Note 139.1 — RITUAL AND BELIEF

Cases like these display the religion of the community applied to the private advantage of the individual. More interesting is the authority which Mr Hodson attributes to the khullakpa, or village priest, of the Naga tribes of Manipur. The khullakpa is to be distinguished from the maiba, or medicine-man, who is doctor and magician in one. The maiba is called in to deal with individual cases; the khullakpa plays the leading part when a village genna is held. It is he who offers the sacrifices and performs the rites. The term genna means forbidden. A genna extending to the whole village excludes strangers from entering, and prohibits the inhabitants from going out and from doing any work while the genna lasts; it may also prescribe fasting, continence, and other observances. In short, “the ordinary routine of life is profoundly modified, if not broken off altogether.” A genna may be either periodical, as for the sake of the crops or the hunting; or it may be occasional, as at a death, or against epidemic sickness, or at an earthquake or eclipse. A sacrifice is invariably a part of the ritual. The khullakpa “acts,” says Mr Hodson, “whenever a rite is performed which requires the whole force of the community behind it, and this force finds its operation through him. These village gennas seem in many cases to be inspired by the belief that man, the man, the khullakpa, when fortified by the whole strength and will of the village, is able to control and constrain forces which are beyond his control if unaided.”139.1 If this inference, made by an acute observer, be correct, it is a remarkable example of the corporate strength of the society applied by means of religious rites to the coercion of the gods and other supernatural beings.