MINBU IN UPPER BURMA, 
IS? 
Liquor. 
The ordinary country fermented liquor of the district is obtained 
from the Toddy palm, Borassus flabel lifer, (Burm. H tan-bin ), 
which is so abundant about villages in the alluvial belt. The juice 
extracted is to a great extent employed to make ‘jaggery, 3 a 
brownish coloured somewhat toffy-flavoured sweetmeat. 
The Chins concoct a most potent nectar, called Khaung , for which 
there are two recipes, in neither of which the writer regrets he can 
give all the ingredients correctly identified. However they are set 
down here incomplete as they are, 
1ST RECIPE. 
(1) Leaf and fruit of Solanum verbascifolium. 
(2) Bark of Aporosa oblonga. 
(3) Leaf of an unknown climber. 
(4) Pounded rice-flowers. 
2ND RECIPE. 
(1) Fruit of Solanum indicum. 
(2) Bark of Thit-cho-bin , a sapotaceous tree not identified. 
(3) Pepper seed. 
(4) Ginger rhizome ground down. 
(5) Pounded rice flowers. 
The second recipe is the more commonly used. 
Plants with miscellaneous uses. 
Ahrus precatorius L. Burm. Ywe-gate. 
The seeds of this are occasionally used by goldsmiths as weights. 
Gardenia turgida Roxb. The fruit.— Burm, Thamin-sa*kpyu-thee 
— is pounded and used in water as a soap for cleansing clothes. 
Artemisia pallens Wall, is cultivated for its perfume. 
dErua javanica Juss. Burmi On-bwe % The flowers of this are used 
for stuffing pillows. 
Celosia cristata Linn. ^cultivated for its flowers, which are used by 
the women to adorn their hair. 
Gomphrena globosa L. cultivated like the last. 
Cinnamomum Tamala Nees. 
The Chin women undergo about the age of fourteen the ordeal 
of having the whole face closely tatooed black, which gives them a 
grotesquely hideous appearance. The legend runs that this curious 
practice originated in the desire to render the Chin women repulsive 
L 
