Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/471

Rh all will be well. The Umanglais are credited with the power to cure sickness. The maiba is called on to specify to which particular god offerings had better be made, and then the patient, or some one acting on his behalf, takes some rice, plantains, sugar cane, and a cock or hen according to the sex of the sick person, to the lai-pham, and after praying to the god the fowl is released and the other articles left before the deity's abode.

Before leaving the Umanglais and Lairemas I will describe two interesting ceremonies which I witnessed last summer. The young Raja came to me in a state of considerable anxiety, saying that he feared that some serious misfortune was about to happen to him, as he had received information that a certain stone, which he had erected at Santhong's lai-pham, had got out of the perpendicular and that an iron plate covering certain articles buried at Kanachauba's lai-pham had come to the surface. After some conversation, I gathered that the Raja wished me to accompany him to see the ceremonies. All arrangements had been made for our journey when news was brought that the hangjaba of Shuganu had died of cholera. Wāngpurel, the great god of the South, whose shrine is at Shuganu, and who is sometimes spoken of as the father, and sometimes as another form of Kanachauba, is said to reside in the hangjaba, who is the secular and religious head of the village. Opinions were divided as to the meaning of this sudden death; some said that the god had taken him, and that no further misfortune was to be expected; others feared further catastrophes. After a delay of some days we started and went first to Moirang and thence to the sacred grove of Santhong, which is situated in the middle of rolling grass lands some three miles from that village. Before describing the ceremony, I must tell you something of the history of the stones. Khagenba, who first reduced the Umanglai lore to writing, is credited with having erected the first of the six stones, as he was advised by the five gurus that this act