Phau-woibi is classed as a Lai, she is not reckoned among the Umanglai, and is really more the Spirit of the rice. Ploughing must commence on the Hindu festival of Panchanami. However unfit the ground may be for ploughing, a small area must be ploughed on that date. There is, nowadays, no special ceremony at this season, but the pundits from their books described to me the procedure which ought to be carried out by the Raja before ploughing is commenced. Phau-woibi is first invoked, and offerings of plantains and other fruits and vegetables are made to her at each corner of a specially prepared piece of land, which is divided into three plots, in each of which a little paddy is sown. If all plots flourish equally, the year will be uniformly good; but, if the first plot sown thrives best, the latter portions of the year will not be so good as the first; similarly, if that sown last does best, the cultivators are encouraged to hope that, however badly the year may begin, it will end well.
Before a cultivator cuts his crop he must place offerings of fruits and vegetables for Phau-woibi at each corner of his field, and the following ceremony should be performed. It is seldom carried out now, the cultivator contenting himself with calling his friends to help in the harvest and erecting a flag in the middle of the field. He has to provide food for all his helpers and, before they eat, one, the oldest present, is selected as phau-rungba, i.e. master of the rice, and he makes an offering of a portion of the eatables about to be consumed to Phau-woibi. The complete ceremony as given me by the pundits is as follows, referring to the plan:—
