Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/586

276 six days and nights of singing, feasting and dancing, and a large log seat is fashioned. This part of the feast is known as Om-na-sa. In May, i.e. just before the sowing, proceedings recommence, two mithans are killed—one for the celebrant and one for his wife—and there are six days' feasting, and one extra to finish off scraps. Two forked posts, called Halba, are placed in front of the house to commemorate this feast. Then the two girls, after aboat six months' work, go home with a pot of Zu and ten chunks of mithan flesh as their reward.

It may be several years before the celebrator of Parkiyao has accumulated sufficient wealth to proceed to the next step in social fame, which is lilthao. The proceedings are very like those of Parkiyao, only they occupy more time and are more costly. From first to last they take about eighteen months. An item of special interest is that three monoliths are brought from the bed of the nearest stream and erected on the road close to the village gate, thus connecting the erection of monoliths, the particular work of the Angami, Maram and Lhota series of feasts, and the erection of forked posts which prevails among the Lushais, Thado, Semas and Tangkhuls. Another point of interest is that one of the Halbu is planted in the name of the celebrant and the other in the name of his wife by the two chief secular heads of the community.

The last feast of the series is called Pahling Tauba (placing of planks). I could not hear of any one living who had performed it. It is even more lengthy and more expensive than the preceding ones. The chief point of interest is that the grandchildren of the celebrant are carried up on the Halbu, the boy on the man's post and the girl on the woman's. Planks painted with white streaks are placed in the front of the house to mark the completion of the feast.

The performer of Parkiyao is allowed to wear a cloth with blue lines: after doing Tilthao he may add cross black