| 
te 
Shells as evidence of the Migrations. 
In Thibet, according to Carl Ritter, cowries serve as 
ornaments for women’s girdles.” 
Among the Khasias, a stone-using tribe inhabiting the 
Khasia Hills of Eastern Bengal, cowries are associated with 
marriage. According to Brown, “the marriage ceremony 
is of the most primitive type. All that is necessary is for 
the couple to sit together on one seat and receive their 
friends, to whom they give a marriage feast. A union so 
easily contracted is just as easily dissolved. The woman 
receives five cowries which she throws away; they are 
then free to be married again, the children remaining with 
the mother.” ; 
Among the Nagas of Assam, head-hunting was 
formerly a qualification for matrimony, and a_ warrior, 
having slain an enemy, had the privilege of wearing a kilt 
decorated with cowry-sheils, collars ornamented with 
similar shells, tufts of goat hair dyed red, and locks of 
hair from the heads of the persons killed." 
A similar custom is prevalent among the head-hunt- 
ing Patasiwa of Seran, where a warrior is not allowed to 
take a wife until he can show the head of an enemy he has 
slain. In proof of his prowess the warrior wears as many 
little white shells (? cowries) round his neck and arms as 
he has murdered men.'* An even more striking identity 
in the association of cowries with head-hunting is to be 
found in Kast Central Africa, where the Djibba tribe wear 
not only the cowries but also the hair from the heads of 
the slain enemies (see p. 142). 
'¢6 Schneider, of. cit., p. 117. 
'** Brown, of. cif, iii., p. 302; quoting Lieut. Steel, R.A., Journ. 
Lthnol. Soc., vii, p. 305. By some philolegists the Khasias are considered 
to be Thibetans. 
147 ** Women of all Nations,” p. 581. 
'4* G, A. Cooke, ** System of Universal Geography,” vol. i. (1SaJ), p. 
609 
{ 
‘ 
