Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/470

kept constantly burning, whence the first fire in a new house must be lighted. In front of the sanglen is the dancing ground. The population of the village is divided into two sections, termed the Ahallup and the Naharup pannas. Each section has two houses, in one of which the married people collect, while in the other, called the kāngjeng, the young folk of both sexes assemble. The population, having assembled in the proper houses, proceeds in four processions to the dancing ground. The married people of the Naharup or younger panna must on no account pass immediately in front of the house of the Ahallup. At this lai-harauba only inhabitants of the village are allowed to be present. The unmarried girls stand in two rows and clap hands while the procession of the god marches round and round. This procession consists of two men carrying hollow bamboos, two men carrying large palm leaf fans, and two men carrying Panam Ningthau's dahs, followed by the married men singing. You will notice that this god prefers to be honoured by men. I could not get any explanation of this divergence from the custom of the other gods. Before the commencement of the harauba the Aseibom family carry the clothes of the god with some sacred flowers in a litter from his lai-sang to the sanglen, preceded by girls carrying his utensils and men carrying his dahs. Kabok or parched rice is piled up in the sanglen before the god's seat, and sometimes he scatters it, which portends sickness and trouble; the initiated profess to be able to trace the footsteps of the god in the scattered grain. At Moirang during the annual festival in honour of two female Umanglais known as Aiyang Leima, kabok is poured out of a basket in a conical heap which is left till the morning, when it is inspected by the maibas. If the top of the cone is found to have flattened, then there will be high winds; if narrow crooked channels appear on the sides of the cone, troubles and sickness will come; if the channels be straight, war is certain; but if the heap remains unaltered