Part 4
On a death occurring, the old women of the village wash and lay out the body. Then one composes a chant, setting forth the parentage and life of the dead: "You will now meet your grand-parents, father, deceased brother, etc., and will stay with them and eat with them." Then a separate meal of rice and a boiled egg is placed beside the body, and the dead man is invited to eat. This is done twice a day, the meal being cooked separately from the food of the family. After being offered and placed beside the corpse for a time, the food is thrown away. This goes on day by day until the funeral service is held (see below). After that there are no regular offerings, but occasionally a man or woman puts aside from his or her own share of food a portion for the dead, as, for instance, when another funeral reminds them of those who have died before.
There does not appear to be any fear of the dead coming back to trouble the living. Some people, however, it is said, are afraid to pass the burying-place of the dead after dark.
They say that a man called Thi-rèng Vàng-rèng (literally, "Dead-alive come-alive") in former times used to travel between this world and Jòm Recho's abode; he taught them their funeral ceremonies. At last he did not come back. Everything is different in Jòm-aròng. Thirèng Vàngrèng saw the people there go out to fish, and gather instead pieces of stick. They asked him why he did not gather them too; he answered that they were not fish, but sticks. They waved over them a lighted brand, and he saw them as fish. So, too, there a crab becomes a tiger, or seems to be a tiger. Men do not stay in Jòm Recho's city for ever, but are born again as children, and this goes on indefinitely (here we seem to have a borrowing from Hinduism). "The Mikirs give the names of their dead relations to children born afterwards, and say that the dead have come back; but they believe that the spirit is with Jòm all the same." [15]
A man with unusually keen and alarming eyes is said to be possessed by a demon (hi-i). The phrase is ahi-i kedo arlèng, and, of the eyes, amèk ahi-i kedo. But the superstition of the evil eye, as prevalent elsewhere, seems to be unknown, and such a man is not avoided; rather, the hi-i is supposed to give him cleverness. The same phrase is used in familiar abuse to a child: Ahi-i kedo oso, "You devil-possessed brat!"
RELIGION--DIVINITIES.
The Mikirs have no idols, temples, or shrines. Some people, however, have fetishes or amulets, called bòr. These are pieces of stone or metal, by keeping which they become rich. Sometimes, however, a man unwittingly keeps a bòr that brings him ill-luck and loss. A man is said to have got a bòr, bòr kelòng; Bòr do-kòkle, plàng-ple-ji ma? "If you have got a bòr, will you not become rich?" Bòrs are not common; one gets them by chance in river, field, or jungle. Or a man dreams that he can get a bòr in such a place, and finds it there. But these amulets are not objects of worship or propitiation.
The Gods--Arnàm-atum--are innumerable, and are worshipped in different ways, at different times, and in different places. The names of some of the most important are given below.
Arnàm Kethe, in spite of his name, which means "The Great God," has no definite authority over the other Gods. He is a house-god, and is sacrificed to once in three years, if no occasion (in consequence of trouble) arises meanwhile. His appropriate offering is a pig. The family obtain Arnàm Kethe by asking him to stay with them, and by castrating a young pig, to be sacrificed three years later. All families have not got Arnàm Kethe to stay with them, nor does he always come when invited. If a man is sick, and the uche (diviner) declares that Arnàm Kethe wishes to join the household, the ceremony is performed, but no offerings are made at the time. After three years--or earlier, if there is any sickness in the family--the pig is killed, and a general feast, with rice, beer, and spirits, given to the village. A booth of leaves is built in the three days before; the first day is devoted to cutting the posts for the booth, and is called phòng-ròng ketèng; the second, to garlanding leaves round the posts, called phòng-ròng ketòm; and on the third day leaves are laid out for the rice, rice-flour (pithaguri, Ass.) is sprinkled about the ground, and plantains and other trees are planted around the booth. All these preparations are done in the early morning before eating. Then follows the ceremony--Arnàm Kethe karakli. First, there is the invocation: "To-day has come, and now we will give you your three-years' offering; accept it kindly!" Fowls are killed, and then the pig (all animals killed in sacrifice are beheaded with one stroke of a heavy knife delivered from above). The liver, heart, and lights of both are cooked for the god. Then the hoof, ear, and tail of the pig are offered, then pieces of cooked meat. Afterwards the sacrificers eat tekar kethi or tekar-so, then tekar-pi. Both are pieces of flesh, the first smaller, the latter larger, eaten with rice-beer. Then all the company set to and eat rice and flesh together. Sometimes three or four pigs and forty different kinds of vegetables are consumed at the sacrificial feast. The women get sixfold or ninefold the shares of the men, and carry them home bound up in leaves (àn-bòr and òk-bòr).
