Man, Past and Present

by A. H. Keane

The Khel System.

It is noteworthy that the Manipuri are also devoted to the game of polo, which R. C. Temple tells us they play much in the same way as do the Balti and Ladakhi at the opposite extremity of the Himalayas. Another remarkable link with the "Far West" is the term Khel, which has travelled all the way from Persia or Parthia through Afghanistan to Nagaland, where it retains the same meaning of clan or section of a village, and produces the same disintegrating effects as amongst the Afghans. In Angamiland each village is split into two or more Khels, and "it is no unusual state of affairs to find Khel A of one village at war with Khel B of another, while not at war with Khel B of its own village. The Khels are often completely separated by great walls, the people on either side living within a few yards of each other, yet having no dealings whatever. Each Khel has its own headman, but little respect is paid to the chief: each Khel maybe described as a small republic[417]." There appears to be no trace even of a jirga, or council of elders, by which some measure of cohesion is imparted to the Afghan Khel system.

The Chins.

From the Kuki-Nagas the transition is unbroken to the large group of Chins of the Chindwin valley, named from them, and thence northwards to the rude Kakhyens (Kachins) about the Irawadi headstreams and southwards to the numerous Karen tribes, who occupy the ethnical parting-line between Burma and Siam all the way down to Tenasserim.

For the first detailed account of the Chins we are indebted to S. Carey and H. N. Tuck[418], who accept B. Houghton's theory that these tribes, as well as the Kuki-Lushai, "originally lived in what we now know as Tibet, and are of one and the same stock; their form of government, method of cultivation, manners and customs, beliefs and traditions, all point to one origin." The term Chin, said to be a Burmese form of the Chinese jin, "men," is unknown to these aborigines, who call themselves Yo in the north and Lai in the south, while in Lower Burma they are Shu.

Confused Tribal Nomenclature.

In truth there is no recognised collective name, and Shendu (Sindhu) often so applied is proper only to the once formidable Chittagong and Arakan frontier tribes, Klangklangs and Hakas, who with the Sokté, Tashons, Siyirs, and others are now reduced and administered from Falam. Each little group has its own tribal name, and often one or two others, descriptive, abusive and so on, given them by their neighbours. Thus the Nwengals (Nun, river, ngal, across) are only that section of the Soktés now settled on the farther or right bank of the Manipur, while the Soktés themselves (Sok, to go down, té, men) are so called because they migrated from Chin Nwe (9 miles from Tiddim), cradle of the Chin race, down to Molbem, their earliest settlement, which is the Mobingyi of the Burmese. So with Siyin, the Burmese form of Sheyanté (she, alkali, yan, side, té, men), the group who settled by the alkali springs east of Chin Nwe, who are the Tauté ("stout" or "sturdy" people) of the Lushai and southern Chins. Let these few specimens suffice as a slight object-lesson in the involved tribal nomenclature which prevails, not only amongst the Chins, but everywhere in the Tibeto-Indo-Chinese domain, from the north-western Himalayas to Cape St James at the south-eastern extremity of Farther India. I have myself collected nearly a thousand such names of clans, septs, and fragmentary groups within this domain, and am well aware that the list neither is, nor ever can be, complete, the groups themselves often being unstable quantities in a constant state of fluctuation.

Creation Legends.

Most of the Chin groups have popular legends to explain either their origin or their present reduced state. Thus the Tawyans, a branch of the Tashons, claim to be Torrs, that is, the people of the Rawvan district, who were formerly very powerful, but were ruined by their insane efforts to capture the sun. Building a sort of Jacob's ladder, they mounted higher and higher; but growing tired, quarrelled among themselves, and one day, while half of them were clambering up the pole, the other half below cut it down just as they were about to seize the sun. So the Whenohs, another Tashon group, said to be Lushais left behind in a district now forming part of Chinland, tell a different tale. They say they came out of the rocks at Sepi, which they think was their original home. They share, however, this legend of their underground origin with the Soktés and several other Chin tribes.

Mental and Physical Qualities.