Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/590

 2 8o Tangklnil Folk Tales and Notes on sonic

in the series. This is definitely recognized as a thank- offering for a good harvest and certain to result in further bountiful years. Among the Mangvung (a Thado sub- tribe) there is a feast called La\vm-Zu-Nei, i.e. Glad Zu Festival. In this a niithan is stabbed through the heart with a stake, after being beaten and then jumped over by the young men. Each house contributes Zu and there is the usual jollification, and to mark the event forked posts are put up in front of the Chief's house. The mithan is generally killed in that way, the skin being first cut with a knife. Mr. Hutton suggests that this is a survival from the time of stone implements, with which it would be dif- ficult to stab deep enough to kill the beast. The beating is certainly a survival, as Mr. Mills records that " Die- Hards " among his Lhotas lament that Government has stopped the beating to death very slowly of the mithan in these feasts. " It was such fun," they say regret- fully. The selection of the mithan as the sacrificial beast for these feasts seems to me to mark them out as fertility feasts, for the mithan is everywhere a sign of prosperity and plenty, and the jumping is also associated with fertility rites by Sir James Frazer.

Then the association of the husband and wife — a mithan killed and a post planted for each — and the carrying up of the grandchildren, surely point to fertility rites. Among the Fanai ^ the wife of the giver is carried about on a plat- form, from whence she throws symbolic gifts for which the young men scramble. The wife also has special duties and granted a special cloth among the Lhotas. The Lhotas in general erect monoliths but occasionally, and in the case of one kindred always, Y-shaped posts are put up ; and in Kohima, the main Angami village, in one of these feasts called Lieu, a Y-shaped post and another with a rounded top are taken through the village, the former being dragged by chaste boys and the latter carried by a man. Mr. Hutton 1 The Lushei-Kuki Clans, p. 137.