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31 Jan 2012
9 sec
Video Overview
Creators: 
Unknown

Hangrum boy jumping at the hazoa during the Hgangi festival, Laisong. First jump and walk back. Ritual centre of village; jumping stone and sacrifice centre. In the middle of the village street, approximately equidistant from the upper and lower gates, is the hazoa, the ritual centre of the site. It comprises a tilted block of stone from which the young men take off when jumping at the ceremonial sports, included in all the major festivals, and a long mound of loose earth on which the jumpers land. The foundation ceremonies of the village are performed here and subsequently all cattle-sacrifices at the harvest-festivals and other annual feasts. (29) Heads taken in war were formerly buried by the hazoa, and besides the sanctity which attaches to it from its regular ritual use, it has also the same peculiar significance as the Ao or Lhota head-tree. For certain rituals, notably that called heramui, a replica of the hazoa mound, without the take-off stone, is constructed just inside the lower village gate. This is never used for ceremonial sports and is reserved entirely for the heramui ceremony, which is never performed at the real hazoa in the centre of the village. (Ursula Betts, 1950)