The Spirits That Filled Every Hill Before Anyone Named Them Otherwise

The hills were full. That is the thing to understand before anything else.

Before Christianity came to Mizoram, the people of these hills did not walk through empty country. Spirits called Huai were everywhere, in the hills themselves, in the rivers, in the forest.

You were not moving through scenery. You were moving through somewhere occupied.

The religion is called Sakhua. It was the faith of the Mizo before the British annexed the Lushai Hills, and before the missionaries came in behind them.

How the world was arranged

Above the Huai stood Sa and Khua.

These were the great powers, and they were understood to live in the sky, or somewhere set apart from ordinary human life altogether.

So the world had two levels. The most powerful forces kept their distance. The lesser spirits were close at hand, in the trees outside the village, in the water people drank.