Miscellaneous
Teknonomy.
The Khasis, like the Alfoors of Poso
in Celebes, seem to be somewhat reluctant to utter
the names of their own immediate relations, and of
other people’s also. Parents are very frequently
called the mother of so and so (the child’s
name being mentioned), or the father of so and so,
cf. Ka kmi ka Weri, U kpa u Philip. The
actual names of the parents, after falling into desuetude,
are often entirely forgotten. The origin of the
practice may be that the Khasis, like the Alfoors,
were reluctant to mention their parents by name for
fear of attracting the notice of evil spirits.
The practice of teknonomy, however, is not confined
to the Khasis or the Alfoors of Celebes (see footnote
to page 412 of the “Golden Bough"). The
custom is also believed to have been prevalent to
some extent not long ago in some parts of Ireland.
The advent of the Welsh Missionaries
and the partial dissemination of English education
has in some cases produced rather peculiar names.
I quote some instances:
U Water Kingdom, Ka Mediterranean
Sea, Ka Red Sea; U Shakewell Bones, U Overland, Ka
Brindisi, Ka Medina, Ka Mary Jones, U Mission, and
Ka India.
Khasi Method of Calculating Time.
The Khasis adopt the lunar month,
u bynai, twelve of which go to the year ka
snem. They have no system of reckoning cycles,
as is the custom with some of the Shan tribes.
The following are the names of the months:
U kylla-lyngkot, corresponding
to January. This month in the Khasi Hills is
the coldest in the year. The Khasis turn (kylla)
the fire brand (lyngkot) in order to keep themselves
warm in this month, hence its name kylla-lyngkot.
U Rymphang, the windy month,
corresponding with February.
U Lyber, March. In this
month the hills are again clothed with verdure, and
the grass sprouts up (lyber), hence the name
of the month, u Lyber.
U Iaiong, April. This
name may possibly be a corruption of u bynai-iong,
i.e. the black moon, the changeable weather month.
U Jymmang, May. This is
the month when the plant called by the Khasis ut’ieu
jymmang, or snake-plant, blooms, hence the name.
U Jyllieu. The deep water
month, the word jyllieu meaning deep.
This corresponds to June.
U naitung. The evil-smelling
month; when the vegetation rots owing to excessive
moisture. This corresponds with July.
U’nailar. The month
when the weather is supposed to become clear, synlar,
and when the plant called ja’nailar blooms.
This is August.
U’nai-lur. September.
The month for weeding the ground.
U Ri-saw. The month when
the Autumn tints first appear, literally, when the
country, ri, becomes red, saw. This
is October.
U’nai wieng. The
month when cultivators fry the produce of their fields
in wieng or earthen pots, corresponding with
November.
U Noh-prah. The month
when the prah or baskets for carrying the crops
are put away (buh noh). Another interpretation
given by Bivar is “the month of the fall of
the leaf.” December.
The Khasi week has the peculiarity
that it almost universally consists of eight days.
The reason of the eight-day week is because the markets
are usually held every eighth day. The names of
the days of the week are not those of planets, but
of places where the principal markets are held, or
used to be held, in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills.
The following are the names of the days of the week
and of the principal markets in the district:
Khasi Hills.
Jaintia Hills.
1. Lynkah (Barpani or Khawang)
Kylino.
(Suhtnga).
2. Nongkrem Pynain. Um-Iong (Maolong the hat at Maolong.
(Nartiang).
Luban)
4. Ranghop (Ieu-bah at Cherra) Maosiang.
(Jowai).
(Mawtawar in Mylliem)
(Unsaw in Nongkhlaw)
5. Shillong (Laitlyngkot) Maoshai.
(Shangpung). 6. Pomtih or Pomtiah (Mawkhar,
Pynkat. (Mynao).
small market)
7. Umnih Thym-blei. Yeo-duh (Mawkhar, large market) Ka-hat.
(Jaintiapur).
In the War country, markets are usually
held every fourth day, e.g. at Nongjri, Mawbang,
Tyllap, and Shella. At Theria the market is held
every Friday, and at Hat-majai, or Rholagunj, every
Tuesday.
The Lynngams.
Although mention has been made incidentally
in various parts of this monograph of Lynngam customs,
it has been thought necessary to give the Lynngams
a separate chapter, as these people differ so very
greatly from the Khasis in their manner of life, and
in their customs. Lynngam is the Khasi name;
the Garo name for the Lynngams is Megam.
There are several Megam villages in the north-eastern
corner of the Garo Hills district, and there is regular
communication kept up between these villages and the
Lynngam inhabitants of the Khasi Hills district.
