[152] Lhota women wishing for an easy delivery in childbirth catch the little sand lizard called shamdram, probably belonging to the skink family, having a very smooth and glossy surface to its scales, and of active habits, and rub it round their navel and abdomen, saying, “Let my child be slippery like you, and come without difficulty.” Then they let it go again.—J. H. H. The Hopi Indians of Arizona use a weasel skin for the same purpose (cf. Man, July 1921, p. 99). [153] Angamis and Semas bury the afterbirth. The Khasis hang it up in trees.—J. H. H. [154] A similar taboo exists among the Garos; cf. Major A. Playfair, The Garos, p. 23. [155] The Semas and Angamis still do, I think, but they do not abandon the house.—J. H. H. [156] The same custom obtains among the Kacharis and other tribes of the Assam valley.—J. H. H. [157] Among the Aos and Konyaks, on the other hand, the usual practice is for a youth to choose as his wife one of the girls whose favours he has been in the habit of enjoying. [158] A somewhat different account of a Lhota wedding is given on p. 74 of Part I. of the Assam Census Report, 1911. In spite of careful inquiries I have been unable to find any Lhota who has ever heard of the marriage song and mock fight there described. [159] In the case of the Rengmas a younger brother who has a fancy for his elder brother’s wife by no means necessarily waits for his brother’s absence, nor does the elder brother necessarily object to his younger brother’s having intercourse with his (the elder’s) wife. I have known the elder brother acquiesce in this even when the younger was married to a wife of his own. This last it was who objected.—J. H. H. [160] Some of the Konyaks use coffins of this type, and the Kalyo-Kengyu also seem to use a dug-out receptacle for the bodies of the dead while they are kept in the house during the desiccation process.—J. H. H. [161] One or two villages situated near the lower reaches of the Doyang where it emerges into the plains make dug-out canoes hewn from a single log. These are admittedly copies of those made by the Assamese, with whom these villages have been in long and close contact. [162] So the Assamese of the plains believe that if a false report of a man’s death is circulated he will live long. The Semas on the other hand believe that it will cause his death untimely.—J. H. H. [163] The Northern Lhotas build a miniature roof over the grave. [164] The Kalyo-Kengyu make periodic offerings by the path until the sowing following the death, when the body is broken up. A mat is spread and every sort of grain poured out, and some of all the fruits and vegetables available, together with wooden daos, spears and cross-bows, are put out for the dead, whole baskets of valuable grain being emptied by the roadside for this purpose.—J. H. H.