Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/479

Rh everyone might keep their animals under their own houses, or anywhere else they liked, except under the Zal-Buk; if one found its way under the Zal-Buk, dire would be the penalties inflicted on its owner. As the chief is always a very great man in his own village, and his word is law, we were afterwards able to sleep in peace, undisturbed by nocturnal earthquakes,

Plate XXIII. (p. 392) shows in the centre Darbilli, a venerable chieftainess of the Fanai clan. She was gifted with rare foresight, and, when my husband first went up with the Expedition to the hills, she sent men in to say that she knew the British were going to win, and she wanted to help them to do so; she certainly always gave us all the assistance in her power. When I first saw her, I thought she was very, very old,—quite a hundred years old, I should have said unhesitatingly,—but I am told that she was probably sixty or seventy when she died, about ten years or more after I first saw her. She was a dear old lady, and I was very fond of her. Her death was somewhat tragic. She fell ill, and the wise ones said that the illness was due to witchcraft, and the remedy was the liver of the wizard. Her people did their best for her. The wizard was killed, and his liver procured, but unfortunately the old lady died before they could bring it to her.

Plate XXIV. shows the Lushai carrying round the bones of their ancestors, with various trophies of the chase, etc., showing what important personages the departed were. The bones are enclosed in gourds carried upon a litter. I have never been present at one of these ceremonies, but I was told that there were few, if any, rites. It was mainly one of the occasions, so dear to the unregenerate Lushai heart, which afford unexceptionable opportunities for unlimited zu drinking.

Plate XXV. shows a Fanai chief in full war-paint. His gun is probably an old Tower musket, gorgeously lacquered,