When an eclipse occurs there is much excitement and beating of drums, &c. This is to frighten the awk, for the Lushais believe that once the awk swallowed the sun so effectually that general darkness prevailed. This awful time is called "Thimzing"--i.e., the gathering of the darkness--and many awful things happened. Everything except the skulls of animals killed in the chase became alive, dry wood revived, even stones became alive and produced leaves, and so men had nothing to burn. The successful hunters who had accumulated large stocks of the trophies of their skill were able to keep alive using them as fuel, and some of their descendants still survive among the Thados, under which heading they will be found in Part II. As it was pitch dark, neither animals nor men could see at all, and tigers went about biting wildly at trees, stones, and people. A general transformation took place, men being all changed into animals. Those who were going merrily to the jhum were changed into "satbhai" (laughing thrushes), as can be known by their white heads, which represent the turbans worn by the men, and their cheery chatterings. People wearing striped cloths became tigers, the chiefs of those days being represented by the hornbills of to-day, whose bills represent the bamboo rods for stirring rice while cooking; but another version is that the chiefs became king-crows, whose long tail-feathers the chiefs value much and wear as plumes. The black hands of the gibbon prove clearly that his ancestors were dyeing thread when the Thimzing occurred. Another version ascribes the same origin to the crows. Similarly those who were carrying torches finding their way down stream beds were changed into fireflies. The Chongthu family are sometimes said to have been turned into monkeys, the Vangchhia into elephants; but another version says the elephants were old women who were wearing their "puanpui"--i.e., cotton quilts--with the tufts of cotton outside. Wrestlers were suddenly transformed into bears, who to this day grapple with their foes. The Paihte or Vuite clan became a species of squirrel, while the Ralte's ancestor was just saying, "Vaibel kan chep te ang nge?" "Shall we suck our pipes?" and was therefore changed into a sort of squirrel called "chepchepa," from the sound it is always making.