364

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.

protection to their owner when sleeping in strange places, and left behind him in his path protect him in some degree when pursued. We saw, as I said, men of four separate tribes, three of them distinguished by their mode of wearing their hair, and the southern tribes rather smaller and handsomer than the northern. Those we first met, who had come from Kulel, and are

now living on Banbong, called themselves How

longs, and are governed by an old woman, Impanu, the mother of their former chief, Wompilal, whose grave is on Kulel. The name of the next tribe, those under Poiboi and Lāl Bur, I quite forgot to as certain. The remaining two were Pois and Paites. The former were inhabitants of the country south of Lål Bur's, who had apparently hired themselves out as soldiers; and the latter, probably a very small tribe, living on and about Narklang. Of these the two first wore their hair drawn smoothly back, and fastened in a knot behind by a thin bit of iron bent into a double prong. The Pois parted theirs across the head behind, and letting the lower part hang loose drew the upper forward, twisting it with the front hair, tied it in a knot over their foreheads, where it was secured by an iron skewer or with a comb of ivory; round this knob those who wore turbans tied one end in, putting them on after the manner of the Sikhs, which was

remarked by some Lushais, who called the 22nd Poi; about a fourth of the Pois wore turbans,

the other tribes, as a rule, going bareheaded. The Paites wore their hair frizzed up from their head, and cut about four inches long. Chiefs and head men wear feathers in their hair-knots on great occasions, that is, those who have them; how the

Paites wear them, or whether they use any, I do not know. Of the Suktis, who live to the eastward,

we saw next to nothing; they are at enmity with these other tribes, and, thinking to take them at a disadvantage, had, just before we reached the Champhai, made an attack on Lål Bur's village of Chouchim, whence they had been repulsed with loss, leaving one body behind. This unfortunate's head and some limbs had been placed as orna ments to Vonolel's tomb in Lungvel, but as it had been scalped, gouged, and the skull smashed in,

[DECEMBER, 1873.

white; silver and gold have they none, and care little for, a few pice re-purchasing a rupee; but these are at a premium merely because they can be beaten into bullets or used to line pipes. The second is that, though not particularly cleanly, they are entirely free from any of those noisone skin diseases which are so common in Kachar, and

only one man did we see marked with small-pox. We saw no dwarfs or cripples; probably they are made away with early, after the Spartan fashion.

Of the mental and other qualities of the Lu shais, as far as one could judge, they are quick tempered, unstable in mind, loose in allegiance, thieving, and occasionally given to drunkenness. violence, and barbarity; inquisitive, taciturn in con versation, patriotic, and too bold to be liars; their bump of locality must be strongly marked ; they are great hunters and athletic, walking long distances, and climbing with remarkable ease. From the smallest children they all smoke, men and women,

—and so much are they given to it that any of their recent camps can always be detected by their stale

tobacco smell. Their pipes are neatly made of bamboo lined with iron or copper, and of the ordi nary pipe shape for the men, those used by the women having a receptacle for water, after the fashion of a hubble-bubble, which water—disgust ing practice —is carried about by the men in little gourd bottles to take occasional nips from. They have some sort of religious belief, but I heard no mention of priest, nor were there any tem ples or images. Occasionally, in the field we met with a little cleared space on which were arranged rows of clay pallets of various shapes, with a yard long flagstaff and coloured pendent waving over them, but it was in their tombs that we saw the greatest evidences of their religion. These were

always in their villages and ornamented with tro phies of skulls of animals and feathers. At burials they discharge firearms over the graves, and I believe slay the animals, whose heads afterwards go to their decoration, and whose spirits are intended for the delectation of the grave's occupant in the happy hunting-ground. The greater the man the more animals are sent with him, and it

little could be made out from it.

is said that slaves are sometimes sacrificed and

There are two things remarkable about these people—one, their indifference to ornaments; ex cepting two, which are very simple, they wear none: these are a tiger's tooth or tuft of goat's hair tied with a string round the neck, and a small

buried with a chief. Vonolel's and Vompilal's tombs had the heads of many beasts over them (indeed one got a knowledge of the larger fauna of the country at a glance); the skulls of the most dangerous were muzzled, and there were hobbles

tuft of scarlet feathers stuck in, or an amber bead

to restrain the feet.

hung by a string to the ear. Some of the children wore strings of beads, but very few of the men; and coloured chintz was scoffed at as a barter, though anything might be got for plain red or

Beyond what can be gathered from what I have mentioned, that they must believe in a future state, and that there is some invisible power for evil, against whom they make their incantations to