There are various places named after rulpui. On one hill the body of a large snake is said to have been raised up on a pole, and so big was it that its shadow fell on a hill many miles away, called thereafter “Rulpui-thlin”—i.e., Rulpui’s Shadow. The following is the translation of the story of the origin of “rulpui.”
Chhawng-chili and the Rulpui.
Once upon a time there was a girl called Chhawng-chili, who was in her father’s jhum. At the bottom of the jhum in a hollow tree a snake had its nest, and the snake loved Chhawng-chili very much. Whenever they went to the jhum she used to send her younger sister to call the snake, who used to come up and coil itself up in Chhawng-chili’s lap. The little sister was very much afraid of the snake and did not dare tell her father. When the girls were going to the jhum, their parents always used to wrap up some rice and vegetables for them to take with them. On account of her fear of the snake, the little sister could not eat anything. Then her sister and the snake ate up all the rice and the vegetables, and the little sister stayed in the jhum house all day and got very thin, and her parents said to her, “Oh, little one, why are you getting so thin?” but she always said, “Oh, father, I can’t tell you”; but her parents pressed her to tell them, and at last she said, “My sister and the snake make love always; as soon as we get to the jhum she says to me, ‘Call him to me,’ and I call him, and he comes up and coils himself up on her lap, and I am so frightened that I cannot eat anything, and that is why I am so thin.” So they kept Chhawng-chili at home, and her father and younger sister went to the jhum, and her father dressed himself up to resemble Chhawng-chili, but he put his dao by his side; then the little sister called the snake, who came up quickly and curled itself up in her father’s lap, and he with one blow cut it in two, and then they returned to the village. On the next day Chhawng-chili and her sister went to the jhum and her little sister called the snake, but her father had killed it. So they came back to their house, and found their father lying on the floor just inside the door sill. Chhawng-chili said, “Get up, father, I want to scrape the mud off my feet” (on the door sill), but her father would not move. So Chhawng-chili scraped off the mud from her feet, and stepped over the sill, and her father struck up and killed her. In her stomach there were about 100 small snakes. They killed them and killed them, but one escaped and hid under a dry patch of mithan dung, and grew up and used to eat people, and when it got bigger it wriggled into the “rulchawm kua”—i.e., “feed snake hole”—and people of all villages used to feed it. After a time it was not content with goats and pigs, but demanded children. One day a Chin who was travelling noticed his host and hostess weeping, and on asking the reason was told it was the day for giving a child to the snake. “I will kill the snake,” he replied, and, being provided with a goat, he slew it, and wrapped its flesh round his dao and forearm and offered it to the rulpui. When his forearm had been swallowed, by a quick turn of his wrist he disembowelled the monster. The place where this took place is on the Aijal-Champhai road, some forty miles from Aijal. The Biate or Bete claim to have been the people who fed the snake.
If a “thingsir” (a snake of which the female is very light-coloured and the male dark) enters a house, it is very “thianglo.”
The entry of any snake into a house is looked on with suspicion, and either portends misfortune or it denotes that the sacrifice to Sakhua is urgently needed. If this sacrifice is not performed speedily death may ensue.
To see a snake with legs is “thianglo.” The Lushais believe there are such creatures. My informant says it is only nowadays that this is “thianglo,” inferring that formerly such creatures were common and therefore attracted no attention. It is the unusualness of the thing which makes the Lushai think it “thianglo.”
4. Omens. In the section dealing with superstition the subject of omens of misfortune has been fully dealt with, and there is no need to say much more, but the following extract from “Asiatic Dissertations,” II, 1792, is interesting—it is from a description of the “Mountaineers of Tipra.”
“If at any time they see a star very near the moon they say, ‘To-night we shall undoubtedly be attacked by some enemy,’ and they pass the night under arms with extreme vigilance.”
This belief may be accounted for by the superstition that projects undertaken on such occasions are likely to succeed.