176 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



a parallel to the whimsical choice of such personal names as Radeboka, 

 i.e. the ' day book ' of a hospital/^^ one needs to go to the Khasia hills in 

 Assam, where names such as Ka Mediterranean Sea, U Water Kingdom 

 or Shakewell Bones are, or were, familiar. Matrilineal descent ^^* appears 

 in Madagascar as it does in Khasia hills, though in most parts of the 

 Assam hills it is now submerged. The use of the ideochord ^^^ is more 

 elaborate in Madagascar than among the Kuki tribes, but is essentially 

 the same instrument (I refer to the bamboo guitar in which the strings 

 are formed by strips cut in the outer bark and prised up by wedges under- 

 neath at each end of the strip), and exactly on the same principle as many 

 village gates in Assam, particularly among the Kuki-Chin tribes, are the 

 doors described by Sibree in Madagascar as made of poles — bamboos in 

 Assam — -hung from a cross-piece which passes through a hole in each. 

 Kuki again, but not Naga, is the story of the escape from the ogre ^°° by 

 throwing down a feather which becomes a forest, etc., and apparently 

 Kuki is the Malagasy (Betsileo) practice of burying with an air tube of 

 bamboo let down to the head through the earth, as among the Sea Dayak 

 and Kayan of Borneo, in order that the soul may have ingress to and 

 egress from the buried body.^"^ I say apparently Kuki, because this 

 practice is typical of the Thado at present, but it is also reported of the 

 Kachari,202 and of the Santal, so that it may, like some other Kuki 

 features, have been taken over from previous matrilineal (?) inhabitants. 

 In the case of the Santal the tube seems to have survived a change from 

 burial to cremation, as it now consists of a reed let through the lid of the 

 pot which contains the cremated remains of the dead.^"^ 



The parallels which I have given are, I think, adequate to show the 

 cultural connection between the Assam hills and the three widely 

 separated areas in Oceania with which I have dealt. It is pretty clear 

 that in Fiji and in Madagascar, and probably also in the Marquesas, this 

 identity of culture, in so far as it exists, is not that of a single culture, 

 but rather of a complex of cultures in each case. It is clear that Assam 

 may conceivably throw some light on the Indonesian problem, as the 

 stratifications can, at any rate to some extent, still be traced. The last 

 immigrants are undoubtedly people of Kuki and Kachin affinities. There 

 is a clear tradition among the Chins of the Arakan hill tracts pointing 

 to their migration down the Chindwin Valley,^''* no doubt throwing off 

 parties which must have penetrated the Assam hills from the east on 

 the way, after which one portion of the Kukis at any rate seem to have 

 worked up northwards again from the Bay of Bengal, a movement which 

 has barely ceased, if it has ceased, in the present generation. It would 

 seem that the Kayans of Borneo probably formed part of the same move- 

 ment. A tradition quoted by Hose and McDougall ^"^ assigned the 



"' Sibree, 348. iss EUis, II, 81, 201. 



^°* Osborn, 360 ; Shaw, 151 ; Parry, 185. 



^"^ Sibree, 239 sgq ; Shaw, 105. 



"1 Sibree, 305 ; Shaw, 55 «." ; Hose, Natural Man, 213. 



2*"' Endle, The Kacharis, p. 47. 



2»3 Census of India, 1931, 1, iiiB, 102 (Bodding). 



204 Fryer ; Shaw, 17 n. !""> Pagan Tribes of Borneo, 1, 15. 



