-āphū, “the head or master of words,” is a deity probably of recent origin. He is the god sacrificed to by a man who has a case in court; the sacrifice is one young cock, which should be offered at night, secretly, by the sacrificer alone, in a secret place.
It should be mentioned that, following an ill-sounding idiom of the Assamese, the Mikirs use “Ārnàm” as a common (propitiatory) form of address to human beings (Assamese, dēutā). Pō-ārnàm-pō (“god-father”) to a man, and pē-ārnàm-pī (“god-mother”) to a woman, are the phrases. In one of the stories given in the [next Section], the king is addressed as Hèmphū Ārnàm, “Lord God.”
Divination and Magic.
Sickness, if long continued or severe, is frequently attributed to witchcraft (mājā). A man suffering from long sickness is said to be mājā kelòng—“witchcraft has got hold of him.” To discover the author of the spell, or the god or demon who has brought the trouble and must be propitiated, the services of a diviner are necessary. Uchē, feminine uchē-pī (Hindi, ōjhà), is the general name for the cunning in such things. Of these there are two grades—the humbler, whose craft is acquired merely by instruction and practice, and the higher, who works under the inspiration or afflatus of divine powers. The former is the sàng-kelàng ābàng, “the man who looks at rice,” in Assamese, mangalsuā; the latter, invariably a woman, is the lodèt or lodèt-pī. In serious sickness or distress the latter is called in; on ordinary and less important occasions, the former.