The Lushei Kuki Clans

by John Shakespear

A little of the first fruits of each crop is always placed on the wall under the eaves, above the spot where the water tubes are stacked, as an offering to the cultivator’s parents. This is called “Mi-thi-chhiah,” but there is another more important Mi-thi-chhiah. It is supposed that the spirits of the departed are very fond of coming to watch the Kut festivities (see [para. 9 of this chapter]) and on such occasions the spirit of a mother will enter her daughter’s body and the daughter then goes off into a trance. The Lusheis say, “Mi-thi in a thluk” (The dead has taken her place). To cause the spirit to depart and restore the girl to consciousness it is necessary to perform the ceremony called Mi-thi-chhiah. Necklaces, earrings, cloths, petticoats, rice, and zu are placed in a heap on the floor where the corpse of the deceased was seated during the funeral feast. Then the worst cloth and petticoat of the girl are burnt in the forge and she forthwith returns to life. One reason given for the behaviour of the spirit is that sufficient attention to the adornment of the corpse at the funeral feast had not been paid. The spirit is supposed to be able to brood over the slight put on its late tenement; hence the collection of all sorts of cloths and ornaments on the spot where the corpse had been seated.

3. Worship of natural forces and deities. The Lushais do not worship the sun or moon or any of the forces of nature, though when wishing to emphasise a statement they frequently say, “If what I say is not true, may the sun and moon desert me.” But they believe the hills, streams, and trees are inhabited by various demons. These are known as “Huai,” those inhabiting the water being called “Tui-huai,” and those residing on land being known as “Rām-huai.” These spirits are uniformly bad, and all the troubles and ills of life are attributed to them, and the sacrifices described in the next part are supposed to appease them.

The following account of the doings of one of these Huai was given me by Suakhnuna, one of the most intelligent of the Lushei chiefs:—

“A Rām-huai named Chongpuithanga used to live near the ford over the Sonai. He said he was the servant of the King of the Huai and was always on the look out for men along the banks of the river. He spoke through a girl called Ziki, who was often ill, and used to go into trances. He demanded a pig and professed to have caused the deaths of ten persons of the village.” The following is another story which the teller fully believed. “About six years ago Hminga, of Lālbuta’s village, was looking at a ngoi (fishing weir) and saw some Rām-huai. These wore the chawndawl (headdress worn by slayers of men), and round these were strings of babies’ skulls. On his return home he got very ill, and all his family kept on asking him what was the matter, but when he was going to tell them the Rām-huai would seize him by the throat so that he could not tell them. If he managed to say a few words he got a pain in the head. He did not die, but recovered.” Again, “A woman of Lālbuta’s village went out of her house at night for purposes of nature. Her name was Mangāmi; she was enceinte. The Huai of the Tuitlin precipice caught her, and forced out the immature child and then carried her off down the rocks. The young men of the village went to search for her and found her naked in the jungle at the foot of the precipice, where the Rām-huai had left her. She knew nothing about it. She recovered.”

The following story gives rather a different view of the Huai:—“A man called Dailova, who may be alive now, did not know that it was time for him to perform his Sakhua sacrifice. He and his son went down to fetch ‘dhan’ from the jhum house, and slept there among the straw; in the night the boy, feeling cold, went into the jhum house and slept among the paddy, but Dailova covered himself up in the straw and kept warm. Towards morning two Huais came along, one of whom was called Lianthawnga, and the other, Rām-huai, called to him, ‘Where are you going to, Lianthawnga?’ and he replied ‘I am going to Lungzawl.’ Then Dailova, from under the straw, called out, ‘Where are you going to, Lianthawnga?’ Then the Rām-huai came into the straw and wrestled with Dailova. When they had finished wrestling it was daylight, so they ate their rice and came home, and Rām-huai followed them and wrestled with Dailova. Sometimes the Rām-huai appears as a tiger and sometimes as a man. Dailova kept on saying, ‘I will wrestle again with him,’ and at last he called out, ‘I have conquered.’ Then the Rām-huai told him that his Sakhua sacrifice was overdue and he performed it at once.” In the last story the Rām-huai is represented in much the same aspect as Khuāvāng has been described to me by others, one of whom told me that once, returning from a drinking bout at the chief’s house, he had found a man of huge stature sitting by his hearth, who after staring at him for a moment or two disappeared. Another, who also had been at a feast, while on his way home saw huge men with enormous heads passing through the jungle. In both these cases the narrators assured me that they were perfectly sober; in fact, one of them alleged as a reason for being sure that the figure which he saw was Khuāvāng was that, in spite of having drunk a great deal, he did not feel intoxicated. In each case the vision was followed by a severe illness.

