United States or South Korea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The carefully selected and duly appointed priest offered these one by one, and as he presented each to the spirit of the king he uttered a formula that was believed to convert the material food into a substance possessing a spiritual character and fit to form the food of the ka, or "double," or "vital power," of the dead king.
Another such survival is the High Priestess of Nongkrem, in the Synteng district, who “combines in her person sacerdotal and regal functions.” In this state the tradition runs that the first High Priestess was Ka Pah Synten, “the flower-lured one.” She was a beautiful maiden, who had her abode in a cave at Marai, near Nongkrem whence she was enticed by means of a flower.
Probably the origin of the superstitious reverence with which U'lei Shillong is held by the Siems of Nongkrem and Mylliem is that their fabled ancestress "Ka Pah Syntiew," of whom an account will be found in the folk-lore section, took her origin from a rock not far from the Shillong Peak in the Nongkrem direction.
The highest point of the range is over 6,000 ft. The third tale contains the well-known story of Ka Pah Syntiew, the fabled ancestress of the Khyrim and Mylliem Siem families. The cave where Ka Pah Syntiew is said to have made her abode is still to be seen in the neighbourhood of Nongkrem.
The pictures that his soul had gazed at so deep within, he realised, were a pictorial transfer caught incompletely from this woman's vivid mind. He had seen the Desert as the grey, enormous Tomb where hovered still the Ka of ancient Egypt. Sand screened her visage with the veil of centuries. But She was there, and She was living.
The legend of the arrival of Ka Taben with her children in the Synteng country from a distant clime is interesting in that it perhaps indicates the possibility of the migration of these people, i.e. the Syntengs, in ancient times from some distant place to their present abode. Ancestor-worship.
With a dreadful laugh it twined itself about her, and lo! it shrank to the shape of a girdling, double-headed snake of gold, with eyes of ruby flame. And as it shrank Meriamun the Queen thought on the beauty she had seen upon the face of the dead Hataska, on the face of the Bai, and the face of the Ka, and all the while she watched her beauty in the mirror.
It is certain that they were acquainted with iron long before the arrival of Cook, as is proved by the already cited passage from an old romance: O luna, o lalo, kai, o uka, a o ka hao pae, ko ke'lii. Umi, some time before his death, said to his old friend Koi: "There is no place, nor is there any possible way to conceal my bones. You must disappear from my presence.
This hawk-form of the king may be connected with the hawk bearing the double crown which is perched on the top of the ka name of each king. The soul or ba of the king at his death thus flew away as a hawk to meet the sun. The veil drawn over the fate of the inhuman princess is well conceived.
"And Na.nefer.ka.ptah, my brother, said, 'Let us go down, let us not delay, for the king has not yet heard of what has happened to him, and his heart will be sad about it. So we went to the haven, we sailed, and did not stay to the north of Koptos.
Word Of The Day