Dreams. Like all primitive people the Lhota attaches great importance to dreams.[56] In them he believes that the souls of the dead visit him, and his own soul leaves his body and [[171]]wanders.[57] Thus, if a sick man in his delirium dreams that he is in a certain place he knows that his soul is under the influence of some evil spirit which is drawing it to that place, and takes steps to appease the fiend with sacrifice. Or if a man fights with another man in his dreams he believes that the two souls really meet and fight. To dream of the building of a new “morung” forebodes ill to the village, for the dreamer’s soul has travelled to the land of the dead and seen a new village being prepared there for those who are about to die. If a man dreams that he is carrying a child along the Road of the Dead the child will die, and the dreamer may die too. But to dream that he is driven back by dead men means that he will have long life, for the souls of those gone before are not yet ready to receive him.[58] If in his dream a man go to another village he will not live long, for the other village is really that in the Land of the Dead, to which his soul has gone on ahead. Similarly, to kill a chicken in a dream is bad, for the chicken seen is the soul of that which will be killed at the dreamer’s death not long after. It is most unlucky to dream of dead men, for it means that they have come to call the dreamer. The only way of averting the disaster is to kill a big boar and give the meat to an old professional dreamer (hahang), who offers it to the souls of the dead in his dreams. The night before hunting too it is most unlucky to dream of a successful hunt, for it means that the dreamer’s spirit has been out hunting and driven all the game away.[59]
Many dreams are regarded as symbolical. For example, dream water = real crops, so that a vision of a deep pool means a good harvest, but a dry nullah means a lean year. Similarly, dream jungle roots = real meat, so that to dream of digging and finding many roots means that large presents of meat will be received, but unsuccessful digging means [[172]]small presents. Again, dream fire = real children. A fire which burns up well when the dreamer lights it means a big family, but a fire that goes out foretells deaths in the home. To see an earthquake or one’s own teeth falling out is regarded as particularly unlucky and forebodes the certain death either of the dreamer or of one of his family. Anything red, such as a red spear or red goat’s-hair, represents man’s blood and means that someone will get hurt.
View of the Forces of Nature. The earth is regarded as flat and stretching to an unknown distance in all directions. In the west, where the sky meets it, lives a big snake which sometimes causes earthquakes by moving its body.[60] During an earthquake the meat rack over the fire and the vat in which the daily supply of rice is kept are seized and held by the inmates of a Lhota house. If this is not done it is believed that supplies will fail the next year.[61] The sky is regarded as being hard like a stone, and forming the floor of the world of the Potsos, who in turn have another sky and Potso world above them, and so on for an unknown number of worlds. It used to be nearer to the earth than it is now, but for some reason not known it has gradually got further and further away. The sun is a flaming plate of hard metal as big as a piece of ground on which one basket of seed rice is sown. It travels along its path in the sky during the day and at night travels back under the earth and lights the Land of the Dead. The moon is like it. In fact, it was once the brighter and hotter of the two, till the present sun, seeing that the earth was being scorched and burnt with the terrible heat, smeared the face of the moon with cow-dung, so that it now gives a very feeble light.[62] An eclipse of the sun or moon occurs [[173]]when a giant dog which lives in the sky tries to eat them.[63] An eclipse means that many great men will die, and the day after one is kept as an emung. Stars are little points of fire, and are vaguely regarded as being endowed with life. Shooting stars are the falling dung of stars. The clouds have nothing to do with rain, which is poured down by the Potsos from reservoirs in the sky. They are simply the accumulated smoke of thousands of fires all over the earth. The belief with regard to hail is a curious one. The Potsos who live in the sky have above them yet another world of Potsos, who are evil and try to injure the Potsos living nearest to us by throwing down huge lumps of ice on them. But whenever a fusillade begins the lower Potsos take care to walk about with the door of their houses held over their backs like rain-shields. The lumps of ice are shattered on the doors and only reach the earth as small fragments which men call hail. [[174]]
[1] = Sema Kungumi, and Chang Müghka.—J. H. H. [↑]
[2] Potso is commonly used as a form of address to highly respected persons such as sahibs, like the Assamese Deota, which is, or at one time was, employed in the same way, and means a godling of some kind.—J. H. H. [↑]
[3] This is the translation given me by Lhotas. The word may really mean “water-mother,” opfu being one of the Lhota words for mother. [↑]
[4] The Sema belief as to Muzamuza, the corresponding Sema deity, is stated in the same terms, but Muzamuza is Echo.—J. H. H. [↑]
[5] The lizard, in particular the sand-lizard with a very shiny skin, is the subject of some superstitious belief among most Nagas. Thus it is engraved by Tobu (a ? Konyak village east of the Chang country) on the long daos they make, tattooed by Chang warriors on their breasts, painted in black gum on the central white band of the Rengma head-taking cloth, and sometimes, I think, painted or carved in Konyak “morungs.” The Semas seem to associate it somehow with the distinction between the sexes (v. The Sema Nagas), like some Australian tribes.—J. H. H. [↑]
[6] Cf. The Angami Nagas, Appendix VII., The Meitheis (Hodson), p. 99; The Khasis (Gurdon), p. 170. Mr. W. S. Furness (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, XXXII., 1902, “Ethnography of the Nagas of Eastern Assam”) states that a stone called Puzzi, near the Sema village of Champhimi, which used to be erect but is now laid flat, was killed by the Angami god Tukko, who knocked him down and cut off his head. This god “Tukko” is clearly Tŭkăhū, which is the Sema name for Japvo mountain.—J. H. H. [↑]