This panel, when viewed from the left, depicts the journey of the soul in the afterlife as accepted by the earlier Mizos. At the bottom, the soul of a child is seen following an egg which has been buried with his body. It is said that the egg will roll and lead the way for the child all the way to the Land of the Dead. Behind the child, Rihdil is visible. Our forefathers believed that the soul would head towards this famous lake after death. Flying above the lake, a type of fowl called Rih ar is seen. To the right of the lake, a man is depicted carrying a basket of rih fowl eggs. This particular activity was considered to be taboo, and it was said that those that carried such eggs would walk in the same place, never moving forward or making progress. Hence, they would try to avoid it at all costs. On the top, a woman is depicted as putting a hawilo flower behind her ear. A woman next to her is drinking the lungloh water. According to Mizo legend, wearing such flower and drinking this water can erase all longing for the living land. The soul would journey onwards and finally reach the entrance of Pialral or Paradise. It is believed that an adult male who has not performed the Thangchhuah ceremony in his lifetime and one who is a virgin would be shot in the abdomen with a slingshot by Pawla. They would very much be wary of this eventuality.
The rest of the panel depicts the life and traditions of our ancestors. We can see Mizo men attempting to take down an animal’s head with a stick from a pole. Back when different Mizo tribes lived separately, this was one of the ways in which war was waged. Each sub-tribe would display a pig’s head out in the open as part of their religious ritual. Each tribe would attempt to remove the other tribe’s display, and on such occasions, sub-tribes which are similar or closely related would band together and start living separately from other tribes. As time went on, these different tribes that were living separately would eventually merge together under the rule of certain powerful chiefs to form and inhabit a village together. A much famed village during this time that is often talked about is Vanhnuailiana’s village Tualte. Tualte vanglai or “at the peak of Tualte village” is a phrase still often uttered even today. Famous persons, events and places from this village such as the warrior Zampuimanga in the process of killing a tiger, famed strong men, as well as the chief’s house and Zawlbuk or bachelor’s dormitory are depicted in this panel. The scene in the background of the panel depicts the event where the villagers of Tualte shouted at a flying bird so much so that the bird got disoriented and fell to the ground.
This panel depicts a time period when different Mizo tribes started living separately, and the tribes begun to have distinct culture, tradition and religion. Accounts of life during period are often hazy and dream-like, and the tenets of Mizo culture that have emerged from this mirage of folktales and real-life events have formed an integral foundation for our view and understanding of Mizo culture and identity.
