U Blei

U Blei

U Blei Nongthaw ("the Creator God") is the supreme deity of the Khasi people — Khasi religion (called Ka Niam Khasi) is one of India's living indigenous matrilineal religions. Worship is conducted in sacred groves (law kyntang).

Ka Niam Khasi is one of the most distinctive indigenous religions of northeast India:

• Matrilineal inheritance — property passes through the youngest daughter (Ka Khadduh)
• Sacred groves (law kyntang) — undisturbed forests near every village, many older than written records; home of both ancestors and gods
• No temples, no priesthood distinct from elders
• Ritual divination through egg-breaking (ka synduit)

Over 500 Khasi families maintain Niam Khasi worship formally; many more do so alongside Christianity. The Seng Khasi movement (founded 1899) preserves and revives the tradition, resisting the widespread Christian conversion of the 19th–20th centuries.