Folk Spirits in Tripuri Culture

Folk Spirits in Tripuri Culture refer to a range of supernatural beings, both feared and revered, found in the traditional beliefs of the Tripuri people of northeastern India and the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. These include guardian spirits, malevolent entities, spirit attendants, and psychopomps who play a role in illness, misfortune, and even the afterlife. The deities are usually appeased through annual animal sacrifices, while regular worship is rare.

Buracha

Buracha is a major forest and death spirit in Tripuri folklore. Often considered both a malevolent deity (opodevota) and a personification of the wilderness, Buracha roams graveyards and forests with his entourage of ghosts and spirits. He is notoriously temperamental. If a person harms forest animals or birds, Buracha is believed to retaliate by harming them in return.

Buracha is not worshipped daily, and there are no household shrines for him. Instead, villagers show distant reverence, offering a respectful gesture (pranam) and organizing an annual sacrifice, usually once between the Bengali months of Poush and Chaitra. Sacrifices are conducted to prevent illness or the death of livestock.

Buracha’s family includes:

• Haichukma: his wife, also considered a forest spirit.
• Kalpira and Yampira: his two sons.

Each member of Buracha’s family receives a rooster sacrifice during the annual ritual. Worship of Buracha is primarily carried out by Tripura clans such as the Debbarma and Riang.

Haichukma and Hachungma

Haichukma is Buracha’s consort and shares similar attributes. Among the Halam people (a Tripuri sub-group), a comparable spirit exists named Hachungma, also a female forest spirit. Hachungma is blamed for spreading diseases among domestic animals and even for hiding children and livestock.

When a child or cattle goes missing, the Halam perform rituals and offerings to Hachungma in hopes of retrieving them.

Shishi / Shishi Mangzi

Shishi (also known as Shishi Mangzi among the Noatia community) is a subordinate spirit who serves Buracha and Haichukma. Although an attendant, Shishi is highly mischievous and malicious by nature. Communities like the Uchoi and Noatia believe that Shishi enjoys harming humans.

If someone has a cut, wound, or boil, it is believed that Shishi can possess the individual and worsen the condition through prolonged bleeding. Due to this belief, people in affected regions perform preventive rituals when such wounds occur.

Mothai Spirits (Motai / Mothai)

Tripuri folklore also includes Mothai spirits, a category of supernatural beings associated with death and the afterlife. They are not malevolent toward the living but play crucial roles after death.

Types of Mothai spirits include:

Swinairao Motai

Often compared to the Hindu figure Chitragupta, Swinairao Motai keeps a record of a person’s sins and virtues.

Thumnairao Motai

Comparable to Yamaraj, Thumnairao Motai judges the dead based on the records maintained by Swinairao. They are considered the local lords of justice in the afterlife.

These spirits are not worshipped daily. Instead, villagers observe an annual ritual in their honor. Each year, the village headman (often called Chowdhury) leads a collective effort where community members contribute funds for a ceremonial event. During the ritual, three roosters are sacrificed — one for each of the principal Mothai spirits. Offerings include:

• Fruits
• Durba grass
• Liquor

Ritual Practice and Social Organization

Worship of these spirits does not involve permanent temples or daily devotion. Instead, the focus is on annual appeasement to prevent misfortune and disease. These community-led rituals reflect the collective spiritual consciousness of Tripuri villages. The sacrifices serve not only as religious acts but also as social functions that reinforce group identity.

Cultural Parallels

Tripuri beliefs about the afterlife spirits resemble Hindu cosmology, particularly in the roles played by Thumnairao and Swinairao. However, they are rooted in indigenous animism and function independently of Hindu scripture. Similar traditions of forest and disease spirits are found among other Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic communities in Northeast India.

References

• Chorkoborti, Mriganko. Banglar Debota Opodebota o Lokodebota.