192 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



with the pigs in the gutter. At Dimlo, in the Sokte' tract, leprosy 

 has a firm hold on the inhabitants." 



Although often described as devil-worshippers, the Chins really 

 worship neither ^od nor devil. The northerners 



Gods, Nats, 



and the after believe there is no Supreme Being, and although 

 the southerners admit a "Kozin" or head god, to 

 whom they sacrifice, they do not worship him, and never look to 

 him for any grace or mercy, except that of withholding the plagues 

 and misfortunes which he is capable of working on any in this 

 world who offend him. Besides Kozin, there are nats or spirits 

 of the house, family, clan, fields ; and others who dwell in par- 

 ticular places in the air, the streams, the jungle, and the hills. 

 None can bestow blessings, but all can and will do harm unless 

 propitiated 1 . 



The departed go to Mithikwa, "Dead Man's Village," which 

 is divided into Pwethikwa, the pleasant abode, and Sathikiva, the 

 wretched abode of the unavenged. Good or bad deeds do not 

 affect the future of man, who must go to Pweithikwa if he dies a 

 natural or accidental death, and to Sathikwa if killed, and there 

 bide till avenged by blood. Thus the vendetta receives a sort of 

 religious sanction, strengthened by the belief that the slain 

 becomes the slave of the slayer in the next world. "Should the 

 slayer himself be slain, then the first slain is the slave of the 

 second slain, who in turn is the slave of the man who killed him.' 1 



"Whether a man has been honest or dishonest in this world is 

 of no consequence in the next existence; but, if he has killed 

 many people in this world, he has many slaves to serve him in 

 his future existence; if he has killed many wild animals, then 

 he will start well-supplied with food, for all that he kills on earth 

 are his in the future existence. In the next existence hunting and 

 drinking will certainly be practised, but whether fighting and 

 raiding will be indulged in is unknown-." 



Cholera and small-pox are spirits, and when cholera broke out 

 among the Chins who visited Rangoon in 1895 they carried their 

 dahs (knives) drawn to scare off the nat, and spent the day hiding 

 under bushes, so that the spirit should not find them. Some even 



1 op. dt. p. 196. - Ibid. 



