260 
MESSRS. A. ROSE AND J. COGGIN BROWN ON 
about four inches above. Attached to the waist by a belt, and hanging over the 
long-tailed coat, is a long folded strip of blue cloth, pointed at each end and edged and 
tasselled with chocolate and cream shades, and which forms a triangular lappet. In 
front is a double apron of blue cloth, edged with cream hemp and a row of cowries at the 
bottom, which, in combination with the tail of the coat, has the appearance of a skirt and 
is held by a broad belt, bossed with rosettes of red cloth and cowries. The bodice is 
finished by a collar of dark red cloth and cowries hanging over the breast, where it is 
finished by great square plaques of silver. Big hooped earrings of silver are worn, and a 
number of bead necklaces of various shades of blue, red and yellow, thus completing 
a gay and striking costume. 
The houses are of plaited bamboo, thatched with grass and provided with a small 
verandah , which is usually enclosed. In the upper Salween 
Villages and Houses. 
they are raised on piles, with floors of bamboo poles, below 
which the animals are housed and from which a stair leads to the ground. In the 
mountains near Tengyueh and Kuyung Kai, however, they are built on the earth which 
is beaten to form a floor, and both houses and courtyards are kept neat and clean, a 
point in which our experience differs from other travellers. The poorer houses have 
only one room, but many are divided into three divisions, the stone hearth which is the 
social centre and round which men and women sit together smoking and drinking, being 
always at one end of the largest room, and having a big iron pot suspended above it. 
The pig-sties and byres are built apart from the house, and the Tisu has a fondness for 
an overhanging trellis above his rustic courtyard , generally covered with pumpkin vines, 
from which the golden fruit hang invitingly before the door. The villages are built 
in a nook in the mountains, often in small clearings in the forest, and are always hidden 
carefully from sight and approachable only by steep and difficult tracks. The houses 
have no windows or chimneys and the smoke escapes through the thatch and the open 
doorway, whilst the sunbeams dance through the latticed walls, which are doubtless 
penetrated with equal ease by the cold and driving mists. 
Unlike the Kachins the I y isu women are not obliged to abstain from certain foods 
during pregnancv, and they go about their household 
Birth and Naming Customs. ir o J s jo 
duties as long as they are able. When the birth is im- 
minent the husband calls to his ancestors by their spirit name, offering to them 
sacrifices of salt, poultry and wine whilst invoking their aid in the safe delivery of the 
child. The older women gather at the house and use a hempen string to tie the cord. 
The child is washed, whilst the birth is heralded to the ancestors by the atten- 
dant priest. 
On the third morning after birth the child receives its ‘ ‘ Buried ’ ’ or Spirit name, 
a name which may be used by the parents for a few times during childhood, but which 
is never spoken as the child grows up and will cause great offence or even bloodshed 
from the mouth of a stranger. As the child is being named by its parents the father 
announces the buried name to the ancestors, and it is then seldom used until death, 
when the priests use it to summon the departing spirit, speeding it to its ancestral 
home. 
