Kuki (Indic people); Lushai (Asian people); Lushai language
The hair is worn, by both sexes, in a knot over the nape of the neck,
and carefully parted in the middle. The young folk of about the
marrying age devote much care to their hair, dressing it daily with
much pigs' fat. Later in life they grow careless, and widows allow
their hair to hang as it chooses. Children's hair is left to grow as
it likes till it is long enough to tie up. Curly hair or hair with
a pronounced wave in it is uncommon, and is much objected to.
The women are prolific, five to seven children being about the average,
but the mortality among the children is so great that few parents
can boast of more than two or three grown up children.
Both men and women are good walkers and hill-climbers, which is only
natural, but for a race which lives exclusively on the hilltops the
number of good swimmers is very large. Most men are not afraid of the
water, and manage rafts very skilfully, making long journeys on them
in the rains.
Abortion is not infrequently resorted to when a widow who is living
in her late husband's house, and therefore, as described later,
expected to remain chaste, finds herself enceinte. Suicide is also
rather common, poison being the usual means chosen. The cause is
generally some painful and incurable disease, but very old persons
with no one to support them sometimes prefer the unknown future to
the miserable present.
[3. History.] The existing Lushei Chiefs all claim descent from
a certain Thang-ura, who is sometimes said to have sprung from the
union of a Burman with a Paihte woman, but, according to the Paihtes,
the Lusheis are descended from Boklua, an illegitimate son of the
Paihte Chief Ngehguka. The Thados say that some hunters tracking a
serao noticed the foot-marks of a child following those of the animal,
and on surrounding the doe serao they found it suckling a child, who
became the great Chief Thang-ura, or, as they call him, "Thangul." From
Thang-ura the pedigree of all the living chiefs is fairly accurately
established. The Lusheis, in common with the Thados and other Kuki
tribes, attach great importance to their genealogies; and pedigrees,
given at an interval of many years, and by persons living far apart,
have been found to agree in a wonderful manner. From comparison of
these genealogies and from careful enquiries lasting over many years,
I estimate that Thang-ura must have lived early in the eighteenth
century. His first village is said to have been at Tlangkua, north
of Falam. It is probable that he personally ruled over only a small
area. From him sprang six lines of Thang-ur chiefs:--(1) Rokum, (2)
Zadeng, (3) Thangluah, (4) Pallian, (5) Rivung, and (6) Sailo. To
the north the country was occupied by the Sukte, Paihte, and Thado
clans. These appear to have been firmly established under regular
chiefs; but to the west the hills appear to have been inhabited by
small communities formed largely of blood relations and probably
each at feud with its neighbours.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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