Note 4 — Religion

Only second to Bátháu is his good consort, Maináo, though, unlike her husband, she has no special emblem visible to the human eye. Her special function is that of “Guardian of the rice-fields”;4 and among a purely agricultural community like that of the Kacháris, she of course is held in very high regard. She is, in short, to the Kachári peasant very much what Ceres was to the old heathen Roman cultivator. Eggs are the offering that finds most favour in her eyes, and these are presented to her in unstinted quantity. She is apparently especially worshipped at the period of harvesting the áśu and śáli crops; hence the twofold designation given above (Nos. 3 and 4, household gods), Ásu Maináo, and Śáli Maináo.