112 



THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



distinct races, but now generally regarded as one people, although 

 divided up into many tribes. The Singpos claim to be the 

 elder branch of the family. To the same group belong the 

 Chins of the Chin Hills and the Lushai of the Lushai Hills. 

 These tribes are closely related to the Xagas and the Arbors 

 of Assam (India), and their territory was formerly a borderland 

 between Burma in the east and India (mouth of the Brahma- 

 pootra) in the west. They are all I\uki, or "Hill Men." The 

 Kachins are a square-faced people, with strong jaws and 

 oblique eyes, like all Mongols. The Chins, who have been 

 fully described by Messrs. Bertram S. Carey and II. X. Tuck 

 in their valuable work "The Chin Hills," printed by the 

 Government at Ilaugoon, are a fine race, taller and stouter 

 than their neighbours in the plains on both the north and east. 

 Though falling short of the Pathaus in height, they are taller 

 than the average Ghoorka. They are strong, carrying heavy loads 

 ." SHWE MAOXG," POUNDER OF THE w ith ease. In their habits they are very dirty, although they 



HAIRY FAMILY OF ASIA. . -11 



wash themselves occasionally. Some Chins wear their hair in 



a top-knot, coiling it all into one ball well forward on the crown of the head. Others wear a 

 chignon on the nape of the neck. Hats and coats, made of bark, grass, bamboo, or the leaf 

 of the date-palm, are worn to protect the body from rain. Boots and sandals are unknown in 

 the hills. Fashions among the women vary greatly. Formerly the women went about half 

 naked that is, bare down to the hips; now they appear in public wearing a coat which covers 

 the bosom. The houses are built with planks, one-storeyed and with a thatch roof; they have 

 no windows or chimneys, and the smoke escapes anyhow. The floor is some feet above the 

 ground; underneath are the pigs and cattle. The labour of building a house is enormous; it 

 takes from three to ten years; for not only is the amount of material used very large, but 

 poles and planks have to be felled and dragged some miles to the village. 



The Chins endeavour to act up to their old adage, "A man should drink, fight, and 

 hunt, and the portion for women and slaves is work." One can hardly visit a village without 

 seeing an assemblage of people sitting round the liquor-pots, while the beating of gongs 

 announces that a feast is going on. Birth and marriage, death and sacrifice, the payment of 

 a debt, the courting of a sweetheart, the making of an agreement, the slaughter of an enemy, 

 and the shooting of a deer, all demand their feasts, and a feast means a- drinking-bout of 

 many days' duration. Beasts are brought in and slain. Women and slaves wait on the guests, 

 throwing a lump of meat into any basket which is empty. 

 The music consists of blowing the horns and beating the 

 gongs in regular time; while the dancers, in a large circle 

 with arms locked round each other, swing the body and keep 

 step, singing at the same time a low, mournful tune. 



If there are any lethal weapons in the house in which 

 a feast is to be given, they are prudently sent to a neigh- 

 bour, to be out of the reach of drunken people; so that 

 the frequent quarrels that ensue are generally settled by a 

 fight with fists. But in the south, where hairpins are worn, 

 quarrellers often draw them and stab one another, sometimes 

 with fatal results. When sufficiently sober, the young men 

 often wrestle, an exercise in which they excel. The heads 

 of the animals killed at a feast are used to adorn the 

 verandah of the host's house. 



When a child is born, its ears are bored with a quill '^.ii/Ax." , ,,,,_ IAX HAIR MAX 

 or a hairpin, and after about a month its hair is shaved and OVER FIFTY-FIVE YEARS OLD. 



