Zohlupuii Sailung Site

“The mountain has a heartbeat,” she would reply. “And it is sad.”

That person was Zohlupuii.

But the people of Hrireng smile. They know. It is Zohlupuii, the queen of the whispering peaks, watering her mountain from a gourd that will never empty. Zohlupuii Sailung

They call her now Zohlupuii Sailung – for she and the mountain are one.

But the song came with a price.

Zohlupuii walked out of the mist, her silver hair dragging through the moss. She pointed one long finger at the three chiefs. “This mountain belongs to no man’s ram (domain),” she said. “It is my puan (my cloth, my body). Spill blood here, and I will weave your bones into my hair.”

The people rushed to drink. The iron-rich water killed the plague bacteria. The surrounding soil, fed by that strange seepage, grew hardy yams and bitter tapioca. Sailung had given its gift. “The mountain has a heartbeat,” she would reply

“What do you hear, strange one?” the village boys would mock.