|
After the harvest a ceremony called
Pazusata would sometimes be performed.
This was the feast for the children of the entire village. The chiefs and all
others would contribute meat, particularly of barking deer and porcupine.
The
whole village would have saved some such meat and preserved it as dried meat for
this purpose. Barking deer was treated as the weeder of the jhums and porcupine
by turning soil would make it fertile. On this occasion there would be the sacrifice of a fowl at the Tleulia ground and
families would bring cooked rice. The chief and the men would drink beer
at the tleulia ground from a common pot through reeds. The boys would have
a bonfire in front of the chief's house and would dance round it. They
would collect contributions from each house and would have feasts which would
continue for two or three days. During these feasts the boys would recount
aloud the scandals and gossip of the village regarding philandering and other
escapades. This had a good effect on morals in the village as it would
keep in check bad or frivolous adventures.
There was another ceremony which was ancestor worship for good crops. This
was called Laliachhia and was performed around October every year. A broad road
would be made in the village for this purpose and the villagers would march on
this road accompanied by beatings of drums and gongs. A rich man of the village
would be selected to perform the sacrifice. He provided sahma to everyone who
came to his house. A red hen would be sacrificed. The villagers would visit the
graves of the people who had died during the previous three years and offer them
food.
When the grain had been stored in the granary, a pig or a red hen would be
sacrificed in the granary invoking the paddy to increase and last from the
present winter to the next so that the family would have sufficient rice to eat.
This ceremony was called Sawa Awhthi. After husking the paddy, the rice for
daily use would be stored in a pot in the house. For the rice to last a
sacrifice called Bei Pariawthi would be performed in which a fowl would be
killed and blood of the fowl would be sprinkled over the rice.
There were ceremonies to invoke the rain god for sufficient rain necessary
for good crops. In the ceremony to call rain, Khitiawna, a selected person of
the village would plant a cardamom stalk in the village street. By rubbing the
plant, sounds resembling thunder would be made and some water symbolising rain
would be poured on the man. In another ceremony a stone with a hole in it which
would contain water would be taken near the river and a sacrifice of a fowl
would be made after emptying the water. The spirit of the stone, it was hoped,
would get the rain-deity to pour rain and fill up the empty hole in the stone.
As against these magical ceremonies there was a direct devotional method by
which a white fowl would be sacrificed with prayers to the rain god to come down
to the earth.
|
