Loans.
The rate of interest on loans varies according to the nature of the thing lent. That on money is usually 50 per cent. simple interest, running for two years only. The interest on rice is four baskets a year for every six baskets borrowed. The interest has to be paid year by year till the principal has been returned. A debt of seed paddy must be paid before all other debts. The highest rate of interest is demanded for salt, for which 100 per cent. per annum compound interest has to be paid. The result is that loans of salt are promptly repaid.
Agriculture.
Method of cultivation. The Lhota is above all an agriculturist. Rarely does his ambition extend beyond a bumper crop. Service under Government has few attractions for him. Even if he takes a post he often throws it up after a year or two and says he would rather go back and live in his village and cultivate his land. Rice is the staple food of the tribe and is far and away the most important crop grown. The method of cultivation is that known as “jhuming.” A piece of jungle is cut and burnt, and the land cultivated for two years and then allowed to go back to jungle, under which it remains for a period varying from four to fifteen years. If a man is short of land he obviously has to cultivate each piece at shorter intervals. If he is the lord of wide acres the intervals are longer. The bigger the jungle is allowed to grow the more will mould accumulate and the thicker will be the deposit of ash when it is burnt. On an average among the Lhotas a piece of land is cultivated once in ten years. The whole village cultivates in one block, each man having his own piece of land. Isolated patches of cultivation would merely provide food for wild pig, monkeys and other pests. The jungle is cut about December.[8] (The times [[46]]of agricultural operations vary a good deal according to the height and climate of the village concerned.) When the time comes to begin operations each man goes to his land and clears a little piece of jungle. Should he see a snake while so occupied he probably runs home as fast as his legs will carry him, for he would die were he to cultivate that piece of land. If no such evil omen occurs he cuts a stake, sets it up, cuts a notch in the side, puts a little earth from a worm-cast in the notch and goes home. This is regarded as a sort of oath that the owner proposes to clear that piece of jungle. He carefully notes what dreams he has that night. Sometimes he puts a twig from the jungle in question under his head. A bad dream would be enough to make him select another piece of land for that year. On the day when he puts up the stake he must not eat meat from a tiger’s kill or the flesh of dog, goat or cattle. His wife may cook his food for him, but he must eat separately from her in the morning, having remained chaste the night before. In clearing the jungle everyone takes part—men, women and children. A man helps his friends and they help him. The jungle is cleared from the bottom of the slope upwards. Bushes and saplings are cut close to the ground. Big trees are left standing, but thin branches are trimmed so that they shall not shade the crop. Usually a bunch of leaves is left growing at the top of big trees of which the other branches are pruned away. Lhotas attach no particular significance to this practice; but among the Aos it appears to be followed only by rich men.[9]
The jungle is left till March to dry, when it is all burnt on the same day. The man who is to start the fire is selected by cutting little chips from a piece of stick and watching how they fall—the ordinary Lhota way of taking omens. The man chosen first makes fire with a fire-stick and sets [[47]]the dry jungle alight. Then everyone joins in and lights a long line of fire which sweeps uphill till it dies out in the green, uncut jungle at the top. Next day is emung. After that work begins in earnest. Stones and half-burnt logs are collected and little barriers (oliecho) are built along the hillsides to prevent the earth being washed away. Sometimes, as at Mangya, rough stone terrace walls are built. The fields are then dug over with a single-handed digger (chukchü), a small triangular iron blade fitted like an adze onto a bamboo handle. This preliminary hoeing is omitted by most Northern Lhota villages, who merely clear the land of rubbish before sowing. The fields which have already carried a crop the year before are now weeded, and the weeds gathered into heaps with a small bamboo rake (keya) and burnt.