Pèng is also a household god. His offering is a goat, sacrificed yearly, in the tikup or space before the house. Some neighbours are invited to the sacrificial feast. Pèng lives in the house, Arnàm Kethe in heaven. Pèng is also sacrificed to in sickness. Very few houses have not Pèng. Maize, rice, and a gourd of rice-beer are placed for him above the veranda of the house, and the firstfruits of the harvest are offered to him. "But these two gods only come to eat, and families avoid taking them if they can."
Hèmphu ("head of the house," "householder") owns all the Mikir people. Everybody can sacrifice to him at any time, and pray for deliverance from sickness. Mukràng is similar to Hèmphu but slightly lower in dignity. These two gods, the preservers of men, are approached by the sacrifice of a fowl or goat. Hèmphu must be invoked first in every sacrifice, being the peculiar owner of men.
Rèk-ànglòng ("the mountain of the community") or Inglòng-pi ("great mountain") is a house-god, but is worshipped in the field, and only men eat the sacrifice, which is a fowl or a goat once a year. He is the god of the hill they live on, the Deus loci, with whom they have to be at peace; but not every family in the village need have him.
Arnàm paro ("the hundred god") is the name of a god who takes a hundred shares of rice, pithaguri, betel-nut, and the red spathe of the plantain tree cut up. He is worshipped with a white goat or a white fowl as the sacrifice. He and Rèk-ànglòng figure particularly in the Ròngker, or great annual village festival, celebrated in June at the beginning of the year's cultivation. (Arnàm-paro seems to be a collective name, to include all gods whom it may concern. Kamakhya, the Hindu goddess of Nilachal above Gauhati, is mentioned as one of the deities included in Arnàm-paro.)
The gods named above are all invoked and propitiated to grant prosperity and avert misfortune, both generally and specially. There are, besides, numerous gods who take their names from the special diseases over which they preside or which they are asked to avert; such are--
Chomàng-ase ("Khasi fever"), a Khasi god, who lives in the house and is propitiated with a goat; he is comparatively rare. This god appears to be identical with Keche-ase, which is the rheumatism. (Chomàng is the name for the interior Khasis, Keche for those immediately in contact with the Mikirs.)
Ajo-ase ("the night fever") is the deity of cholera (ma-vur or pòk-avur). The sacrifice to him is two fowls and many eggs, and is offered at night, on the path outside the village. The whole village subscribes to furnish the offering, and with the eatables are combined a load of cotton, a basket of chillies, an offering of yams, and the image of a gun (because cholera is thought to be a British disease); also sesamum (nèmpo), many bundles consisting of six sticks of a soft wood called chèknàm (perhaps the cotton tree, bombax) tied together, many bundles of the false cane (ingsu), and double wedges of chèknàm wood. The god is invoked: "Don't come this way, go that way!" The eatables are eaten, and the other articles thrown away. The houses are then beaten with rods of chèknàm and ingsu.
So-meme ("evil pain") is the god to whom barren women have recourse.
Recurring sicknesses and troubles are ascribed to Thèng-thòn or Òk-làngno, a devil (hi-i); he is propitiated with a goat and a pig, or two or three fowls. A man gasping in sickness is being strangled by Thèng-thòn. If, notwithstanding invocations of the gods, sickness grows worse, a sacrifice is offered to Thèng-thòn without summoning the diviner or sàng-kelàng-abàng.
