Were a husband to beat her in the traditional Whitechapel style she would leave him at once, and her relations would extract a fine. PART IV RELIGION Religion—Deities and Spirits—The Soul and Life after Death —Magic—Religious Officials—Public Ceremonies—Individual Ceremonies—Ceremonies for Illness—Social “gennas”—Birth— Marriage—Divorce—Death—Miscellaneous Beliefs. The religion of the Lhota is of that type which is vaguely termed Animism. He believes in no Supreme Being who rewards the good and punishes the evil. The deities to whom he sacrifices are some of them neutral, if kept in a good temper with the proper offerings, and some of them definitely malicious. Yet he is very far indeed from being devil-ridden and haunted with ghostly fears. He cheerfully carries out what he conceives to be his religious duties and meets his end like a man when the time comes. [Deities and Spirits.] The nearest equivalent to gods is an order of beings called Potso, [126] who live in a world like ours, of the earthy floor of which our sky is the underside. The world of the Potsos in turn has a sky which supports yet another Potso world, and so on for an unknown number of layers. The only Potsos who affect us are those in the world immediately above our sky. They resemble men in appearance and have hosts of attendants who are sometimes regarded as their servants and sometimes as their relations. It is believed that just as the Lhotas have their Potsos, so the Semas, Aos and other tribes have theirs. The language of Potsos is different from that of men. Some members of the Tsoboi clan are said to claim to know it. Potsos are believed to visit earth from time to time and hold converse with the village seer (ratsen), coming in pairs with a train of attendants and bringing articles symbolical of the fortune the village is going to enjoy during the year. They send a servant ahead who appears to the ratsen in a dream and tells him that his masters will come on such and such a day. From the time when the warning is received till the Potsos come nothing must be killed in the ratsen’s house, and between these dates he must not go outside the village land, or indulge in sexual intercourse, or eat the flesh of anything killed after he received the warning, though he may eat meat dried before. For their visit he makes ready “pita madhu” (etha soko) and some small fish and rice, and has plantain leaves brought up from the fields for use as cups. On the night when the Potsos are expected all in the village must go to bed early and shut their doors. The ratsen himself sleeps in a room separate from the rest of his family. The Potsos then come and speak to him in a voice which no one else can hear, and show him symbolical articles from which the future can be foretold. In the morning the marks of the spear butts of the Potsos and their servants can be seen outside the ratsen’s door. They are easily distinguishable, it is said,