68 THE LUSHEI CLANS CHAP.

epidemic there is probably some hysterical girl, such as Ziki
appears to have been, whose mind has been imbued with tales
of Huais, who works herself up into a frenzy and believes
herself possessed of a devil. This theory receives confirmation
from the facts recorded in the next chapter regarding
Khawhring. Not every Huai is known by name, and the
sacrifices about to be described are offered to all Huais of a
particular class.

Lashi.—Although the Lashi are not considered as demons
or divinities, yet this seems an appropriate place to deal with
them. A Lushai describes them thus:—" The Lashi folk are
spirits which live in the Lur and Tan precipices. Formerly a
Lushai young man went shooting alone. Beneath the Tan
precipice a most beautiful Lashi maiden was weaving, and on
seeing her the youth became love-sick and could not go away,
so he stayed and courted her all day. till it began to grow dark;
then the Lashi maiden, wishing to go to her house, asked him to
roll up. her weaving for her, but he would not. Then she said
to him, ' What animal would you most like to shoot ?' and on
his saying an elephant she at once caused him to kill one and
he bore its head back in triumph, while the Lashi maiden and
her mother rolled up the cloth and disappeared into the
precipice." My informant assured me that had the young man
rolled up the weaving he would never have escaped. In
another tale a Lashi youth falls in love with the daughter of a
man called Lianlunga, to whom he appeared in a dream
and offered to place in his tobacco box the fur of many wild
animals and to enable him to shoot every animal the fur of
which was in the box- In return for this Lianlunga agreed to
the match, and both he and his wife were given the power of
decoying wild animals. Lianlunga's wife would pinch her pig's
ear, and if it made no noise Lianlunga would go out shooting
and Chawntinleri, a younger sister of the Lashi son-in-law,
would drive all the animals past him, and he shot what he liked,
for the Lashi had tamed all the animals. Lianlunga, however,
came to a tragic end through trying to dispense with the
services of the Lashi. He enticed a wild metna under his
house and then tried to spear it through the floor, but only
wounded, it and the animal escaped. This offended the Lashi,