1/2 • S/icl/s as evidence of the Migrations. 



In Tliibet, according;- to Carl Ritter, cowries serve as 

 ornaments for women's girdles.'"' 



Among the Khasias, a stone-using tribe iniiabiting the 

 Khasia Hills of Eastern l^engal, 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 awa)' ; they are 

 then free to be married again, the children remaining with 

 the mother." 



Among tlie Xagas of Assam, head-hunting was 

 former])' a qualification for matrimony, and a warrior, 

 having slain an enemy, had the [privilege of wearing a kilt 

 decorated with cowry-shells, 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 w ife 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 lias murdered men.'^" \\\ even more striking identit}- 

 in the association of cowries with head-hunting is to be 

 found in East Central Africa, where the Djibba tribe wear 

 not onl)- the cowries but also the liair from the heads of 

 tile slain enemies 'see p. 142). 



'*' Schneider, cp. cit., \\ 117. 



'** ISrown, op. ill., iii., p. 302; c|iMting I,icut. .Su-el. \<. A... Join it. 

 Ethnol. So,., vii., p. 303. Hy some pliilulot;i>!> ihc Kliasias are considered 

 to be Thiheiaii^. 



>*• '• Uumen of all Xalii.ns," ].. 581. 



'*» G. .\. Cooke. "System of Universal Genj^raiihy,"' vi.l. i. (iSoi). p. 

 609. 