The Lynngams must not be confused with the Hana
or Namdaniya Garos who inhabit the low hills
to the north of the Khasi Hills district, and are
called by the Khasis Dko. All Lynngams
claim to be Khasis, they dislike being called Garos;
but although it is true they speak what may be called
a dialect of Khasi, and observe some of the Khasi
customs, the Lynngams are more Garo than Khasi.
Before proceeding further, it should be stated that
the Assamese of Boko call the Lynngams Nuniya
Garos, all hill people being Garos to the Assamese
of that region, without distinction or difference.
It is owing to these three different names being used
for the same people that there has been so much confusion
about Lynngams previously; e.g. at one census
they were named Lynngam, at another they received
the appellation of Garo, and at a third enumeration
they were called Khasis. In Section I. the habitat
of the Lynngams has been roughly defined. It
is impossible to define the Lynngam country exactly,
because these people are continually shifting their
village sites owing to the exigencies of jhum
cultivation, which has been described in Section II.
Some of the Lynngams preserve a tradition that they
originally came from the Kamrup plains. It is
interesting that a people, like the Garos in so many
respects, should have the same idea as the Garos as
to the hills on the south bank of the Brahmaputra not
always having been their abode. The Garo legend
is that they dwelt for some years in the Goalpara
and Kamrup plains after they descended from Thibet,
and before they moved to the Garo Hills; and there
is unmistakable evidence of their occupation of both
districts in the shape of certain Garo villages on
both banks of the Brahmaputra for some little distance
up the river. If, as I suspect, the Lynngams are
an offshoot of the Garos, it is, perhaps, possible
that they entered the Khasi Hills much in the same
way as the Garos entered the hill district to which
they have given their name. The Lynngams are much
darker than the Khasis, and possess the Thibeto-Burman
type of feature often to a marked degree. It
is not extraordinary that they should have adopted
some of the Khasi customs; for the Khasis, being the
stronger people, would in course of time be bound to
influence them in this respect. That the Lynngams
observe the matriarchate and erect (some clans) memorial
stones is not peculiar, because the Garos, like the
Khasis, are also a matriarchal people (to a limited
degree), and the custom of erecting memorial stones
is not confined to the Khasis, for other hill tribes
in Assam observe the practice, e.g. certain Naga
tribes and the Mikirs; and the Garos themselves put
up carved posts, called kima, in honour of
the departed. Although there is not much intermarriage
between the Khasis and the Lynngams nowadays, perhaps
in days gone by there was a mixture of blood, the result
being the hybrid race we are now considering.
Some of the leading characteristics of the Lynngams
will now be detailed. The Lynngams are by complexion
swarthy, with features of Mongolian type. The
men are of middle height and the women remarkably
short, both sexes being not nearly so robust as the
Khasis, a result due probably to climatic influences,
for the Lynngams live in fever- haunted jungles.
The men have very little hair about the face, although
a scanty moustache is sometimes seen, the hairs in
the centre being carefully plucked out, the result
being two tufts on either side. Beards are never
seen. The women are ill-favoured, and wear very
little clothing. The men wear the sleeveless
coat of the Khasi and Mikir pattern, called phongmarong,
which is made of cotton dyed red, blue, and white.
This custom may have been borrowed from the Khasi.
They do not grow their own cotton, but obtain it from
the plains. They make their own dyes, changlong
(red) and hur saï-iong (black). A cotton
cloth, barely enough for purposes of decency, is tied
between the legs, the ends being allowed to hang down
in front and behind. Sometimes an apron is worn
in front. At the present day the men wear knitted
woollen caps, generally black or red, of the Nongstoin
pattern (a sort of fisherman’s cap), but the
elderly men and head-men wear turbans. The females
wear a cotton cloth about eighteen inches broad round
the loins, sometimes striped red and blue, but more
often only dark blue. A blue or red cloth is
thrown loosely across the shoulders by unmarried girls,
but married women only wear the waist-cloth, like
the Garos. A cloth is tied round the head by
married women, sometimes, Garo fashion. The women
wear quantities of blue beads as necklaces, like their
Garo sisters. They obtain the beads from the
Garo markets at the foot of the hills. Brass
ear-rings are worn by both sexes; the women, like
the Garos, load their ears to such an extent with brass
rings as to distend the lobes greatly. Silver
armlets are worn by the head-men only, or by those
who possess the means to give a great feast to the
villagers. This is the custom of the Garo nokmas,
or head-men. Both sexes wear bracelets.
