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[390] Not to be confused with the Khas, as the wild tribes of the Lao country (Siam) are collectively called. Capt. Eden Vansittart thinks in Nepal the term is an abbreviation of Kshatriya, or else means "fallen." This authority tells us that, although the Khas are true Gurkhas, it is not the Khas who enlist in our Gurkha regiments, but chiefly the Magars and Gurungs, who are of purer Bhotiya race and less completely Hinduized ("The Tribes, Clans, and Castes of Nepal," in Journ. As. Soc. Bengal; LXIII. I, No. 4).

[391] Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, p. 350 sq.

[392] "Voila, je crois, le vrai Tibetain des pays cultives du sud, qui se regarde comme bien plus civilise que les pasteurs ou bergers du nord" (Le Thibet, p. 253).

[393] Notes on the Ethnology, etc., p. 677. It may here be remarked that the unfriendliness of which travellers often complain appears mainly inspired by the Buddhist theocracy, who rule the land and are jealous of all "interlopers."

[394] Ibid. p. 678.

[395] With it may be compared the Chinese province of Kan-su, so named from its two chief towns Kan-chau and Su-chau (Yule's Marco Polo, I. p. 222).

[396] "Buddhist Turks," says Sir H. H. Howorth (Geogr. Journ. 1887, p. 230).

[397] E. Delmar Morgan, Geogr. Journ. 1887, p. 226.

[398] "Whatever may have been the origin of polyandry, there can be no doubt that poverty, a desire to keep down population, and to keep property undivided in families, supply sufficient reason to justify its continuance. The same motives explain its existence among the lower castes of Malabar, among the Jat (Sikhs) of the Panjab, among the Todas, and probably in most other countries in which this custom prevails" (Rockhill, p. 726).

[399] T. Rice Holmes, Ancient Britain, 1907, pp. 110 and 465-6.

[400] At least no reference is made to the Bonbo practice in his almost exhaustive monograph on The Swastika, Washington, 1896. The reversed form, however, mentioned by Max Mueller and Burnouf, is figured at p. 767 and elsewhere.

[401] Sarat Chandra Das, Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, 1881-2.

[402] This point, so important in the history of linguistic evolution, has I think been fairly established by T. de Lacouperie in a series of papers in the Oriental and Babylonian Record, 1888-90. See G. A. Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India, III. Tibeto-Burman Family, 1906, by Sten Konow.

[403] Ladak, London, 1854.

[404] G. B. Mainwaring, A Grammar of the Rong (Lepcha) Language, etc., Calcutta, 1876, pp. 128-9.

[405] Outline Grammar of the Angami-Naga Language, Calcutta, 1887, pp. 4, 5. For an indication of the astonishing number of distinct languages in the whole of this region see Gertrude M. Godden's paper "On the Naga and other Frontier Tribes of North-East India," in Journ. Anthr. Inst.1897, p. 165. Under the heading Tibeto-Burman Languages Sten Konow recognises Tibetan, Himalayan, North Assam, Bodo, Naga, Kuki-Chin, Meitei and Kachin. The Naga group comprises dialects of very different kinds; some approach Tibetan and the North Assam group, others lead over to the Bodo, others connect with Tibeto-Burman. Meitei lies midway between Kuki-Chin and Kachin, and these merge finally in Burmese. Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. III. 1903-6.

[406] Almost hopeless confusion continues to prevail in the tribal nomenclature of these multitudinous hill peoples. The official sanction given to the terms Kuki and Lushai as collective names may be regretted, but seems now past remedy. Kuki is unknown to the people themselves, while Lushai is only the name of a single group proud of their head-hunting proclivities, hence they call themselves, or perhaps are called Lu-Shai, "Head-Cutters," from lu head, sha to cut (G. H. Damant). Other explanations suggested by C. A. Soppitt (Kuki-Lushai Tribes, with an Outline Grammar of the Rangkhol-Lushai Language, Shillong, 1887) cannot be accepted.

[407] Op. cit.

[408] See G. A. Grierson and Sten Konow in Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. III. Part II. Bodo, N[=a]g[=a] and Kachin, 1903, Part III. Kuki-Chin and Burma, 1904.

