Helloi

The pond kept coming up dirty. Khamba Moirangjao would leave for his fields in the morning and come home to water churned and clouded, with no footprint on the bank to account for it, and for a while he lived with the nuisance the way a man lives with a leak. Then one morning he did not go to the fields. He folded himself into a corner of his own land where nobody could see him, and waited.

They came down out of the sky. Seven of them, dropping through the afternoon air onto the bank, and they stripped without hurrying and hung their clothes on a namuk tree and ran into the water. They stayed in a long time. When they climbed out the tree was bare, and Moirangjao stepped from his corner with their clothes bundled in his arms.

He would not give them back. He told them, standing there in daylight while seven immortal women stood in his pond and could not leave it, that this was the price of fouling his water. Eventually they made him an offer: keep the clothes, take one of us to wife. He agreed. They dressed and came before him and he chose the seventh, the youngest, Kadeng Nganbi, who was reckoned the most beautiful and the most seductive of them all.

The marriage failed. The record is unsentimental about it and gives no scene, no quarrel, no third party, only that the alliance could not pull together, that the two of them were different kinds of thing and both of them knew it. Moirangjao let her go home. But her father, Soraren, lord of heaven, refused to restore her place in the sky, and then went further and threw all seven daughters out for the whole outrageous business. From that day they no longer belonged to heaven. They were loose on the earth, and they were looking for trouble.

Their mother was Hiumuleima, one of Soraren’s two wives; the other, Tamphaleima, later became Konthoujam Lairembi. The seven are Chingkhei Nganbi, Nongpokleima, Loijarembi, Haothongtaothongtaibi, Loinaosusembi, Wandanglon and Kadeng Nganbi, and before the exile they used to come down to earth every day with their father’s permission simply to pass the time, sometimes in the wild places, sometimes drifting through the villages. This version of their origin was told at Manipur University in November 2011 by Sinam Achou Meitei, an epic singer and a maiba, and it is one telling among several that circulate in the valley.

Where they settle now is oddly specific. Not the deep forest so much as the awkward edges of a landscape: meadows where banyan and medlar grow, copses, riverbanks, and above all the places where roads split or cross. A Meitei walking home alone knows which patch of ground near his village is theirs, because the elderly will have told him, repeatedly, and he will probably not believe them.

Konthoujam Ibotombi Meitei did not believe them. He had moved to Haorang Sabal, about ten kilometres from Imphal, at the age of thirty-five, and the meadow beside his new house had a reputation he treated as village talk. One evening around half past six he was crossing it on his way back from a friend’s house when his foot caught a clod and put him on the ground. He got up and there was a woman in front of him in a white cloth, very beautiful, and he asked her what she was doing out in the dark. She called him brother and asked him to walk her to the village he could see from there. He went.

He could never get close to her. He tried, and the harder he tried the further she stayed, and though they talked on and off along the way he could not once catch her whole face. The village never arrived. When he said he was tired and suggested they rest, she told him in a voice he remembered afterwards as sweet and seductive that her sisters were waiting and there was no time to sit down, and that they were nearly there anyway. What he noticed most, telling it decades later, was that beside her he never felt tired at all.

That is the shape of Heloi Oknaba, the encounter with a Helloi, and it is one of the standard categories of supernatural meeting in Meitei belief narrative. What follows the walk is worse than the walk. The man comes home at some impossible hour and says nothing and goes to bed, and then wakes and speaks to someone who is not in the room, and tries to leave. In one household the family lit a lamp and burned incense to Sanamahi through the whole night while the son searched the roads; when the man finally got home and then rose again to go out, he begged them not to bind him, because they were waiting for him near the pond.

After that the mind goes. The possessed stop recognising family and friends but keep talking easily to the spirit. They run at night, hide where nobody looks, eat earthworm castings. Some turn violent, some hurt themselves. And the Helloi does not simply depart when told: she negotiates, naming a price for leaving the body she has taken, which is why the maiba or the maibi is called rather than merely consulted. It is described plainly as a fight. Left untreated the damage sets, and the mind never fully comes back.

Nobody in the record ever wins outright. Their power is beauty plus distance, the face withheld, the ground that never ends, the exhaustion that never arrives, and it is almost impossible to counter because the victim is not resisting. Their weakness is stranger and comes from that first story: seven immortals stuck in a pond because a farmer had their clothes, unable to step out, reduced to bargaining. They deal because dealing is what they have. Take away the thing they need and they will trade for it, which is exactly what the maiba does, and exactly what they do in turn to the man they have caught.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Helloi?

A Helloi is a female nature spirit in Meitei mythology, one of seven immortal sisters known collectively as Helloi Taret. They are the daughters of Soraren, the lord of heaven, and his wife Hiumuleima, and they are famous for beauty that no one in the stories resists. Since being expelled from the sky they have lived on earth, in meadows, copses, riverbanks and at crossroads.

Why were the Helloi thrown out of heaven?

Their father Soraren expelled all seven after the youngest, Kadeng Nganbi, married a mortal named Khamba Moirangjao and the marriage broke down. Moirangjao had caught them swimming in his pond and taken their clothes, and they bought their freedom by offering him one of them as a wife. When Kadeng Nganbi returned home her heavenly position was not restored, and her sisters lost theirs too.

What happens if you meet a Helloi?

An encounter, called Heloi Oknaba in Meitei, typically begins as an ordinary meeting on a lonely path and ends in possession. The person loses his mental balance, stops recognising his own family, and keeps up a conversation with the spirit that nobody else can hear. He may run at night, hide, eat earthworm castings, act violently or harm himself.

How is someone freed from a Helloi?

Only a maiba or a maibi, the traditional Meitei priest and priestess, is expected to be able to treat it, and the process is described as a fight rather than a ritual cure. The spirit does not leave on demand; she demands something in return for releasing the victim. If treatment is not given properly the symptoms can last a long time and permanently impair the mind.

Where do the Helloi live?

They are believed to haunt wilderness and the edges of settled land: woods, rivers, meadows where banyan and medlar trees grow, copses, and especially crossroads and diversion roads. Villagers know which specific patches of ground near their homes are considered theirs and warn newcomers to keep off them after dark.

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