Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/348

310 the birth genna affords excellent omens. They watch the convulsive struggles of its feet in the death agony, and, if the left foot crosses over the right foot, the future is believed to be favourable for the child. I have been told that the sacrifice of the fowl was in worship of the inumg lai, the household deity, but I realise that by employing a Meithei term my Nāga informants may quite unconsciously have given their own custom a colour and meaning which it does not properly possess. Meithei is the lingua franca of this part of the hills, and in nearly every village there is some one who knows Meithei well enough to act as interpreter, for the multiplicity of dialects is so great as to make a first-hand knowledge of each dialect impossible. As we find that the food prohibitions at the time of ear-piercing and hair-cutting are intended to save the child from harm, or rather that a breach of these prohibitions brings harm to the child, not to the parents, it seems not unreasonable to attach the same or a similar significance to the food prohibitions imposed during the period of the birth genna, and to think that the sacrifice then made may be in part an act of worship, in part designed to afford an omen, in part to absorb and remove impurity, and in part protective Where, as here, a belief in evil spirits is common, women before, during, and after childbirth are peculiarly exposed to malignant influences, I have come across rites such as the worship of the River spirit and of the lairen (python) which are intended to procure an easy delivery. In some Kabui villages I was told that an unmarried lad,—not yet arrived at puberty,—accompanied women to the village spring after the birth genna was over, armed with a spear to protect his companion from evil spirits.

The birth gennas are entirely matters for the household, and, if I may continue to employ gennas as the standard of measure, I would infer that the household is thus recognised as a religious unit in the social structure, and that the child is thus made a member of the household only. The