[409] The N[=a]ga Tribes of Manipur, 1911, p. 2. Cf. J. Shakespear, "The Kuki-Lushai Clans," Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst. XXXIX. 1909.

[410] Op. cit. p. 5.

[411] Op. cit. p. 122. A custom of human sacrifice among the Naga is described in the Journal of the Burma Research Society, 1911, "Human Sacrifices near the Upper Chindwin."

[412] It is a curious phonetic phenomenon that the combinations kl and tl are indistinguishable in utterance, so that it is immaterial whether this term be written Kling or Tling, though the latter form would be preferable, as showing its origin from Telinga.

[413] "The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur," Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1887, p. 350.

[414] R. Brown, Statistical Account of Manipur, 1874.

[415] T. C. Hodson, The Meitheis, 1908, p. 96.

[416] T. C. Hodson, The Meitheis, 1908, pp. 96-7.

[417] G. Watt, loc. cit. p. 362.

[418] The Chin Hills, etc., Vol. I., Rangoon, 1896.

[419] Op. cit. p. 165.

[420] R. C. Temple, Art. "Burma," Hastings, Ency. Religion and Ethics, 1910.

[421] Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 9.

[422] Prince Henri d'Orleans writes "que les Singphos et les Katchins [Kakhyens] ne font qu'un, que le premier mot est thai et le second birman." Du Tonkin aux Indes, 1898, p. 311. This is how the ethnical confusion in these borderlands gets perpetuated. Singpho is not Thai, i.e. Shan or Siamese, but a native word as here explained.

[423] John Anderson, Mandalay to Momein, 1876, p. 131.

[424] Three skulls discovered by M. Mansuy in a cave at Pho-Binh-Gia (Indo-China) associated with Neolithic culture were markedly dolichocephalic, resembling in some respects the Cro-Magnon race of the Reindeer period. Cf. R. Verneau, L'Anthropologie, XX. 1909.

[425] The Loyal Karens of Burma, 1887.

[426] R. C. Temple, Academy, Jan. 29, 1887, p. 72.

[427] Forbes, Languages of Further India, p. 61.

[428] Ibid. p. 55.

[429] G. W. Bird, Wanderings in Burma, 1897, p. 335.

[430] The Burmese is the most mixed race in the province. "Originally Dravidians of some sort, they seem to have received blood from various sources--Hindu, Musalm[=a]n, Chinese, Sh[=a]n, Talaing, European and others." W. Crooke, "The Stability of Caste and Tribal Groups in India," Journ. Roy. Anthr. Soc. XLIV. 1914, p. 279, quoting the Ethnographic Survey of India, 1906.

[431] J. G. Scott, Burma, etc., 1886, p. 115.

[432] Op. cit. p. 118.

[433] "The Taungbyon Festival, Burma," Journ. Roy. Anthr. Soc. XLV. 1915, p. 355.

[434] Amongst the Shans, etc., 1885, p. 233.

[435] Cf. the Shans of Yunnan, who are nearly all "tatoues, depuis la ceinture jusqu'au genou, de dessins bleus si serres qu'ils paraissent former une vraie culotte," Pr. Henri d'Orleans, Du Tonkin aux Indes, 1898, p. 83.

[436] For recent literature on Burma and the Burmese consult besides the Ethnographic Survey of India, 1906, and the Census Report of 1911, J. G. Scott, The Burman, 1896, and Burma, 1906; A. Ireland, The Province of Burma, 1907; H. Fielding Hall, The Soul of a People, 1898, and A People at School, 1906.

[437] Probably for Shan-ts[)e], Shan-yen, "highlanders" (Shan, mountain), Shan itself being the same word as Siam, a form which comes to us through the Portuguese Siao.

[438] For the Laos see L. de Reinach, Le Laos, 1902, with bibliography.

[439] Carl Bock, MS. note. This observer notes that many of the Ngiou have been largely assimilated in type to the Burmese and in one place goes so far as to assert that "the Ngiou are decidedly of the same race as the Burmese. I have had opportunities of seeing hundreds of both countries, and of closely watching their features and build. The Ngiou wear the hair in a topknot in the same way as the Burmese, but they are easily distinguished by their tattooing, which is much more elaborate" (Temples and Elephants, 1884, p. 297). Of course all spring from one primeval stock, but they now constitute distinct ethnical groups, and, except about the borderlands, where blends may be suspected, both the physical and mental characters differ considerably. Bock's Ngiou is no doubt the same name as Ngnio, which H. S. Hallett applies in one place to the Mosse Shans north of Zimme, and elsewhere to the Burmese Shans collectively (A Thousand Miles on an Elephant, 1890, pp. 158 and 358).