There is a lake called “Dil,” between the southern border of the Lushai Hills and the Arracan hill tracts, which was credited with being the abode of many savage Tui-huai. No hill man would go within sight of the water, and when I first went there I had great difficulty in getting men to accompany me. The story is that some foreigner visited the place once and climbed into a tree overhanging the water, whence he dropped his knife into the lake and sent one of his men down to fetch it. The diver returned without the knife, but with tales of wonderful beings beneath the water. The foreigner fired his gun into the lake, whereupon numbers of Tui-huai emerged and chased the whole party of intruders, catching and carrying off all except their leader, who made good his escape.

Every form of sickness is attributed to the influence of some Huai or other, and all tales about Huais either begin or end, “There was much sickness in our village.” At the time of an epidemic there is probably some hysterical girl, such as Ziki appears to have been, whose mind has been imbued with tales of Huais, who works herself up into a frenzy and believes herself possessed of a devil. This theory receives confirmation from the facts recorded in the [next chapter] regarding Khawhring. Not every Huai is known by name, and the sacrifices about to be described are offered to all Huais of a particular class.

Lāshi.—Although the Lāshi are not considered as demons or divinities, yet this seems an appropriate place to deal with them. A Lushai describes them thus:—“The Lāshi folk are spirits which live in the Lur and Tān precipices. Formerly a Lushai young man went shooting alone. Beneath the Tān precipice a most beautiful Lāshi maiden was weaving, and on seeing her the youth became love-sick and could not go away, so he stayed and courted her all day, till it began to grow dark; then the Lāshi maiden, wishing to go to her house, asked him to roll up her weaving for her, but he would not. Then she said to him, ‘What animal would you most like to shoot?’ and on his saying an elephant she at once caused him to kill one and he bore its head back in triumph, while the Lāshi maiden and her mother rolled up the cloth and disappeared into the precipice.” My informant assured me that had the young man rolled up the weaving he would never have escaped. In another tale a Lāshi youth falls in love with the daughter of a man called Lianlunga, to whom he appeared in a dream and offered to place in his tobacco box the fur of many wild animals and to enable him to shoot every animal the fur of which was in the box. In return for this Lianlunga agreed to the match, and both he and his wife were given the power of decoying wild animals. Lianlunga’s wife would pinch her pig’s ear, and if it made no noise Lianlunga would go out shooting and Chawntinleri, a younger sister of the Lāshi son-in-law, would drive all the animals past him, and he shot what he liked, for the Lāshi had tamed all the animals. Lianlunga, however, came to a tragic end through trying to dispense with the services of the Lāshi. He enticed a wild metna under his house and then tried to spear it through the floor, but only wounded it and the animal escaped. This offended the Lāshi, who “made the barb of an arrow come out of his heart so that he died.” The Lāshi seem to be only concerned with wild animals, over whom they are believed to have complete control.

4. Religious rites and ceremonies. In this part I propose only to deal with the various sacrifices which play so important a part in a Lushai’s existence, but the festivals described in para. 9 are, to a certain extent, religious ceremonies, and are performed with the idea of pleasing the gods. Suakhnuna explained to me, when giving the description of the Thangchhuah feasts, that Pathian resided in the sky and that these feasts were supposed to please him. Similarly, the carrying about of the effigies of their ancestors in the “mi-thi-rawp-lam” is supposed to be acceptable to the spirits of the departed. In these feasts I think we may safely trace the rude beginnings of the magnificent pageants performed by the Manipuris and called by them “Lai-harauba”—i.e., “Pleasing the god.” Before describing the various sacrifices it is necessary to explain some of the terms used.

Hrilh closely approximates to the Naga “Genna.” The meaning is that those to whom it applies must do no work, except necessary household tasks, and must not leave a prescribed area. The “hrilh” may apply to the whole village or only to the household of the performer of the sacrifice, and the area in which those under “hrilh” are allowed to move about may be either their own house and garden, or the village limits.