The Khasis | Page 5

physical
characters they differ greatly from the Indo-Chinese Khasis, but the
points of resemblance in their languages and in some of their
institutions cannot be denied; and the exact nature of the relation
between them is as yet one of the unsolved problems of ethnology.
The work 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 Völker, ein Bindeglied
zwischen Völkern 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