Kuki (Indic people); Lushai (Asian people); Lushai language
(i.) Inpuichhung (Inpui = big house, chhung = within), Lalchhung,
or Chhungte--viz. those who live in the big house or chief's
house. (ii.) chemshen boi (chem = dao, shen = red); (iii.) tuklut
boi (tuk = promise, lut = to enter). The first class consist of all
those who have been driven by want of food to take refuge in the
chief's house. Widows, orphans, and others who are unable to support
themselves, and have no relatives willing to do so, form the bulk of
this class of "boi," but it is not unusual, if a young widow remarries,
for her second husband to insist on his predecessor's children being
put into the chief's house, unless any of their father's relatives
will take them. The inpuichhung are looked on as part of the chief's
household, and do all the chief's work in return for their food and
shelter. The young men cut and cultivate the chief's jhum and attend
to his fish traps. The women and girls fetch up wood and water,
clean the daily supply of rice, make cloths, and weed the jhum, and
look after the chief's children. In return the boi get good food and
live in the chief's house, and often wear his ornaments and use his
guns and weapons. They have to do very little more work than they
would have to do if they were independent, and, on the other hand,
they are free of all anxiety as to the morrow.
As all the chiefs are of the same family, a boi is at liberty to move
from one chief's house to another. If a chief or his wife treats a
boi very badly, the injured one goes off and seeks for a new master,
and, as a large number of boi is considered to increase a chief's
importance, every chief is willing to receive him, and therefore
boi are generally well treated. In former days powerful chiefs like
Sukpuilala and Vutaia only allowed their boi to go to one of their
own relations, but even then a boi very often would manage to find
an asylum with some equally powerful chief.
When a person has once entered the chief's house, he or she can only
purchase freedom by paying one mithan or its equivalent in cash or
goods. The fact that a boi can ever do this shows that he is allowed
to acquire property. When a male boi reaches a marriageable age, the
chief generally buys him a wife, and he lives with her for three years
in the chief's house: should he marry a female boi, the couple have
to live six years in the chief's house. After this period, he sets
up a house of his own and is known as "inhrang (in = house, hrang =
separate) boi," and works for himself, but is still in some respects
a boi. If he kills any animal he has to give a hind leg to the chief,
and failure to do so renders him liable to a fine of one mithan or
its equivalent. If the chief is in want of rice he can call on his
boi to help him if they have any surplus, and if a boi is in want he
can look to the chief for assistance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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