a death occur a day or two before the date fixed for the festival, the fact will not be recognised till the completion of the feast, when the funeral ceremonies will take place as if the death had occurred on that day, the corpse being kept outside the village during the interval. The Anal and Lamgang, as usual, observe the festival in a similar manner. The creeper having been brought to the gate of the village, the headmen and the thempu receive it, and the latter, muttering prayers, pours over it a libation of rice beer, and then ties a piece of it to the gate. The remainder is cut up and a piece is tied to each house in the village. The thempu goes round at night throwing a piece of turmeric into each house and calling out as he throws each piece, "From to-day may all evil and misfortune run away from this house." [10] The Purum celebrate the festival in August, and the unmarried girls take a prominent part in the ceremony. A raised platform is made before the house of the eldest unmarried girl in the village. (In a community where there is no dearth of husbands, and every girl is sure of being married in due course, the prominence given to the eldest spinster is not objected to as it might be in an English village.) On this platform the girls assemble, and the creeper after the usual ceremonies is tied to the platform, and there is a great feast with much dancing between the young folk. The similarity between these festivals and the "Koi-hrui-an-chat," mentioned under the Ngente, bears out the truth of the tradition that these clans long ago were near neighbours. The Chiru at the time of cutting the jhums go in procession with drums and gongs to the place chosen and on their return drink much rice beer. In March or April, before the sowing, a festival called "Arem" is celebrated. On the first day a dog is killed at a stone to the west of the village, and a pig to the north in the direction of the hill Kobru. All the men attend, but no women. The animals are killed by the thempu. The flesh is eaten there by the whole party, and the "sherh" are left at the place of sacrifice. There is then a drinking party in the house of the thempu. On the second day all the young men go and catch fish, and on their return they are entertained with two pots of rice beer by the unmarried girls. On the third day the lup-lakpa gives a feast of meat and rice, washed down by much rice beer, to the men only, and later all dance in front of the "chhirbuk"--i.e., Lushai zawlbuk.