Our ancestor have a firm
belief and even my late father told me some instances that a dead body left
unattended at night without strict watch and safeguard becomes a target of evil
spirits and turns into a Rolong. “Ro” means corpse and “Long”
means to rise.
When evil spirit enters the
body of the death firstly there is some movement in it, then it starts rising
and instantly assumes a terrible form with long-drawn-out tongue, bulging eyes
and oozing blood from nostrils, etc. It blows a puff of air from its mouth and
all persons falling in its ambit instantly are turned into evil spirits and
start dancing with it under its spell.
Then the Rolong comes out of
the house dancing and all the persons under its influence follow the suit. On
the way whosoever comes into contact they turn into an evil spirit by the mere
puff of air from the mouths and he/she too starts following them. The Rolong
leads them all to a steep rock where it jumps down from the top of it and all
others too follow it. Thus all perished there.
However, this disaster can be
averted if the phenomenon of the revival of the corpse is dictated timely, and
the dead body is cut into pieces and the pieces are scattered away. For it is
said that an evil spirit enters into an undamaged body only.
Moreover, if the dissevered
parts of the body are scattered distantly they reassemble and assume a more
terrible form of a Rolong than the original. Therefore, the separated parts of
the dead body, influenced by the evil spirit, are either scattered distantly or
offered to dogs to eat them away. It is on account of this that the person
appointed to keep a strict vigil on the corpse at night always keeps an axe
with them to meet the consequence if any arises there.
Beside, seeds of mustard,
religious books, fire and sun light too are said to be deterrent to the evil
effect of evil spirits. It is for this reason that a butter lamp is kept
burning beside the corpse round the clock and seeds of mustard and religious
book are keep invariably there. Rolong does not enter in the daylight.
At night vigilant watchmen
keep sharp eye on the dead body. In case of any suspicion of entering the evil
spirit into it, the religious book is kept on the chest of the corpse and Lama
is asked to ward off its influence.
Moreover, a Lama, endowed
with supernatural powers, if contacted timely can destroy the Rolong and bring
back the affected person into sanity.
So this is the very reason
why corpse is protected in the night. It will be great benefits if Molem
recitations are made in the night.
Hopefully, this is reason of
guarding dead body in night.
