Lianthangi was a Khuavang zawl. There was much sickness in the village. One night Khuavang came to her in her dreams and said, “If each house-owner will make a clay metna and place it outside his or her house the sickness will cease.” So they did this and the next day they observed as “hrilh,” and within 20 days everyone was well again.
Thang-tei-nu was a zawlnei, but concealed the fact; people used to come secretly and make her perform the thumvor, and said she knew everything. She allowed no one to drink zu in her house, and if she drank zu she always got ill and it was “thianglo” for her to perform sacrifice. Khuavang told her this in her dreams.
Khawhring.—In [Chapter IV, para. 6], the sacrifice called Khawhring Tir has been described. The belief in Khawhring is universal, and from the following translation it will be seen that the unfortunate women who were accused of being possessed by such a spirit have good reason to be grateful that the control of the country has passed into our hands. The belief is that Khawhring lives in certain women, whence it issues forth from time to time and takes possession of another woman, who, falling into a trance, speaks with the voice of the original hostess of the Khawhring. A missionary described to me a weird scene of excitement which he once saw, the object being to exorcise a Khawhring which had possessed a girl. Amid a turmoil of shouting, drum-beating, and firing of guns the spirit was ordered to quit its temporary abode and return whence it came.
Translation of a Lushai Version of the Origin of Khawhring.
“Wild boars have Khawhring. Once a man shot a wild boar while out hunting. On his return home they cooked the flesh. Some of the fat got on the hand of his sister, who rubbed her head, and the wild boar’s Khawhring just passed into her. On the next day, without any provocation, she entered another girl. She took entire possession of her. People said to her, “Where are you going to?” She replied, “It is the wild boar my brother shot.” “Well, what do you want?” they said. “If you will give me eggs I will go away,” she replied. They gave her eggs and she went. Presently all those who borrowed the “hnam” (a plaited cane band for carrying loads) of the girl with the Khawhring also got possessed. If one with a Khawhring has a daughter the child is always possessed, so no one wants to marry a person with a Khawhring. Even now, we being to some extent Lusheis, we do not like to let a person possessed by a Khawhring enter our houses, and if such a one sits on the bed of a true Lushei she will certainly be fined a metna. Those possessed of Khawhring are most disgusting people, and before the foreigners came they were always killed.”
The writer was not a true Lushei, but belonged to one of the clans which are fast being absorbed and are almost indistinguishable from Lusheis.
The Lushais say that sometimes girls walk in their sleep and go and lick up urine, as the metna do, under the zawlbuk, and that when starting forth on these expeditions their feet and hands shine as if they were coated with phosphorus. If a young man wakes a girl up while she is walking thus she is very much ashamed, and generally grants him the favours of her bed to procure his silence.
This state is called “Thlahzung.”