The men also wear necklaces of beads. The rich
wear necklaces of cornelian and another stone which
is thought by the Lynngams to be valuable. A necklace
of such stones is called u’pieng blei
(god’s necklace). This stone is apparently
some rough gem which may be picked up by the Lynngams
in the river beds. A rich man amongst them, however,
is one who possesses a number of metal gongs, which
they call wiang. For these they pay very
high prices, R being quite a moderate sum for
one of them. Being curious to see one of these
gongs, I asked a sirdar, or head-man, to show
me one. He replied that he would do so, but it
would take time, as he always buried his gongs in
the jungle for fear of thieves. Next morning
he brought me a gong of bell metal, with carvings of
animals engraved thereon. The gong when struck
gave out a rich deep note like that of Burmese or
Thibetan gongs. These gongs have a regular currency
in this part of the hills, and represent to the Lynngams
“Bank of England” notes. It would
be interesting to try to ascertain what is their history,
for no one in the Lynngam country makes them in these
days. Is it possible that the Garos brought them
with them when they migrated from Thibet? The
gongs are well known in the Garo Hills, and I hear
that when a nokma, or head-man, there dies his
corpse is laid out upon them. They thus possess
also an element of sanctity, besides being valuable
for what they will fetch to the Garos or Lynngams.
We may hope to hear more about them in Captain Playfair’s
account of the Garos.
The Lynngams do not tattoo. Their
weapons are the large-headed Garo spear, the dao,
and the shield. They do not usually carry bows
and arrows, although there are some who possess them.
They are by occupation cultivators. They sow
two kinds of hill rice, red and white, on the hill-sides.
They have no wet paddy cultivation, and they do not
cultivate in terraces like the Nagas. They burn
the jungle about February, after cutting down some
of the trees and clearing away some of the debris,
and then sow the paddy broadcast, without cultivating
the ground in any way. They also cultivate millet
and Jobs-tears in the same way. With the paddy
chillies are sown the first year. The egg plant,
arum, ginger, turmeric, and sweet potatoes of several
varieties are grown by them in a similar manner.
Those that rear the lac insect plant landoo
tress (Hindi arhal dal) in the forest clearings,
and rear the insect thereon. Some of these people,
however, are prohibited by a custom of their own from
cultivating the landoo, in which case they
plant certain other trees favourable to the growth
of the lac insect. The villages are situated
near their patches of cultivation in the forest.
The villages are constantly shifting, owing to the
necessity of burning fresh tracts of forest every two
years. The houses are entirely built of bamboo,
and, for such temporary structures, are very well
built. In front, the houses are raised some 3
or 4 ft. from the ground on platforms, being generally
built on the side of a fairly steep hill, one end
of the house resting on the ground, and the other
on bamboo posts. The back end of the house is
sometimes some 8 or 9 ft. from the ground. At
the end of the house farthest away from the village
path is a platform used for sitting out in the evening,
and for spreading chillies and other articles to dry.
Some Lynngam houses have only one room in which men,
women, and children an all huddled together, the hearth
being in the centre, and, underneath the platform,
the pigs. Well-to-do people, however, possess
a retiring room, where husband and wife sleep.
A house I measured at Nongsohbar village was of the
following dimensions: Length, 42 ft; breadth,
16 ft.; height of house from the ground to the eaves,
front, 9 ft.; back 18 ft. Houses are built with
a portion of the thatch hanging over the eaves in
front. No explanation could be given me for this.
It is probably a Garo custom. In some Lynngam
villages there are houses in the centre of the village
where the young unmarried men sleep, where male guests
are accommodated, and where the village festivities
go on. These are similar to the dekachang
or bachelors’ club-houses of the Mikirs, Garos,
and Lalungs, and to the morang of the Nagas.
This is a custom of the Thibeto-Burman tribes in Assam,
and is not a Khasi institution. There are also
high platforms, some 12 ft. or 15 ft. in height, in
Lynngam villages, where the elders sit of an evening
in the hot weather and take the air. Lynngam houses
and villages are usually much cleaner than the ordinary
Khasi villages, and although the Lynngams keep pigs,
they do not seems to be so much en evidence
as in the Khasi village. There is little or no
furniture in a Lynngam house. The Lynngam sleeps
on a mat on the floor, and in odd weather covers himself
with a quilt, made out of the bark of a tree, which
is beaten out and then carefully woven, several layers
of flattened bark being used before the right thickness
is attained. This quilt is called by the Lynngam
“Ka syllar” (Garo simpak).
