Zo believe in a supreme God or pathiau. God is good. He gives health, richness, children and other human wishes. God is never cruel and never hurts people. Therefore Zo people never sacrifice or offer anything to appease God.

Zo people fear spirits or devils who are under the rule of the king of spirits. The spirits (dawi. huai. khuazing) live on earth, below the earth, in the sky, in springs, trees, caves, mountains, streams, houses, and even in the human body. There are some places which are agreed upon as strongholds of the spirits. They are Rih Li (a lake) in Falam district, Mt. Victoria or Arterawttlang in the Kanpetlet area, Paha, a great limestone cave near Tuingo, Nattaga— the door of the spirits according to the Burman, a stream in Tedim area, and others. Each village has a certain location where people believe spirits reside. Spirits are either like human beings, are small people with only one leg, or are giants that stride across the peaks of the hills. The spirits have immense strength and power, can transform themselves into anything, but most commonly take the form of snakes. The spirits bring sickness and misery unless treated with due respect. Rituals have to be performed and sacrifices made so as to appease the spirits. Moving to a new village, to a new house, or cultivating a field requires the blessing of the spirits. Sickness is a punishment by the spirits who are unhappy with a person or family. Offerings are performed by priests. An animal, such as a red cock, a sucking pig, a dog, or a mithun. the type of which depends on the seriousness of the illness, is slaughtered for the offering. The meat offered to the spirit is only a small portion of the animal: i.e., the liver, the head or the legs. and is combined with one or two cups of zu. The remainder of the meat and zu are consumed by the family and the priest.

In some cases the priest fights against the spirit. Sickness is caused by a spirit who enters the body or by the spirit being caught in the soul of the body. In such cases the thiampui, the high priest, riches a verse composed to drive away the spirits. These verses are handed down from one generation to another. The sick person’s body is then painted with pungent-smelling spices. The spirit, who is believed to dislike the smell of spice, then leaves the body. In other cases a sick person has to drink fresh dog’s blood, over which a sorcerer has chanted. to drive away the spirits. Epidemics and plague are caused by invasions of angry spirits, who roam the country at night searching for victims. People make mud pellets and shoot them with bows at the entrances of houses through the whole night, to bar entry of the spirits.

People also fight spirits with arms. A woman in Buanman village said that she was snatched by a local spirit who lived in a cave near the village. She said the spirit wanted to marry her. She often disappeared from home or work, and she said her spirit lover usually came to her in the form of a snake and, wrapping itself around her legs, flew her off to the cave. Her lover offered her a lotion which would transform her into the same kind of spirit, but she refused repeatedly. The villagers soon became angered and went to the hill opposite the cave, from where they shot missiles from their weapons into the cave. When they entered the cave, they found seven dead snakes. The woman, who was in the cave at the time of the attack, said that her spirit lover was killed as well. After that she was abducted no more.

Zo people believe in life after death, although it is said that a person can be reborn only if death is violent and instantaneous. The dead live forever as ghosts and keep their social status. Zo also believe that a person can be born again as another human being. One such tale is of a body who was born with a scar. When the baby. named Thangngin, could speak it told a story of being hurt by somebody and talked of things a child could not know. Thangngin, who was later a Christian pastor, was embarrassed because he could not reconcile his position as a pastor and his experiences as a reborn person. He told his story very reluctantly He did not remember many of his experiences, because his parents objected and they had had the priest recite a sorcery verse to make Thangngin forget his past.

Thangngin was a young man at the time of a Falam attack on Khuasak during the 1840s. When the Falam occupied a part of the. Khuasak village, he saw the Falam searching for survivors. To esca-pe being captured he hid himself in the attic of a house, on the shelves used to hang cobs of corn. A Falam warrior with a spear found him. The warrior shouting. “I am the son of my father.” pier-ced Thangngin’s breast with his spear. Thangngin said that he felt very warm and fell asleep immediately. When he awoke he saw a headless corpse lying beside him. On inspection of the corpse he found that the body was his. lie felt the body and settled down among other people. Fie could not recall how long he lived with these people. On one hunting day they caught a bear. On their way home, as they carried the bear, he realized that he was with strange people. Some were carrying the bear, and others were on top of the hear eating the meat. To think over the strange behaviour of these people, he went to a nearby hill and watched from a distance. From there he saw that his companions were ants, and that they were carrying a black caterpillar. When he returned to his friends they were, like him, all human.

Realizing that he was an ant, his wish was to be reborn as human. To be reborn he needed to enter the body of a woman. However whenever he approached a woman he was repulsed immediately. How, he did not remember, but one day he became a bee. Being a bee and trying to reach a woman was much more difficult than being an ant, because as soon as he approached a woman, she would drive him away. Then, one day, he became a plea. After becoming a flea, lie was successful in getting into the clothes of a woman. He could not recall how he came into the body of the woman, his mother. When Thangngin was born, he had a scar on his breast and he was said to have told his story as soon as he could speak.

Another story is told of a boy with a forehead scar who was born in Khuasak village in the late 1940s. As soon as the boy could recognize people, he was afraid of a certain man, Ngalphuakpa. After the boy could walk he cried and hid himself behind objects whenever Nagalphuakpa came for a visit. He also threw himself flat on the ground whenever a gun was fired. When the child could speak, he related that he had been a Japanese soldier who lived in the forest after Japanese troops left the area. The villagers had hunted down the lone Japanese soldier, and it was Ngalphuakpa who had shot the soldier, hitting him in the forehead. Also in this case, the parents suppressed the child from telling his stories.

Source : Zo History

Photo Credit : Thor Thorn