Once when starting on a night expedition to capture a rebel chief, I noticed my guide staring up intently at the moon, and he expressed great satisfaction at seeing a star quite close to its edge, and exclaimed that our expedition was now sure to succeed, which I am glad to say proved true.
5. Witchcraft. The Lushais are firm believers in witchcraft. There are several ways of bewitching your enemy. Colonel Lewin has a tale in which the wizard takes up the impression of a person’s foot in the mud and puts it to dry over the hearth, thereby causing the owner to waste away. Clay figures into which bamboo spikes are thrust also figure in all cases in which a person is accused of this offence. To cut off a piece of a person’s hair and put it in a spring is certain, unless the hair is speedily removed, to cause his death. Several tragedies have occurred on account of the belief in witchcraft. In 1897 three whole families were massacred because it was thought that they were bewitching a very aged chieftainess. The livers of the wizards were cut out and portions carried to the sufferer, but unfortunately she died before being able to taste them and thus prove the efficacy of the remedy. So strong was the feeling about these wizards that four or five households of their relatives had to be given a special and isolated site, as no village would receive them.
The following translation of a Lushai’s account of how mankind first learned the black art is specially interesting, as it introduces Lalruanga and Keichalla, who are the heroes of many of the oldest of the Lushai tales. Colonel Lewin gives some excellent stories in his “Progressive Colloquial Exercises.” Keichalla is the man who can become a tiger at will, and appears in many tales:—
“Dawi witchcraft was known to Pathian. Vahrika also was something like Pathian. Vahrika had a separate water supply, and Pathian’s daughter was always disturbing it. Vahrika said, ‘What can it be?’ and lay in ambush. Pathian’s daughter came, and he caught her and was going to kill her, but she said, ‘Don’t kill me; I will teach you magic.’ So she taught him, and Vahrika taught it all to Keichalla, Lalruanga, and Hrang-sai-puia. Then Lalruanga went to court Zangkāki, and Zangkāki, who was a friend of Pathian’s daughter, bewitched Lalruanga, who had forgotten his “dawi bur” (magic gourd), and he said to Chaichim (the mouse), ‘Go and fetch my dawi bur which I put in my basket.’ So the mouse went to fetch the dawi bur and got it, but the Tuiruang (Barak) river rose very high. The mouse took the dawi bur in his mouth and started to swim over the river. The dawi bur was washed away by the river till it stuck in the fish trap of the Thlangom tribe, who said, ‘What is this?’ The dawi bur was singing like anything. The Thlangoms broke it open. No sooner had they opened it than they each acquired knowledge of magic. Then the Thlangoms were chanting the magic song. Some Mizo (natives of these Hills) who were passing through the village also heard the song of those who knew magic. The Mizo saw a man eating rice. ‘May you be bewitched!’ they said. They bewitched him in his rice eating, and for a year after whenever he ate cooked rice it changed into dry uncooked rice, and it swelled inside him till his stomach could not hold it and he died. Thus the Mizo learnt about magic. Nowadays also there is magic, but those who know it won’t teach it without payment.”
The Lushais maintain that the tribes to the north of them, such as Paihte, Bete, &c., are very proficient at witchcraft, while the Chins consider the Lushais such experts at the craft that when Captain Hall, 2nd Gurkhas, and I forced our way from the west through the then unexplored hills and joined General Symons at Haka in 1890, the chiefs of that village besought the General not to allow any of our Lushai followers to go within sight of it, lest they should, by merely looking at it, cause fearful misfortunes. The belief in the man tiger is common through the Hills and also in Nepal. When a man-eater gave much trouble in Lungleh, our Gurkha Sepoys maintained that it was a man, one of three friends who had assumed this shape and were travelling by different shapes to a previously selected rendezvous, on reaching which they would resume their human forms.
Cane Suspension Bridge.
Photo by Major Playfair, I.A.
Khuavang zawl.—The Lushais believe that certain persons—both males and females, but more generally females—have the power of putting themselves into a trance and are in a state of communication with Khuavang. This power is called “zawl,” and a person who possesses it is called “zawlnei.” During their trances they are said to be able to elicit from Khuavang information regarding the particular sacrifice required to cure any sick person, and their information is supposed to be more reliable than the opinion of the puithiam, who bases his statements solely on the action of the pulse. The method of interrogating a zawlnei is called “thumvor,” and is as follows:—
The zawlnei being in a trance is given a shallow basket containing rice, which he or she holds in one hand while an egg is placed in the palm of the other hand. When the zawlnei reverses this hand the egg does not fall. The basket of rice is shaken backwards and forwards, and there appears among the rice the footprint of the animal which it is necessary to sacrifice to ensure the patient’s recovery. If it is impossible to trace any resemblance to any animal’s footmark the state of the patient is serious and the whole series of sacrifices are needed. Compare the description of the Maibi’s method of divination given in McCulloch’s account of the Valley of Manipur, page 21. The following two accounts of Khuavang zawl were given me by Lushais:—