[440] "Les Pai ne sont autres que des Laotiens" (Prince Henri, p. 42).

[441] One Shan group, the Deodhaings, still persist, and occupy a few villages near Sibsagar (S. E. Peal, Nature, June 19, 1884, p. 169). Dalton also mentions the Kamjangs, a Khamti (Tai) tribe in the Sadiya district, Assam (Ethnology of Bengal, p. 6).

[442] Much unexpected light has been thrown upon the early history of these Ahoms by E. Gait, who has discovered and described in the Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, 1894, a large number of puthis, or MSS. (28 in the Sibsagar district alone), in the now almost extinct Ahom language, some of which give a continuous history of the Ahom rajas from 568 to 1795 A.D. Most of the others appear to be treatises on religious mysticism or divination, such as "a book on the calculation of future events by examining the leg of a fowl" (ib.).

[443] Op. cit. p. 309.

[444] A. R. Colquhoun, Amongst the Shans, 1885, Introduction, p. lv.

[445] Op. cit. p. 328.

[446] Temples and Elephants, p. 320.

[447] "Der Gesichtsausdruck ueberhaupt naehert sich der kaukasischen Race" (Im fernen Osten, p. 959).

[448] Low's Siamese Grammar, p. 14.

[449] R. G. Woodthorpe, "The Shans and Hill Tribes of the Mekong," in Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1897, p. 16.

[450] Op. cit. p. 55.

[451] This omission, however, is partly supplied by T. de Lacouperie, who gives us an account of a wonderful Lolo MS. on satin, red on one side, blue on the other, containing nearly 5750 words written in black, "apparently with the Chinese brush." The MS. was obtained by E. Colborne Baber from a Lolo chief, forwarded to Europe in 1881, and described by de Lacouperie, Journ. R. As. Soc. Vol. XIV. Part I. "The writing runs in lines from top to bottom and from left to right, as in Chinese" (p. 1), and this authority regards it as the link that was wanting to connect the various members of a widely diffused family radiating from India (Harapa seal, Indo-Pali, Vatteluttu) to Malaysia (Batta, Rejang, Lampong, Bugis, Makassar, Tagal), to Indo-China (Lao, Siamese, Lolo), Korea and Japan, and also including the Siao-chuen Chinese system "in use a few centuries B.C." (p. 5). It would be premature to say that all these connections are established.

[452] Op. cit. p. 193.

[453] Beginnings of Writing in Central and Eastern Asia, passim. For the Lolos see A. F. Legendre, "Les Lolos. Etude ethnologique et anthropologique," T'oung Pao II. Vol. X. 1909.

[454] "Quelques-uns de ces Kiou-tses me rappellent des Europeens que je connais." (Op. cit. p. 252).

[455] Deux Ans dans le Haut-Tonkin, etc., Paris, 1896.

[456] With regard to Man (Man-tse) it should be explained that in Chinese it means "untameable worms," that is, wild or barbarous, and we are warned by Desgodins that "il ne faut pas prendre ces mots comme des noms propres de tribus" (Bul. Soc. Geogr. XII. p. 410). In 1877 Capt. W. Gill visited a large nation of Man-tse with 18 tribal divisions, reaching from West Yunnan to the extreme north of Sechuen, a sort of federacy recognising a king, with Chinese habits and dress, but speaking a language resembling Sanskrit (?). These were the Sumu, or "White Man-tse," apparently the same as those visited in 1896 by Mrs Bishop, and by her described as semi-independent, ruled by their own chiefs, and in appearance "quite Caucasian, both men and women being very handsome," strict Buddhists, friendly and hospitable, and living in large stone houses (Letter to Times, Aug. 18, 1896).

[457] "Des paysannes nongs dont les cheveux etaient blonds, quelquefois meme roux." Op. cit.

[458] L'Anthropologie, 1896, p. 602 sq.

[459]