Food is cooked in earthen pots, but no plates are used,
the broad leaves of the mariang tree taking
their place. The leaves are thrown away after
use, a fresh supply being required for each meal.
The Lynngams brew rice beer, they
do no distil spirit; the beer is brewed according
to the Khasi method. Games they have none, and
there are no jovial archery meetings like those of
the Khasis. The Lynngam methods of hunting are
setting spring guns and digging pitfalls for game.
The people say that now the Government and the Siem
of Nongstoin have prohibited both of these methods
of destroying game, they no longer employ them.
But I came across a pitfall for deer not long ago
in the neighbourhood of a village in the Lynngam country.
The people declared it to be a very old one; but this
I very much doubt, and I fear that these objectionable
methods of hunting are still used. The Lynngams
fish to a small extent with nets, but their idea of
fishing, par excellence, is poisoning the streams,
an account of which has already been given in this
monograph. The Lynngams are omnivorous feeders,
they may be said to eat everything except dogs, snakes,
the huluk monkey, and lizards. They like
rice, when they can get it; for sometimes the out-turn
of their fields does not last them more than a few
months. They then have to fall back on Jobstears
and millet. They eat arums largely, and for
vegetables they cook wild plantains and the young
shoots of bamboos and cane plants. The Lynngams
are divided up into exogamous clans in the same manner
as the Khasis. The clans are overgrown families.
The Lynngams have some stories regarding the founders
of these clans, of which the following is a specimen: “A
woman was asleep under a sohbar tree in the
jungle, a flower from which fell on her, and she conceived
and bore a female child who was the ancestress of the
Nongsohbar clan.” Some of the stories of
the origins of other clans do not bear repeating.
There do not appear to be any hypergamous groups.
As with the Khasis, it is a deadly sin to marry any
one belonging to your own kur, or clan.
Unlike the Khasis, however, a Lynngam can marry two
sisters at a time. The Lynngam marriages are arranged
by ksiangs, or go-betweens much in the same
way as Khasi marriages; but the ritual observed is
less elaborate, and shows a mixture of Khasi and Garo
customs (see section III.). The Lynngams intermarry
with the Garos. It appears that sometimes the
parents of girls exact bride-money, and marriages
by capture have been heard of. Both of these
customs are more characteristic of the Bodo tribes
of the plains than of the Khasis. There are no
special birth customs, as with the Khasis, except
that when the umbilical cord falls a fowl is sacrificed,
and the child is brought outside the house. Children
are named without any special ceremony. The death
customs of the Lynngams have been described in Section
III. A peculiar characteristic is the keeping
of the dead body in the house for days, sometimes
even for several months, before it is burnt.
The putrefying corpse inside the house seems to cause
these people no inconvenience, for whilst it remains
there, they eat, carry on their ordinary avocations,
and sleep there, regardless of what would be considered
by others an intolerable nuisance. The religion
of these people consists of a mixture of ancestor-worship
and the propitiation of the spirits of fell and fall,
which are, most of them, believed to be of evil influence,
as is the case with other savage races. As with
the people of Nongstoin, the primaeval ancestress,
“ka Iaw bei,” is worshipped for
the welfare of the clan, a sow being sacrificed to
her, with a gourd of rice-beer, and leaves of the
oak, or dieng-sning tree. The leaves of
the oak are afterwards hung up inside the house, together
with the jaw bone of the pig. Sacrifices are
offered to a forest demon, U Bang-jang (a god
who brings illness), by the roadside; also to Ka
Miang Bylli U Majymma, the god of cultivation,
at seed time, on the path to the forest clearing where
the seed is sown. Models of paddy stone-houses,
baskets and agricultural implements are made, sand
being used to indicate the grain. These are placed
by the roadside, the skulls of the sacrificial animals
and the feathers of fowls being hung up on bamboo
about the place where the has been performed.
There are no priests or lyngdohs, the fathers
of the hamlet performing the various ceremonies.
The Lynngams possess no head-hunting customs, as far
as it has been possible to ascertain. These people
are still wild and uncivilized. Although they
do not, as a rule, give trouble, from an administrative
point of view, a very serious dacoity, accompanied
by murder, was committed by certain Lynngams at an
Assamese village on the outskirts of the Lynngam country
a few years ago. The victims were two Merwari
merchants and their servant, as well as another man.
These people were brutally murdered by the Lynngams,
and robbed of their property. The offenders were,
however, successfully traced and arrested by Inspector
Raj Mohan Das, and several of them suffered capital
punishment, the remainder being transported for life.