By H H Mohrmen
Perhaps this is just a random thought on this very unfamiliar issue of the unique tradition of the Khasi Pnar people which has to do with numbers. This could also very well be a precursor to many more studies on this subject. There is a folk story on how the Khasi Pnars lost their alphabets while crossing the river during a flood, but what about numbers and counting? What happened to our numbers, do we have our own numbers before we used the Roman numerals? This would be a very interesting study, but before we go further in trying to understand the significance of number three, let us start with this one story I heard when I was a kid. This particular story is about a ghost which is fond of playing a number game.
This particular story is about a ghost call ‘ka Lyngkhooh.’ To begin with let us try to understand what ‘ka lyngkhooh’ is. The word Lyngkhooh in Pnar parlance not only rhymes with ‘Tyngkhooh’ which means knock or accident but it also means coincide. When two or more similar events or occasions clash it is called lyngkhooh. So for example if rather unexpectedly two and two meet, that is lyngkhooh. Again if we translate ‘death anniversary’ in Pnar will be (lyngkhooh dap snem wa iap). Lyngkhooh will therefore mean coincidence and when something which is expected happens. But in this context lyngkhooh is a ghost which can only cast its spell or attack when it chances to meet a group people.
When we were kids before going to the forest to collect firewood and wild vegetables or going to the river for swimming, our elders would advice us that we should see that the total numbers in the group should always be in even numbers. We should not walk in odd numbers but we must always pair up in twos, fours, sixes and so on and so forth. Going to the forest or rivers in the company of odd numbers of friends is dangerous because of the ghost called lyngkhooh. If this particular ghost finds kids loitering in the forest or away from the village and the numbers in the group is odd, then it will cast its evil spell on one in the group and the most unfortunate of them all will fall sick and suffer. But there are times when being in an odd group is unavoidable. On such occasions, if the ghost happens to find us then our elders also teach us how to trick the ghost.
Lyngkhooh is the kind of ghost which when it walks from one place to another during the night would also carry fire so sometimes people would see it from a distance. It uses the same path humans do although we cannot see it except for the fire it carries. And whenever it meets a group of fellow travelers in the company of odd numbers, say; if they are in the company of three, then Lyngkhooh will count “one; two; three, the third one is for me or one; two; three and third one is mine.” If friends in the group fail to respond then the fate of the number three friend or the unluckiest of the friends will be in danger. The most unlucky of them all will be cursed by the Lyngkhooh and the person will suffer and sometimes even die, if not treated.
But thankfully we were taught how to trick the ghost. We were advised by our elders that whenever we wander into the forest or out of the village, if by chance we meet Lyngkhooh than when it starts counting one, two, three and the third one is mine, then in response we should also immediately count one, two, three and counting you it makes us four. The ghost can only strike if the party walks in odd numbers. So by counting the ghost as one of us we are able to hoodwink it and therefore it has no other option but to keep quiet and let the group proceed without harming anyone, even if the numbers of people in the group is odd.
There is still a large section of the population in the Khasi Pnar society who believe that it is not advisable to photograph a pregnant woman. Also the Khasi-Pnar people never get photographed in threes because they believe that one from the three would die an early death. To know more about this taboo of a pregnant woman being photographed we should consult those officials engaged by the government to take photo ID of the people for their EPIC. Traditionally elders in particular would make sure that people pose in twos; fours or more for photographs because it is consider a taboo for a threesome to be photographed. If this again has any link with the belief in ka Lyngkhooh, I am not sure but come to think of it, at least Aadhar is safe here because it only takes the fingerprints and the photo of the retina and not photographs per se.
When the traditional healers treat people with health problems according to the traditional healing system, the number 3 is very important. The few a traditional healers I know who treat burn injuries would ask the patient to visit them three times and at the end of the mandatory three visits, they would only provide the patients with medicines and ask them to apply it themselves. The same process is being followed by the traditional healers who treat fractures. They would treat the patient three times and expect the patient to make the mandatory three visits only. After that the medicine man will only provide them ointment for massaging the pain. Traditional healers will also treat a person with snake bites thrice only and not more than that. In fact any traditional healer will only make three attempts to treat the patient. If he or she does not show any signs of recovery then the healer would advice the patient to visit another healer.
In the traditional religion many rituals are performed in cycles of three. For instance, while doing oblation rice beer is offered three times. When one tries to protect a person from an evil spell cast upon the patient, the healer will only curse three times ‘Phuit the sabuit/Phui ske’ and the evil spell will go.
As a kid when I heard for the first time that the Khasi and Jaintia Hills region was called the land of the thirty kings and the twelve chieftains (Ka Ri ki Laiphew Syiem bad Khad-ar Daloi), I took it literally and thought that there were indeed thirty kings and kingdoms in the Khasi hills. It was only when I grew up that I understood that ‘thirty’ is only a symbolic number and means something else. In both the Khasi and Pnar parlance whenever we try describe the innumerable numbers of plants and animals, we would say the thirty types or the thirty varieties of plants and animals (ki laiphew mrad; ki laiphew mreng or laiphew jait ki dieng etc). People certainly can count more than thirty and our ancestors also knew very well that there are hundreds of animals and plants, but they use ‘thirty’ to represent that which cannot be counted. This is a very interesting fact.
Of course thirty is not to be taken literally in this context. It is obvious thirty means uncountable or innumerable. So does that mean that thirty is the last number up to which the Khasi Pnar can count? They could have very well said thirty thousand plants and animals, but when our ancestors use thirty only, what does that mean and why is this question important?
In fact there is something unique about the Khasi Pnars and their belief in odd numbers even in their own creation stories. The group of sixteen was divided into nine and seven; the nine huts remain in heaven and the seven climbed down to earth. The numbers are always odd. The most common setting of monolith is that of three standing stones and one flat stone, so number three is always popular even with the formation of the iconic phenomenon in the community – the monolith. And on a lighter note, why are we afraid of the Asdhar number when even the ghost counts us by our numbers?