60 GEORGE D-S-DUNBAR ON 



red-handed the aggrieved owner goes over to the offender's village and, seizing a favour- 

 able opportunity, satisfies the local idea of justice by securing either an inmate of his 

 house or such personal property of any value as he can secure. If, as in practice gener- 

 ally happens, the aggrieved person seizes some animal belonging to an entirely 

 innocent individual, it rests with the latter to adjust the balance by securing an 

 animal belonging to the original offender. 



The sources from which slaves are drawn by the Galongs and Abors have already 



been alluded to, but briefly recapitulated they areas 

 follows : slaves are very occasionally obtained by suc- 

 cessful raiding parties (when children alone are a welcome capture ; sometimes in course 

 of law and justice as the punishment of crime, through inability to pay an imposed fine ;' 

 or the refusal of some girl to obey her parents' wishes regarding her marriage ; more 

 often by the birth of children to slaves and, most frequently, by the recognized slave 

 trade in children of the Karka clan who regularly sell their children into slavery. This 

 slave trade supplies the Memong, Dobang, Tadun , Minyongand Pasi villages. Occasion- 

 ally the people to the north bring captives taken in war into the zone of southern 

 Galongs and Minyongs and sell them as slaves ; and sometimes a tea-garden coolie is 

 foolish enough, on his or her first arrival in Assam and before the advantageous 

 circumstances of life on a garden are properly realized, to bolt to the hills and certain 

 slavery. The Padam draw a certain number of slaves from the Mishmis. 



Local conditions and the value of mithan and property generally are so variable 



that it is exceedingly difficult to convey a correct idea of 

 the value of slaves. But I gathered from the Abors of 

 Ledum and Galongs of Kaking that slaves cost up to 160 rupees or rather its equiva- 

 lent in mithan, dankis, mom and other property. The price of a hard-working woman 

 is higher than that of a good man. All Abors and Galongs who can afford it keep one 

 or more slaves in their households. 



Slaves are well looked after ; they live in the house and feed with the family from 



whom they are sometimes indistinguishable. For it 



Treatment anil Marriage. 



does not at all follow that a man wearing bracelets is a 

 free man and a man without them is a slave ; a capable and energetic slave has an 

 assured position , he is listened to and his advice may readily be followed. A male slave 

 has the right to a wife and his owner, if there is no suitable slave girl m his household, 

 is bound to buy one for him. The children of a slave marriage are slaves, and the 

 property of their master. The rule once a slave always a slave appears, from the evi- 

 dence collected, to have very few exceptions amongst Galongs and Abors. A man, 

 who has been sent into slavery for inability to pay a fine inflicted for some offence, can 

 be freed by the subsequent payment of the fine by his family ; this seems to be the only 

 usual form of emancipation. 



The inter-marriage of free people and slaves is not customary. If, as it has been 

 stated, the practice is permitted it is exceptional, and is confined to the poorest ele- 

 ments of the community. I am not at all satisfied with the evidence I have heard 

 on this point. If the practice exists the act of marriage might be presumed to free 



