By Iasaid Khongjee
Once upon a time every village, cluster of villages, clans had their religions ; this is a fact. This is the interplay of our ancestors with the gods. There were men who transformed into tigers; some waged wars (among villages, clusters of villages) when all means of settling disputes failed. At times, individuals use the spiritual powers (not supernatural powers) for personal purposes and desires. These spirits are there to do the job for us; we only have to know what to do:- the communication with them, the covenant to be made, and other entailment. That we call this land -“Ka ri Ki blei” (The land of the gods), is an expression of the above.
The world we are living in is not only a physical world. All existent are spiritual in degrees we can never measure. Out of a plethora of this spiritual world, these are most well-known, and they can be broadly classified into three major categories.1.The naturally existing ones. The spirits living on land, water. 2. Spirits having human origin, that of ancestors; they are here with us on earth. 3. The spirits that are invoked for personal whims and wishes, such as wealth, personal well-being, not for sustaining life, which is a universal law, a thing which has a divine sanction. Any of the above gods in the third category have retributional effect if unduly asked to come out of their ontological values just to satisfy our desire for wealth and power.
The Mother Earth (Ka MeiRamew) is impersonal, but it can become a personal god if invoked. It will give stupendous benefits, but, beware!. I had a direct experience. Against this, our ancestors warned saying – “husiar ïa ka thaw-nang ïoh wan ka lait-kylla”, meaning -“beware of man-made actions for they have a retributive repercussion”. This saying comes from the knowledge and experience that there’s nothing new in the infinitely perfect Nature; from which nothing can be taken away to adorn the Essence- “the life”, which constitutes the foundation of our Philosophy, the pivot on which our religions revolve.
We are living with the spirits around us, and in peace. This, the nature of co-existence as per Cosmic design, is what we call “ki para bashong-basah lang”, meaning “the co-inhabitants”. By design, they confine themselves to ontological boundaries, functions, respecting the above values involved in their being. Only in rare cases accidents happen when people suffer from strange diseases which result from the encounter with them. When these happen, we remind them of their Ontology; this forms the basis of the separation process – ka kren-ka khana (communication) for healing, or restoration of balance; no miracle!.
The stories about U Thlen are metaphorical ; not a naturally existing spirit which has a divine sanction from the Creator. The U Ryngkew-U Basa is a god that protects animals living on land, including humans. Thus, invoking for protecting life is what is in sync with Divine law, or Natural law. With the Thlen, it’s different. This spirit comes to our midst from the mistake in the invocation; we call it “U Phan Longspah” ( a god of wealth). Our ancestral knowledge highlights this – any gods, even benign ones, when invoked for wealth and other ephemeral benefits, will turn into the Thlen. When this happens, there’s no going back; some spirits don’t allow a fall-back. The origin of this blood-thirsty spirit lies in this. This theory defies all stories about the origin of the Thlen.
Once while coming from an archery competition, a fellow archer and practising shaman told me- “phi babu, u Thlen hadien ba la shah beh na khet bneng ha U Nongthaw, u la kyrpad ïa u Nongthaw ban shah ban wan sha pyrthei, tangba un bam da ka longbriew, bad dei nangta ba u Thlen u la wan sha pyrthei” (you see babu, the thlen, after having been expelled by the Creator, requested that he be allowed to come down to earth, but he’ll feed on human blood, and the Creator allowed him). To this I rebutted, “haba u thlen u la ioh Hukum ban bam ïa ka longbriew, phin khan sa ïa kaei pat?” (When the Thlen has got divine sanction from his Creator to feed on human blood, then why ostracize it and turn it into an evil entity?)
The question shook him to the core, making him realize the flaw of his shamanic foundation. A flaw like this, as has been found in the tradition this writer has come across in decades, is considered to be a congenital weakness, and people with such nature are not taken seriously.
Communication with the spirits are according to the covenant made with humans. One thing we have to be very clear, is the propitiation, as a consummation of the covenant; the personal gods (spirits) never give things for free. Once they were called out of their ontological duties ( the duties they do from the beginning of time), and they have answered our wish, a propitiation is binding. A failure to fulfil this is accompanied with diseases which lead to death.
A flawed covenant is dangerous. One wise old man said to me :”ki blei kim bam tang da ka juh shi ka juh”, meaning “the gods are never pacified by the same things (items of propitiation). This means that they’ll ask for a different one. For example : the first time one sacrifices (shed the blood) a little chicken according to the agreement made, and that’s fine. The later gifts may not be the same as the gods will ask for more. Suppose, because of his favour, I generously give a full grown rooster; in doing this, I have made a fatal mistake. I’ll no longer be in a position to negotiate with the god for it will say, “from a chicken, you gave the rooster, and now why not a thing bigger than the rooster?”. At this point, I am at a dead end for there’s no way to go back, or to break the covenant. But there are ways of making a covenant; a meticulous one, which binds the spirits. One is – a covenant which doesn’t percolate down to the future generations. Another is the item of propitiation, that it should be the same from the beginning till the last period of the term. Giving the spirits a free choice to choose what they want, will lead even noble spirits to become U Thlen.
How do we know what they want? The spirits never talk the way we do, or appear to us physically. This dichotomy is bridged through divination. Some of the tools used in this are shells, stones, eggs, rice etc. The signs shown are a message from the other end whether they agree or not about the terms and conditions.
Iasaid Khongjee is a school teacher, St John Bosco School, Sohra.