Mr. Stack gives the following as the names of the chief diseases (besides those already mentioned), the averting of which forms the main object of worship: goitre, phun-kàng ("swollen throat"); phthisis, si-i (also cough); stone, ingthàk; diarrhoea, pòk-kàngsi; rheumatism, keche-ase ("Khasi fever"); neuralgia, bàb ase; small-pox, pi-amir ("the Mother's flowers"); black leprosy, si-i; white leprosy, aròk; elephantiasis, kèng-tòng (kèng, leg; ingtòng, funnel-shaped basket); dysentery, pòk kapavi ("bleeding of belly").
The house-gods come down in the family; no others would be sacrificed to if the family were uniformly prosperous.
All natural objects of a striking or imposing character have their divinity. The sun (arni) and moon (chiklo) are regarded as divine, but are not specially propitiated. But localities of an impressive kind, such as mountains, [16] waterfalls, deep pools in rivers, great boulders, have each their arnàm, who is concerned in the affairs of men and has to be placated by sacrifice. The expression arnàm do, used of a place, means, generally, to be haunted by something felt as mighty or terrible. All waterfalls (làngsun), in particular, have their arnàms. In Baguri mauza there are two great waterfalls in the Diyaung river which are specially venerated as divine; one of these, the Làng-kàngtòng ("Rolling-down water"), can be heard half a day's journey off. Similarly, there are places where a river goes underground (làng-lut); these also have their arnàm. [17] Such local divinities of the jungle are propitiated chiefly to avert mischief from tigers, which are a terrible plague in many parts of the Mikir hills.
There is no worship of trees or animals.
Làm-aphu, "the head or master of words," is a deity probably of recent origin. He is the god sacrificed to by a man who has a case in court; the sacrifice is one young cock, which should be offered at night, secretly, by the sacrificer alone, in a secret place.
It should be mentioned that, following an ill-sounding idiom of the Assamese, the Mikirs use "Arnàm" as a common (propitiatory) form of address to human beings (Assamese, deuta). Po-arnàm-po ("god-father") to a man, and pe-arnàm-pi ("god-mother") to a woman, are the phrases. In one of the stories given in the next Section, the king is addressed as Hèmphu Arnàm, "Lord God."
DIVINATION AND MAGIC.
Sickness, if long continued or severe, is frequently attributed to witchcraft (maja). A man suffering from long sickness is said to be maja kelòng--"witchcraft has got hold of him." To discover the author of the spell, or the god or demon who has brought the trouble and must be propitiated, the services of a diviner are necessary. Uche, feminine uche-pi (Hindi, ojhà), is the general name for the cunning in such things. Of these there are two grades--the humbler, whose craft is acquired merely by instruction and practice, and the higher, who works under the inspiration or afflatus of divine powers. The former is the sàng-kelàng abàng, "the man who looks at rice," in Assamese, mangalsua; the latter, invariably a woman, is the lodèt or lodèt-pi. In serious sickness or distress the latter is called in; on ordinary and less important occasions, the former.
