372 MEMOIR OF A SURVEY OF 



villages, and when the feast was ready, we had a very numerous assembly. 

 A large quantity of the meat was minced and mixed with flour of the 

 Mama, then made up into cylinders of leaves into which it was press- 

 ed and cooked : these were handed about in trays of plaited bamboos, 

 with plenty of madk, or fermented liquor, prepared also from the Marua; 

 but they presented me with an entire hind leg, to cook after my own 

 fashion, and to the better Khamtis of my party, they also presented 

 separate portions. The Liiri Gohain alone forbore to eat of it, think- 

 ing that it too nearly resembled beef, which not from the maxims of his 

 own religion, but from a wish to cultivate the good opinion of Hindus, 

 he had long discontinued to taste of. I was constantly thronged, and 

 made to exhibit my curiosities, as my gun, pistols and musical snuffbox, 

 which last was kept in constant requisition. 



The lower classes of the Mishmis are as rude looking as can well be 

 imagined. Their ordinary clothing consists of a single strip of cloth, 

 which is as narrow as its purpose possibly permits, and they wear, on occa- 

 sions of ceremony, the jacket which I have already described as fashioned 

 with so little art — -it comes half-way down the thigh, and is made of a 

 straight piece of blue and red striped cloth, doubled in the middle, the two 

 sides sewn together like a sack, leaving space for the exit of the arms at 

 the top, and a slit in the middle, formed in the weaving, admits in like 

 manner the passage of the head. The hair is turned up and tied in a 

 small knot on the crown, and this custom serves to distinguish them from 

 the Dibong Mishmis; whom they always designate " crop haired" — a nar- 

 row belt of skin over the right shoulder sustains a large heavy knife with 

 its sheath. The knife serves for all purposes of agriculture and domestic 

 economy, it is applied in the same way with the Singfo Da, to open a 

 passage through jangle; the other apparatus appertaining to dress, con- 

 sists of a broader belt, worn across the left shoulder, carrying both before 

 and behind plates of brass, which may be termed back and breast-plates — 



