Ceremonies for Rain.
The rainfall in the Naga Hills is usually adequate. Nevertheless various rain-compelling ceremonies are practised, most of them of a very simple nature. The usual one resembles that in vogue among the Semas. A gibbon’s head and a small dead tserü fish, with its mouth kept open by a piece of stick, are pegged down to the bottom of the nearest stream. When enough rain has fallen the gibbon’s head is taken out, the fish being left in the water to rot. Another common method is to dig a little tunnel and pour in water at [131]one end and let it run out at the other. In Akuk a stick is rattled about to imitate the sound of rain in the hole to which Deolung tied up his mithan, water being poured in meanwhile. Sometimes children go about with “chungas” of water and spray it from their mouths over passers-by and each other. Niroyo, Wokha and their neighbours fell a tree across the path leading from the village to the Road of the Dead. All then go home holding leaves over their heads and saying that it is raining. To increase the flow of the village spring in times of drought someone goes down at night to the Doyang, and leaving an offering of four little bundles of meat and an egg on the bank, brings up a little water in a “chunga” and pours it into the village supply.