Note 19 — RELIGION

There remain to be described the social “gennas,” which play such an enormously important part in Lhota life. Beginning from the first small “genna” they increase in costliness and importance till the ceremony at which two stones are dragged is reached. Almost every one of them entitles the doer to wear a distinctive cloth. The wealth and consequently the importance of a man is gauged by the number of these social “gennas” he has done, for the Lhota, like all Nagas and members of not a few other races, is a great respecter of wealth. It is therefore the ambition of every man to perform the full series if he possibly can. At the first stone-dragging ceremony one stone is dragged, and at the second, third and so on two stones are dragged. There is a limit to the number of times the stone-dragging ceremony may be done, which varies in different villages, but is so rarely reached that it practically exists only in theory. The only man the writer has ever come across who has reached the limit is Wonchă̤̱mo of Pangti, who has dragged twenty-five stones. The only course open to him now if he wishes to do any more social “gennas” is to “become a boy again” and sleep in the champo and begin the whole series again from Wozütana, the first small “genna.” This he does not propose to do. Though cases have been known in the past of men reaching the limit, there is no tradition of anyone who began the series again.19 The “gennas” are public feasts which the whole village attends, but the man who proposes to do one must never announce his intention beforehand except in a whisper to his nearest friend and the necessary religious officials. This custom is strictly adhered to. Even a Lhota in Government employment who wishes to go to his village to perform a social “genna” will never say when he applies for leave what he wants it for. Were a man to announce that he was going to do one of these ceremonies and then not be able to do so it would, it is believed, entail a serious illness or some other misfortune.