that many men will take new wives, but will have no children by them. Small white insects show that the crops will be poor, and so on. When a few insects have been caught, and their significance has been expounded by the Puthis and old men, all go home. [The Pikuchak ceremony.] The Pikuchak “genna” marks the beginning of the agricultural year. The Northern Lhotas do it before clearing the jungle on their fields, and the Southern Lhotas after. In any case it must be done before the rice is sown. The Puthi announces the day on which the ceremony is to be, and every champo buys meat, and each champo in turn the cock which is to be sacrificed. On the night before the “genna” sexual intercourse is forbidden. On the day all the men of the village assemble at the place where the opya is set up. In front of the opya the Puthi sets up a miniature opya, and in front of that again puts an egg on the ground with a leaf on each side. On the leaf to his right he puts ten little bits of pork and ten little bits of ginger, and on that to his left nine little bits of each. He then recites the dranda, holding the cock in his left hand, and a dao in his right. This dao belongs to the youth who caught the cock the night before, the champo whose turn it is to provide the cock having selected some days before a youth whose duty it is to go to the house of the seller of the cock and catch it on the evening before it is sacrificed. This youth must abstain from all intercourse with the opposite sex from the time he is chosen to the end of the ceremony. The dranda being ended the Puthi cuts the cock’s throat, takes the omens from its entrails and ties it on to the miniature opya. The old men sit down and eat some of the meat which the boys from the champos have bought and all go back to the village with much chanting. Parties of boys walk singing six times round each champo. The rest of the day is given up to feasting. Next day is kept as an emung and no one goes to the fields, but a party, consisting of boys and one or two old men, go out on a mock head-taking raid. First they go to the opya, where one of the old men sets up a miniature opya and makes the same offerings of an egg, meat and ginger as were made the day before. Then the party goes into the jungle and throws spears at trees and shouts as if engaged with the enemy. Then all return to their champos, in some villages openly, in other villages by roundabout paths and in dead silence. Finally after sitting in the champo for a little, as they would after a raid, all go to their houses. It is believed that this mock raid ensures good crops and hunting and a high birth-rate for the village.