“Formerly the Hauhul chief swallowed the moon, having been changed during his dream into an awk, and many people were watching and said, ‘The awk is swallowing the moon.’ Then he awoke and his mouth was bleeding. A year later he died and his ghost was turned into an awk and went up into the sky, and the moon was full and big, and the ghost, which had been changed into an awk, could not swallow the moon, but the next day the moon was smaller and he swallowed it. Thus men knew for the first time that there was an awk.”
When an eclipse occurs there is much excitement and beating of drums, &c. This is to frighten the awk, for the Lushais believe that once the awk swallowed the sun so effectually that general darkness prevailed. This awful time is called “Thimzing”—i.e., the gathering of the darkness—and many awful things happened. Everything except the skulls of animals killed in the chase became alive, dry wood revived, even stones became alive and produced leaves, and so men had nothing to burn. The successful hunters who had accumulated large stocks of the trophies of their skill were able to keep alive using them as fuel, and some of their descendants still survive among the Thados, under which heading they will be found in Part II. As it was pitch dark, neither animals nor men could see at all, and tigers went about biting wildly at trees, stones, and people. A general transformation took place, men being all changed into animals. Those who were going merrily to the jhum were changed into “satbhai” (laughing thrushes), as can be known by their white heads, which represent the turbans worn by the men, and their cheery chatterings. People wearing striped cloths became tigers, the chiefs of those days being represented by the hornbills of to-day, whose bills represent the bamboo rods for stirring rice while cooking; but another version is that the chiefs became king-crows, whose long tail-feathers the chiefs value much and wear as plumes. The black hands of the gibbon prove clearly that his ancestors were dyeing thread when the Thimzing occurred. Another version ascribes the same origin to the crows. Similarly those who were carrying torches finding their way down stream beds were changed into fireflies. The Chongthu family are sometimes said to have been turned into monkeys, the Vangchhia into elephants; but another version says the elephants were old women who were wearing their “puanpui”—i.e., cotton quilts—with the tufts of cotton outside. Wrestlers were suddenly transformed into bears, who to this day grapple with their foes.
The Paihte or Vuite clan became a species of squirrel, while the Rālte’s ancestor was just saying, “Vaibel kan chep te ang nge?” “Shall we suck our pipes?” and was therefore changed into a sort of squirrel called “chepchepa,” from the sound it is always making.
The domestic animals were changed into wild ones, but a number of large boulders in the Van-laiphai are said to represent Chhura’s mithan which were grazing there at the Thimzing. After this terrible catastrophe the world was again repeopled by men and women issuing from a hole in the earth called the “Chhinglung,” which appeared to me to be a disused “cache” in which some long forgotten chief used to hide his valuables on the approach of danger. Mithan reappeared from gourd seeds, as is shown by their bellow “um mu”—i.e., gourd seed. Pigs issued from the Rih-lake, wherefore they come to their food when called “rih rih.” Fowls were re-created from the mud, so to this day they answer to the call “chirih chirih,” i.e., “chir mud.”
It is not quite clear how, if representatives of the different clans were changed into various animals, these same clans again issued from the Chhinglung, but our own legends are not always quite easy to follow.
The following is a translation of a Lushai account of the repeopling of the world and of a feast which is said to have taken place soon after:—
“The place whence all people sprang is called Chhinglung. All the clans came out of that place. Then two Rālte came out together, and began at once chattering, and this made Pathian think there were too many men, and so he shut down the stone. After a short time Thlāndropa was going to hold a Khuangchoi, and told them to call together all the people of the world, and when this had been done he held his Khuangchoi. They said to the sun, ‘Do not shine, because we want our leader the Sā-huai (Loris) to lead us in the dance,’ and the sun said, ‘All right.’ At that time the Sā-huai and all the animals could talk, and the bamboo rat was beating the drum, and they all danced, and in the middle of their fun the sun said, ‘Oh, how I do want to look,’ and shone out, and all the animals got hot, and could not dance any more, so the Sā-huai got angry and quarrelled with the sun, and won’t even look at it nowadays. There was a great feast of flesh, but the owl got no meat, so he got angry, and went and sat on the bough of a tree, and Zuhrei, the big rat, chaffed him and said, ‘Buka has eaten his fill.’ Then the owl being still hungry, got angry and bit Zuhrei. Since that day they have been at war, and if the owl sees Zuhrei he assuredly bites him.” The point of the allusion to the Rālte is that this clan is famed throughout the Hills for the loquacity of its members.
Another story connected with this feast is that Thlāndropa gave a number of presents: to the ancestor of the Poi or Chin tribes he gave a fighting dao, while the ancestor of the Lushais only received a cloth, which is the reason that the Poi tribes are braver than the Lushais. On my asking what the ancestor of the white man had received, I was told he had received the knowledge of reading and writing—a curious instance of the pen being considered mightier than the sword.
Thlāndropa appears to have been a great person in his day, for he is supposed to have received Khuavang’s daughter in marriage, giving in exchange a gun, the report of which we call thunder. This legend puts Khuavang on a par with Pathian, and supports the theory that the differentiation is of comparatively recent growth.
There is a legend that the king of the Water Huai fell in love with Ngai-ti (loved one) and, as she rejected his addresses and ran away, he pursued her and surrounded the whole human race on the top of a hill called Phun-lu-buk, said to be far away to the north-east. As the water kept on rising, to save themselves the people threw Ngai-ti into the flood, which thereupon receded. It was the running off of this water which cut up the surface of the world, which Chhura had levelled, into the deep valleys and high hill ranges of which the whole world as known to the ancestors of the Lushais consisted.