recognised as part and parcel of the village or clan in which they happen to be, whether as wives or as daughters, since some of the cultivation rites demand the active presence and co-operation of the women of the village. The beginning and the end of the cultivating season are celebrated by a village genna or communal festival, the most conspicuous feature of which is the tug-of-war between the women and the girls on one side and the men and the boys on the other. What is with the Nāgas a serious business has become among the Meitheis a mere pastime, since we find mention in the Meithei Chronicles of the pleasure which barbarous royalty took on occasion in similar tugs-of-war.
Eschatological belief often affords valuable light on customs otherwise difficult of explanation. It emphasises the division of the village communities by sex. Colonel Shakespear tells us that Pupaola always shoots at women, and that the dead at whom he shoots drink of the waters of Lethe, and are never minded to return to earth.[1] The heaven which serves as a baby factory, as Mr. Hartland calls it, is open only to certain meritorious males, especially to those who have been beloved of many women, a belief also found among the Garos.[2]
Among the Mao Nāgas is held the belief that a grim deity stands at the gates of heaven and guards against intrusion, so that the warrior must needs enter the kingdom of heaven by violence and fight with the warder of its gates.[3] This belief regulates mortuary ritual.[4] The implements put in a woman's grave are certainly of very little use for combat with a stalwart deity.
In fact the line of cleavage is primarily by sex, both in heaven and on earth. The Nāga heaven is divided into
