Hiyang Athouba

In Meitei folktales Hiyang Athouba is not a created species but a condition a human corpse may undergo when left unattended or improperly cared for after death. Narratives describe cases in which a corpse remaining undiscovered in a house is associated with events (for example, a cat passing over the body in one tale) that are said to trigger its transformation into the Hiyang Athouba. The phenomenon is framed as tied to social neglect and failures in funerary practice.

Sources describe the Hiyang Athouba in folktales as demon-like, monstrous, or vampire-like and often appearing in the likeness of the deceased. Individual stories commonly present features such as disordered clothing, unkempt hair, signs of a damaged body, enlarged teeth and wide staring eyes; these descriptions are attested in narrative accounts rather than given as a fixed, technical taxonomy.

In the recorded folktale the transformed corpse becomes animate at night, may mimic or use the voice of the deceased to answer and invite the living, pursues or threatens people (throwing stones in the tale) and is able to frighten or harry those who encounter it. The same narrative reports that at dawn the being returns to its lifeless form. The tradition links its origin and activity to neglect of the sick and dead, and its apparent cessation to timely funeral action.