Category: Archaeology & Anthropology
In 1882 Edward Stack, appointed the first Director of the newly-created Department of Land Records and Agriculture in Assam, entered upon his duties in that province, and applied himself with ardour to the study of its people. He had passed just ten years in the Indian Civil S...
Harata Kunwar was one of six brothers, the youngest of them. From his very birth he spent his time in shooting deer and wild pig, and never laboured in the fields. His elder bro...
8. Part 8Then, as they went on still further, a wild boar, so big as you never saw or imagined, with his tusks overlapping his mouth, was straddling across the road, and rooting up the e...
2. Part 2The traditions of the race point to the Eastern portion of the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, bordering on the Kopili (or Kupli) river (where many still remain), as their original abo...
4. Part 4On a death occurring, the old women of the village wash and lay out the body. Then one composes a chant, setting forth the parentage and life of the dead: "You will now meet you...
18. Part 18to pour out bu, bup bauk, bo (L. buak, [55] bun) to put bi bi (to clap, pat) to jump chòng dong (L. zuang) to die thi dü, di (L. thi to kill by cutting thu thük, tük to pound tò...
9. Part 9The other cases are formed by postpositions. The instrumental is generally indicated by pèn (sometimes with prefixed a- or e-, as apèn, epèn, but more often without), or pèn-si....
5. Part 5About midnight the villagers, with torches, drums, and the attendant risomar, assemble in the tikup. The neighbouring villages, if so minded, may come too (aròng ari is the phra...
15. Part 15This story is a much more elaborate piece of composition than the last, and may be said to exhibit distinct marks of literary style. Its vocabulary is copious and varied, and it...
16. Part 16Musical instruments. A flute, pongsi, cut from a bamboo, is mentioned on p. 128: pongsi is the Assamese bansi, the well-known instrument of the youthful Krishna (Bansi-dhar). Ot...
3. Part 3The age for marriage is from fourteen to twenty-five for the man, ten to fifteen for the girl; eighteen or nineteen and fifteen are the most usual ages. Child marriage is unknow...
1. Part 1In 1882 Edward Stack, appointed the first Director of the newly-created Department of Land Records and Agriculture in Assam, entered upon his duties in that province, and applie...
12. Part 12Du-tekàng-ke-dèt-si; du, verb, to place, set; tekàng, a verb, to leave, depart; ke, negative syllable, reduplicated from last syllable of tekàng, dèt, particle of past time, si...
10. Part 10This simple and direct narrative, easy of analysis, affords an excellent illustration of the mechanism of Mikir speech. First, we observe that the indication of time is put at t...
14. Part 1411. Part 11Here we have a narrative of a more complex character than that of the first story, with a richer vocabulary, and abounding in the descriptive adverbial particles which are the m...
13. Part 1317. Part 17For the third person Mikir now uses the demonstrative la, but, as the possessive prefix shows, had formerly a. In this it agrees with Lai, Lushei, Chiru, Kolren among the Kuki f...
6. Part 6That orphan had one calf; you could not imagine how fat and sleek it was. His uncles, being unable through envy to look at that calf, killed it. Then the orphan, having taken of...