The sàng-kelàng abàng picks out of the pot the unbroken grains of rice (sàng), and places them, by fives and tens, in pentacle or other fashion. He then counts by couples. If in the groups the odd numbers predominate, the omen is good. If there are no odd grains over, it is very bad. Then all are swept together again, and arranged in three or four heaps. Each heap is counted out, a god being named, and if after the counting, again by couples, three single grains remain, the god named is the one to be propitiated. If three grains do not remain, the process is tried over again. Cowries (chobai) are sometimes used instead of rice in the same way. Also, with cowries a handful is taken and spread out, and the number with the slits upwards counted; if they are the majority, the omen is good. [18]
Another mode of divination used by the mangalsua is to arrange in a circle, equidistant from a point marked on a board (inghoi), as many little heaps of clay as there are gods suspected in the case, each heap being called by the name of its god. An egg is then sharply thrown into the middle of the board at the marked point. When it breaks and the yolk is scattered, that clay heap which receives the largest splash of yolk, or towards which the largest and longest splash points, indicates the god responsible for the affliction. [19]
Another mode is to use the nòk-jir, which is a long-handled iron dao with a cross-piece at the handle and two inclined projecting pieces higher up, before the blade, thus:--
This is held upright in the hand. It shakes of itself when the charm is recited and the nòk-jir invoked to become inspired: Nàng uché vàng-phlòt! "Let your spirit (uché) come!" The holder asks whether the sick person will recover, and goes over the names of the possibly responsible gods, and the nòkjir shakes at the right answer and name. The charm (the Assamese word montro is used) recites the making of the nòkjir, and ends--"if you tell lies, you will be broken up and made into needles" (--the lowest use to which iron can be put, to sew women's petticoats!). [20]
The Lodèt is an ordinary woman (not belonging to any particular family or kur), who feels the divine afflatus, and, when it is upon her, yawns continually and calls out the names and the will of the gods. Another lodètpi is summoned in to question her, and ascertain if her possession is really divine; a sàng-kelàng abàng may also be consulted. If the report is favourable, a purificatory offering of a fowl is made to Hèmphu and Mukràng, the preservers of men, and the woman is accepted as a lodètpi.
She sits by the bewitched person (maja-kelòng), and the neighbours come in after supper. The lodètpi bathes her hands and feet and face in water in which the tulsi plant (Ocymum sanctum, holy basil) has been steeped, and begins to shake and yawn. A gourd of rice-beer is brought, of which she drinks some, and begins to call out the names of gods, and they descend upon her. She is now inspired, and when questioned indicates, by indirect and riddling answers, the enemy who has bewitched the sufferer, or the gods who must be sacrificed to. When this is ascertained she goes away. The accusation of practising witchcraft is carried before the me or village assembly. The sacrifice to placate the gods proceeds next day, and is usually costly.
To bewitch a person, it is necessary to have some of his hair, or a piece of his clothes; these are buried with one egg, some bones, and some charcoal. A good lodètpi can produce these things by the power of her inspiration. A white cloth is tied up into the shape of a bag. She conjures the things into it, and on opening the bag next morning they are found inside. When they are thus recovered, the spirit (karjòng) of the sufferer returns with them, and he gets well.
Charms (pherèm) are much used for medicinal purposes, either alone or in combination with other remedies. For an ordinary stomach-ache (pòk-keso), a little mud rubbed on the abdomen, with a muttered charm, is the specific. For rheumatism (keche-ase), a castor-oil leaf is struck on the place, and a charm muttered; if this fails, a sacrifice must be offered to the god Keche-ase. The worker of these remedial measures is called kàngtòk abàng, and the verb is ingtòk. Charms are not, as a rule, carried on the person.
The expression vur kachethat, "to kill for oneself (a fowl) for disease," means to prevent evil by sacrifice after a dream which had previously been followed by mischance.
If a child does not thrive, it is imputed to the sin, or devil (ahi-i) of the maternal uncle (òng), or, if there is no maternal uncle, of one of the child's mother's kur. The family apply to the person held to be responsible, and he gives a brass ring to be hung round the child's neck, and a rice-ball (àn adum).
There is no entertaining of friends on recovery from sickness. The sick person is tended by his wife and relations.
Tekere, Thekere, means a man who knows a spell or montro, especially one which protects him against tigers (tèke).
OATHS AND ORDEALS.
Oaths and imprecations take the place of ordeals. Earth is put on the head, and the man says--"May I be like this dust!" A tiger's tooth is scraped, and the scrapings drunk in water: "May the tiger eat me!" Similarly, an elephant's tusk is scraped, and the scrapings drunk: "May the elephant trample me to death!" (Ingnar ne pedòng-nàng!) The copper ring worn by the uche is dipped in water, and the water drunk, the man saying, "May the tiger catch me!" Another form of oath is Tàmhitni kàngjir asòntòt ne pàngjir-nàng, "May I be melted like molten copper (or pot-metal)!" Such oaths are used to confirm promises, and also to attest evidence and proclaim innocence of a charge.
