The Khasis | Page 5

of Logan was carried further by Prof. Ernst Kuhn, of Munich, who in 1888 and 1889 published important contributions to our knowledge of the languages and peoples of Further India. More recently our acquaintance with the phonology of Khasi and its relatives has been still further advanced by the labours of Pater W. Schmidt, of Vienna, whose latest work, Die Mon-Khmer V?lker, ein Bindeglied zwischen V?lkern Zentralasiens und Austronesiens (Braunschweig, 1906), has established the relationship of Khasi not only to the Mon-Khmer languages, but also to Nicobarese and several dialects spoken by wild tribes in the Malay Peninsula.
There still remains much to be done before the speech of the Khasi nation can be considered to have been thoroughly investigated. In the Linguistic Survey four dialects are dealt with, the standard literary form, founded on the language of Cherrapunji, the Pnar or Synteng, of Jowai, the War, spoken in the valleys on the southern face of the hills, and the Lyngngam, spoken in the tract adjacent to the Garos on the west. Major Gurdon (p. 203) mentions a fifth, that of Jirang or Mynnar, spoken in the extreme north, and there may be others. A great desideratum for linguistic purposes is a more adequate method of recording sounds, and especially differences of tone, than that adopted for the standard speech, which though sufficient for practical purposes, does not accurately represent either the quantity or the quality of the vowels, and leaves something to be desired as regards the consonants (especially those only faintly sounded or suppressed). These things, no doubt, will come in time. The immense advance which has been made in education by the Khasis during the last half-century has enabled some among them to appreciate the interesting field for exploration and study which their own country and people afford; and there is reason to hope that with European guidance the work of record will progress by the agency of indigenous students.
It remains to summarize briefly the principal distinctive features of this vigorous and sturdy race, who have preserved their independence and their ancestral institutions through many centuries in the face of the attractions offered by the alien forms of culture around them.
In the first place, their social organization presents one of the most perfect examples still surviving of matriarchal institutions, carried out with a logic and thoroughness which, to those accustomed to regard the status and authority of the father as the foundation of society, are exceedingly remarkable. Not only is the mother the head and source, and only bond of union, of the family: in the most primitive part of the hills, the Synteng country, she is the only owner of real property, and through her alone is inheritance transmitted. The father has no kinship with his children, who belong to their mother's clan; what he earns goes to his own matriarchal stock, and at his death his bones are deposited in the cromlech of his mother's kin. In Jowai he neither lives nor eats in his wife's house, but visits it only after dark (p. 76). In the veneration of ancestors, which is the foundation of the tribal piety, the primal ancestress (Ka Iawbei) and her brother are the only persons regarded. The flat memorial stones set up to perpetuate the memory of the dead are called after the woman who represents the clan (maw kynthei p. 150), and the standing stones ranged behind them are dedicated to the male kinsmen on the mother's side.
In harmony with this scheme of ancestor worship, the other spirits to whom propitiation is offered are mainly female, though here male personages also figure (pp. 106-109). The powers of sickness and death are all female, and these are those most frequently worshipped (p. 107). The two protectors of the household are goddesses (p. 112), though with them is also revered the first father of the clan, U Thawlang.
Priestesses assist at all sacrifices, and the male officiants are only their deputies (p. 121); in one important state, Khyrim, the High Priestess and actual head of the State is a woman, who combines in her person sacerdotal and regal functions (p. 70).
The Khasi language, so far as known, is the only member of the Mon-Khmer family which possesses a grammatical gender, distinguishing all nouns as masculine and feminine; and here also the feminine nouns immensely preponderate (p. 206). The pronouns of the second (me, pha) and third person (u, ka) have separate forms for the sexes in the singular, but in the plural only one is used (phi, ki), and this is the plural form of the feminine singular.
It may perhaps be ascribed to the pre-eminence accorded by the Khasis to the female sex that successive censuses have shown that the women of this race considerably exceed the men in number. According to the