Sowing and the ceremonies connected with it. Before anyone can sow his land certain ceremonies have to be performed. The first of these is Thruven, which is performed first by the Puthi, and after him in the course of the next few days by anyone who has dragged a stone or done the Etha ceremony. The procedure is as follows. The Puthi goes with his wife to the spot (Thruvenphen) just outside the village where tradition says this ceremony must be performed, generally near the opya—the post set up and speared at the Oyantsoa ceremony. He takes with him a twig of bamboo (a shoot growing up directly from the ground will not do), some chicken meat, boiled rice, “pita madhu,” ginger, a little seed-rice, and some seeds of a plant with a variegated leaf called orho. After pouring a little “madhu” on the ground, he arranges four pieces of the bamboo twig in the form of a square and puts a large leaf on the ground to his right and another on his left. On the right-hand leaf he puts ten little pieces, and on the left-hand leaf nine little pieces each of thatching grass, ginger, and chicken meat, and sprinkles a little seed-rice over each heap. The heaps are then tied up in the leaves and put in the square of bamboo twigs. Then close by he sows the orho seeds, making a miniature fence round them, the sticks of which are tied together at the top. This is a purely formal act, and it does not seem to matter in the least [[48]]whether the orho seeds ever come up or not. Next morning the Puthi sows six seeds of rice in his garden plot. This formal sowing of rice is omitted by the other men who do the Thruven ceremony. Sexual intercourse is forbidden the night after this ceremony. When the last man has finished the village keeps one day’s emung. Anyone who has been married the previous winter, and everyone who has done all social “gennas” and dragged a stone performs a further ceremony before sowing his fields. Among the Northern Lhotas it is done as follows. In the morning one of the old women who acted as Ponyiratsen[10] at his wedding, or failing her any old man of his clan who has done no social “gennas,” comes to his house, and there ties eight nungyung leaves into two bundles of four. She then goes alone down the path leading to his fields, taking with her the nungyung leaves, two bamboo “chungas,” some rice, and a smouldering brand—for fire is a great protection against evil spirits. She faces towards the fields and lays a bundle of nungyung leaves on each side of the path, with a “chunga” on each bundle, and a little bit of smoking brand behind it. She then goes straight to her own home, taking with her the rice, which is her fee. Next day the owner goes down to the field with his friends and sows a little patch first, praying that his crop may be as close as elephant grass, as spreading as a rubber tree and free from weeds. He must refrain from sexual intercourse the night before he does this, and must neither take food nor speak to anyone in the morning till he has sown the first patch. Among the Southern Lhotas the old man or woman who does the ceremony on the first day puts on each side of the path a little heap of rice husks, a smouldering stick and two crossed yutso leaves, on which are put six pieces of burnt wood, six pieces of pork, a little boiled rice and a sprinkling of “madhu.” The owner of the field must not eat any of the pig which provides the pork used here. The formal act of sowing takes place next day as among the Northern Lhotas. Both on the night preceding and the night after the formal sowing sexual intercourse is forbidden among the Southern Lhotas, and [[49]]in the morning before going to his fields the man must eat separately from his wife, though she may cook his food. Unlike his neighbours the Aos, the Lhota does not sow broadcast. With the digger (chukchü) held in his right hand he scratches a little hole. His left hand is full of seed-rice, of which he allows four or five grains to drop between the middle and index finger into the hole, which is filled in with a stroke of the digger. Both men and women sow. The day’s supply of seed-rice is carried in a basket on the left hip, the sowers working their way in a line from the bottom of the hill upwards. From the time the crop is sown till it ripens everyone is busy keeping his fields as free from weeds as possible. The weeder (ehe) is a strip of iron about nine inches long and one inch broad, bent into a semicircle and fixed to a short bamboo handle.[11] Every field is weeded at least twice, and often as many as six times—the oftener the better. The weeds are collected into heaps along the edges of the fields, or on stony patches where nothing will grow.
The Motharatsen ceremony. Among the Southern Lhotas a yearly ceremony called Motharatsen is performed by the Puthi and Yenga only when the crop is about half grown to prevent it being damaged by a small white grub (ora). On a certain day of which he has given previous notice the Puthi collects unhusked rice from the whole village and with some of it buys a pig. This he kills on the day of the ceremony, and going outside the village lays ten pieces of meat and ten pieces of ginger (osing) on crossed yutso leaves to his right, and nine pieces of meat and ginger on crossed yutso leaves to his left. The next day is emung. Though the Northern Lhotas still keep the emung the ceremony has fallen into abeyance among them. But the Southern Lhotas firmly believe in its efficacy. In 1918 the people of Yanthămo attributed the failure of their crops to the fact that a stranger from another village had entered the house of their Puthi after he had collected the subscription of rice and before he had performed the ceremony. [[50]]
The Amungkam ceremony. When the rice comes into the ear ceremonies are again performed to ensure a good crop. The first ceremony is called Amungkam, and is performed by the Puthi and Yenga at the spot (amungkampen) a little way outside the village at which it was performed when the village was founded. The Puthi kills and cooks a little boar at his own house and goes with his Yenga to the amungkampen, taking with him a new cooking-pot, some of the boar’s meat, a small live pig, a hen, an egg, a fire-stick and some yutso leaves. The Puthi’s wife may accompany him, but the Yenga’s wife must stay behind. The Puthi makes a fire with the fire-stick, and near it lays out four bamboo twigs in the form of a square, in the middle of which he sets up the egg on end, flanked on either side with forty-two small pieces of meat on crossed yutso leaves. He then spears the live pig, praying to Rangsi, the deity of the crops, that they may be good. The pig is singed over the fire and cut up, the stomach and entrails being cooked in the new pot and eaten by the Puthi. The rest of the meat is divided up, one piece for every man in the village who has dragged a stone. The Puthi then strangles the chicken between the finger and thumb of his right hand and watches how the excreta fall as it struggles. If they are dry there will not be much rain and the crops will ripen well. If they are watery, storms will cause the crops to rot. The entrails are next taken out and examined. If they are full the crop will be good; if they are empty it will be poor. These are pushed back into the chicken, which is placed on the ground by the egg. The Puthi builds a little fence round the offering and hangs up the fire-stick on it, the pot being turned upside down and left on the ground. He then goes home and calls his friends to his house to drink “madhu” and partake of the pig he killed before leaving home. To each guest he offers a piece of pork and asks if he intends to do the Rangsikam ceremony, which is voluntary. To accept the pork means that the answer is in the affirmative. To refuse it means that the answer is in the negative. Early on the morning of the next day, which is emung, the villagers go and see if a wild cat or other animal has taken away the chicken which had [[51]]been left at amungkampen. For it to be taken away forbodes ill for the village.