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Updated: September 15, 2025
Ka Iawbei is the primeval ancestress of the clan. She is to the Khasis what the "tribal mother" was to old Celtic and Teutonic genealogists, and we have an interesting parallel to the reverence of the Khasis for Ka Iawbei in the Celtic goddess Brigit, the tribal mother of the Brigantes. Later on, like Ka Iawbei, she was canonized, and became St. Bridget.
In a recent book on Ulster Folk-lore, I have been fortunate enough to find a most interesting passage referring to the Irish goddess Brigit. I quote it with pleasure as a fitting ending to this chapter. “Now, St. Bridget had a pagan predecessor, Brigit, a poetess of the Tuatha de Danann, and whom we may perhaps regard as a female Apollo.
"Then you believe him now?" "Yes, I do!" lied Lady Kingsmead, goaded by the sneer on her daughter's fierce mouth. There was a long pause, and then Brigit Mead went to the door. "I am sorry I lost my temper and made such a beast of myself," she said slowly, "and I will never speak to you again as long as I live." She closed the door gently and went upstairs to her room.
The priest droned on; a baby cried, causing the bridegroom to dart a furious glance in its direction; one of the country cousins blew his nose with simple-hearted zest; the old couple who had been kneeling were assisted to their feet. "In nomine Patris, et Filii " Brigit bowed her head with the rest, and then as she raised it, met Joyselle's miserable eyes; miserable, accusing, despairing eyes.
Think as you like. And good-bye." She left the house without a word, and taking a hansom went straight to Golden Square. Félicité, who was alone, kissed her kindly and insisted on giving her tea. This, however, Brigit refused. Desperate as she was, she had come to the point of feeling that she could never again accept the little woman's hospitality.
For several minutes there was unbroken silence, and then Brigit said slowly, "I believe you're right. And I'll tell you. It's about myself, of course; nothing else could upset me to this extent! You know I'm engaged to Théo Joyselle. Well I love his father." Her voice was defiant, as if deprecating in advance any cut-and-dried disapproval. Pam did not answer for a moment.
What are we to do?" Through the open windows came the sounds of laughter and loud talk, and someone was playing snatches of a waltz on a violin. Brigit, feeling that things outside her own control had hastened an inevitable crisis, stood waiting with the immobility of one consciously in the hands of Fate. At last Joyselle came to her and took her in his arms.
"Yes," she said in a very quiet voice, "thank you, dear papa." But this time there was no malice in the term, and when she said good-night to him at the motor door, it was simply and filially. Then she turned to Théo, and he, looking hastily up and down the quiet street, put his head in at the window and kissed her. And that was the beginning of a most extraordinary phase of Brigit Mead's life.
Brigit had a marvellous book, or so her nuns supposed. The Kildare Gospels may have been illuminated as early as Columba's time.
Bridget. A custom very similar to this was also observed in some of the Out-Isles of the ancient Kingdom of Man." In these Manx and Highland ceremonies it is obvious that St. Bride, or St. Bridget, is an old heathen goddess of fertility, disguised in a threadbare Christian cloak. Probably she is no other than Brigit, the Celtic goddess of fire and apparently of the crops.
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