FUNERAL CEREMONIES.
The funeral is the most elaborate, costly, and important of all the ceremonies performed by the Mikirs. Such ceremonies are considered obligatory in all cases except that of a child who has been born dead, or who has died before the after-birth has left the mother; such a child is buried without any ceremony. Victims of small-pox or cholera are buried shortly after death, but the funeral service is performed for them later on, the bones being sometimes dug up and duly cremated. When a person is killed by a tiger, if the body or clothes are found, they are buried at a distance from the village, because the tiger is supposed to visit the burial-place. Such persons cannot gain admittance to Jòm-aròng unless there are elaborate funeral ceremonies performed for them. Being killed by a tiger is generally imputed to the victim's sin. His spirit is believed to dwell in the most dreary of the places where dead men's spirits go; there is no notion (such as is found among some races in India) that it animates the tiger who killed him. Except in these cases the dead are disposed of by cremation, the burnt bones being afterwards buried.
The elaborateness of the funeral depends on the means of the family. The description which follows applies to a case where the household is well-to-do. In any case the body is kept in the house for one day after death; if a regular service is held, it may lie as long as from a week to twelve days.
The body lies in the kut. The persons occupied with the funeral ceremonies live in the hòng-pharla; the rest of the family cook and eat in the kàm, but the officiants, male and female, must go across a stream or creek to cook and eat. As already mentioned, the old women of the family wash and lay out the corpse. Then beer is prepared, rice husked and got ready, and a convenient day fixed for the service. If the house has not a big enough hòng (front platform), the neighbours join and build one on to it. From the date of the death, each household in the village gives a man to sleep in the house (in the hòng-pharla). When it is settled that the beer and rice required can be provided in four or five days, the village lads are summoned about 8 o'clock in the evening. They bring their drum (chèng), and drum up to the tikup (front yard); they drum there awhile, and then, while one keeps time with the drum, dance by pairs, holding in their left hands shields (chòng-kechèngnàn), and in their right hands sticks. They go round twice in a circle; then they all dance round, holding each the other's hands (this is called chomàng-kàn, "Khasi dance"). After an hour spent in this way they go back to the gaonbura's house to sleep. Early next morning they come without beat of drum, and dance the chomàng-kàn to the drum; they then dance the shield-dance as before (chòng-kechèngnàn) to the drum, and go home. Next night they come as before, but a little later, and go through the same ceremonies. Next morning they proceed as before, and in the usual course they kill a fowl and roast it in pieces on spits in the tikup, and eat it there. The third and last night is that of the kàn-pi ("great dance").
Meantime, during the day, the risomar have to work at getting ready the tèle--the stout bamboo to which the corpse is to be slung: the bànjar--a bamboo ornamented with curled shavings (bu) hung in tufts to projecting arms; and the seroso--shorter bamboo sticks similarly ornamented and tipped with leaves. The men have to go to the theri (village burning-place) and prepare there a chang or platform, with logs for burning the body arranged under it; this chang is built in a peculiar manner, known only to adepts. The uchepi (a skilled old woman) is summoned to prepare the viaticum for the dead, and the duhuidi, with an assistant, who beat the two drums which have now been hung up in the kàm-athèngthòt: the duhuidi is one skilled in tolling on these drums. Then comes the girl called obòkpi (not necessarily a maid), that is, the "carrier" of the dead man; but in place of the dead she carries on her back a gourd for holding beer; she must belong to his mother's kur. Also the nihu, the maternal uncle or other male representative of the mother's kur, and the ingjir-arlo, sister's husband, or father's sister's husband, of the deceased; it is his office to kill the goat for the dead, if they can afford one.