John Shakespear

“ Now that all fear of being raided has gone for ever, people no longer feel the need of living together in large communities, and the size of villages is steadily decreasing. The peculiar vagabond strain in the blood of the Kuki-Lushai race, if not controlled, leads to villages splitting into hamlets and hamlets sub-dividing, till in the Manipur Hills we find single houses in the midst of dense jungle, several miles from the next habitation. This could never happen among tribes belonging to the Naga group, with whom intense love for the ancestral village site is a leading characteristic. ”

“ Rāngte Grave.
On the birth of a female child, zu is drunk, but should the child be a son, a pig and a fowl have to be killed, and three days later the puithiam comes and sprinkles the mother with water, muttering charms as he does so, after which ceremony she can go out. Immediately after a death everyone present seizes the nearest weapon and slashes wildly at the walls, posts, shelves, and partitions, shouting, “You have killed him! We will cut you limb from limb, whoever you may be.” ”

“ I have also made careful enquiries in all parts of the Hills as to whether there is any truth in the commonly accepted theory that on the death of a chief a party was at once sent off to kill people in order that their heads might adorn his memorial and their ghosts wait on his spirit in the other world, but I never heard anything which lent any colour to the idea, and, as regards Lushais, I believe it to be a pure invention ”

“ They carried it up to the village and all the dead ate up its flesh entirely. Ngamboma, however, did not care to eat any of it. Then Khuptingi said to Ngamboma, ‘Living people and dead people, we shall not be able to live together comfortably; therefore, if you now build yourself a house here and then return to your home, when you die you will be able to live in it?’—thus Khuptingi said. So he set to work to build a house. The dead called the arum trees, and they split them with axes and built (with them) , but Ngamboma just split those arums with his nail very quickly. ”

“ Every relative and slave has to attend and bring some animal to be killed. The skulls of all these adorn the great man’s grave, and, in former days, at least one fresh human skull taken specially for the occasion from some other clan had to be added to the other trophies over a chief’s grave. Sometimes the body of a great chief may be placed in a small house at a short distance from the village and partially dried over a slow fire; and a curious survival of the times of war is found in the practice, now dying out, of severing the head and burying it in an earthen pot in a separate place. ”

“ The Lakhers, in common with the Chins, are less democratic than the Lushais and their cognates. The power of the chiefs is greater, and the chiefs’ relatives and other wealthy people form a kind of peerage and lord it over the lesser fry, being seldom interfered with unless their doings endanger the interests of the chief. Slaves with the Lakhers are real slaves, not merely unpaid servants as among the Lushais. A slave is the absolute property of his master, and may be sold like any other possession. ”

“ The most valued animal is the mithan; these tame bison wander all day at will in the jungle round the village and towards dusk return spontaneously, each animal going to its owner’s house, round which it loiters till it receives a little salt, after which it joins the rest of the herd under the zawlbuk. ”

“ The man and the woman emerging from the cave were terrified at seeing the two huge animals, and addressed Pathian thus: ‘O Father, you have sent us to re-people the world, but we do not think that we shall be able to carry out your intention, as the whole world is under water, and the only spot on which we could make a resting place is occupied by two ferocious beasts which are waiting to devour us; give us strength to slay these animals.’ After which they killed the tigers and lived happily and begat many sons and daughters, and from them the world was re-populated. ”

“ The Aimol custom is very different from that of the other clans. All the men go out in search of game, the flesh of which is eaten in the evening, and drums are beaten and songs sung while the rice beer circulates freely, in contrast to the feast at the sowing time. Dancing is, however, tabu. The harvest feast is called “Sherh an long.”
The Lamgang have an extra feast, or rather period of rest, when the grain is all garnered, when for ten days no one may enter or leave the village, and no work can be done, the whole energies of the community being concentrated on eating and drinking well. ”

“ The advanced age, as regards males, at which marriage takes place is due to the recognised obligation on the part of every male to marry the daughter of a house of higher standing than his own, with the consequently disproportionate advance in the amount of the marriage price. Too frequently a male on coming into his inheritance is occupied [217] during his years of vigour in paying off the debt of his mother’s marriage price, and can only afford to take a wife of a higher station than his own when he is no longer capable of becoming a father. ”

“ Should a chief have a very favourite boi, he sometimes grants him admission into his own clan. The “puitiam” being called, a fowl or a pig is sacrificed, after the appropriate prayer has been said, and a few of the hairs or feathers are tied round the man’s neck, and he is henceforth considered to belong to the chief’s clan. Anyone can thus admit another to his clan, but in practice it is seldom done, except by chiefs. I think the sacrifice is made with a view to propitiate the Sakhua of the clan which the man is abandoning. ”

“ The Tikhup funeral is exactly the same as that of an ordinary Lushai. The Vaiphei dress up the corpse and strap it on to a bamboo frame, as do the Lushais, and feast around it for three days if food and drink suffice for so long. At the end of the feast the thempu pours some zu down the throat of the corpse and bids the spirit go in peace, and the body is carried to the grave, but if the deceased has attained Thangchhuah honours, it is first earned round the village. The household of the deceased abstain from washing or dressing the hair till some wild animal has been killed. ”

“ Among the clans which have retained their corporate existence the annual ceremony is natural, and therefore it is excluded from the Thangchhuah series.
The Tikhup can earn consideration after death by giving a single feast. The young men and maidens collect a big heap of stones and arrange a seat of honour near it for the giver of the feast, who is carried down on a litter. The young folk dance and sing and drink before him, and then he is carried back to the village and has to present a mithan to the young men, who feast on it for a day and a night at the house of their leader. ”

“ As all the chiefs are of the same family, a boi is at liberty to move from one chief’s house to another. If a chief or his wife treats a boi very badly, the injured one goes off and seeks for a new master, and, as a large number of boi is considered to increase a chief’s importance, every chief is willing to receive him, and therefore boi are generally well treated. In former days powerful chiefs like Sukpuilala and Vutaia only allowed their boi to go to one of their own relations, but even then a boi very often would manage to find an asylum with some equally powerful chief. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Lushais have been nomadic ever since their ancestors started on their western trek some 200 years ago. The method of cultivation which they follow is very wasteful, and a large village soon uses up all the land within reach, and then a move becomes imperative. Their custom of burying their dead within the village tends to make a site unhealthy, especially as the water supply is usually so situated as to receive the drainage of the village, and when the rate of mortality rises unduly high, a move is at once made. ”

“ On the death of a Chiru, guns are fired and gongs beaten, and a fowl, pig, and goat are killed at once. There is the usual funeral feast, and food and personal effects, including his comb, are buried with him. The house is “sherh” for three days, during which rice is placed in a small basket in the house and then thrown on to the grave. On the third day the house is purified by the thempu sacrificing a cock. In nearly every clan the house has to be purified by the thempu besprinkling it with either consecrated water or zu, and in many cases the funeral party are similarly purified. ”

“ Widow Re-marriage.—There is no objection to a widow remarrying. If a woman has a son and there is any property, it is proper for her to remain unmarried and look after her son and his interests; should she, however, wish to remarry there is nothing to prevent her, but her late husband’s relatives will take charge of the children and all the property. Should a widow be left with daughters only, it rests with her husband’s nearest male relatives whether she shall continue to live separately or shall enter his house. ”