[1. Internal structure.] The population of a village ruled by a Thangur chief at the present time is composed of representatives of many tribes and clans, which have all more or less adopted the language and customs of their rulers. I have already described the rise of the Thangurs and the process by which they either ejected or absorbed into their communities the other inhabitants of the country. Our arrival in the country put a stop in certain cases to this process of absorption. For instance, many chiefs held considerable numbers of Paihte or Vuite and Khawtlang in a species of semi-slavery. These were captives or descendants of captives made in war, and nearly all have availed themselves of the Pax Britannica to return to their own people. Again, we found certain villages ruled over by non-Lushei chiefs, who were living under the protection of powerful Lushei chiefs. In the process of pacification these non-Lushei chiefs regained their independence and have gathered round them many of their clansmen, who formerly were scattered among the Lushei villages, and who, if we may judge by what has undoubtedly happened in other cases, would in a short time have become completely absorbed. Inquiries lasting over many years have convinced me that these clans are little more than enlarged families. In most cases the dialects of the minor clans have been entirely forgotten, and the only differences remaining are the manner of performing the "sakhua" or domestic sacrifice, the position occupied by the corpse at the funeral feast, and such other minor points. A stranger might live for a long time in a Lushai village without knowing that such divisions existed. Every clan is further subdivided into families and branches. Thus the Lushei clan has several families. One of these is the Thangur, and the Thangur family has six branches--Rokum, Zadeng, Rivung, Thangluah, Pallian, and Sailo--but none of these branches has any further sub-division, though the descendants of certain powerful chiefs are sometimes collectively spoken of by their ancestor's name, showing how these clan, family, and branch names have arisen. During the census of 1901 an unsuccessful attempt was made to get a complete list of the clan families and branches. The causes of the failure were the ignorance of the people themselves as to what clan or family they belonged to and the tendency to claim to be true Lushais. Everyone knew the name of the branch to which he belonged, and as a rule the family name would be correctly given, but in many cases the clan name was altogether omitted, or Lushei was entered against families which had no real claim to that distinction. An old Lushai once asked me why I was troubling myself about family and branch names, and on my explaining that I hoped to make a complete list of them he muttered, "Can you count the grains in that basket of rice?" and turned from me to the zu-pot.