II.
DOMESTIC LIFE.
Occupations—Houses—Furniture—Implements and utensils—Manufactures—Agriculture—Rīsō mār, or lads’ clubs—Crops—Hunting—Fishing—Food and Drink.
The Mikir people have always been agriculturists. Their villages, in the hills which are their proper habitat, are set up in clearings in the forest, and are shifted from place to place when the soil has been exhausted by cropping. Their houses are large and substantial, and are strongly put together. The Mikirs are not now (if they ever were[1]), as Colonel Dalton relates in his Ethnology of Bengal, in the habit of lodging several families, or even the whole village, in one house. The inhabitants of a house are all of one family, but may often be numerous, as married sons frequently live with their parents.
The Mikir house is built on posts, and the floor is raised several feet above the ground. The material of the super-structure is bamboo, slit and flattened out, and the whole is thatched with san-grass. A moderate elevation, with a flat top, is preferred for building; a slope will be taken if no better site can be found.
Plan of Mikir House.
The house is divided lengthwise by a partition called ārpòng, or nòksèk-ārpòng, into kàm, the guests’ or servants’ chamber, and kut, the living-room of the family. Kàm is on the right side as you enter, and the only door into the house leads into it. In kàm a platform or chang, called tibung, raised above the floor the diameter of a bamboo, runs along the outside wall; this may be divided off laterally into rooms for sleeping. In kut, separated off by a partition on the side of the outer wall, is a long, narrow chamber, one bamboo’s diameter lower than the floor, called vō-roi, in which the fowls and goats are kept at night; it has a separate door, called vō-roi-āmehàn. In kut, towards the back, is the fireplace (mēhīp). The space before it is dàm-thàk, where the family sleep, and the bamboo paddy-receptacle stands. Behind the fireplace is dàm-buk, a vacant space, where the grown-up daughter or old woman sleeps. Between the fire and the vō-roi is the rice-pot (sàng-ràngtik), holding the stock of husked rice. Between the fire and the partition (ārpòng) is the kut-āthèngthòr, a space for miscellaneous articles. Above the vō-roi a shelf is raised under the roof, called vō-hārlīp, for pots, etc. Opposite the fireplace is a door leading into kàm.
In kàm, if the house is large, there are two fireplaces. Before the fire the space is called kàm-āthèngthòt, or nòksèk. In the corner of the front wall and the partition (ārpòng) are put the water-chungas (làng-bòng); it is called làng-tēnun. The front door is called hòngthū, the back door pàn, or pàn-hòngthū.
The front veranda is called hòng-kup. The tibung runs out into it, and the part beyond the front wall of the house is called thèng-roi-rai, “the place for bringing (or storing) firewood” (thèng). Beyond the hòng-kup the platform extends unroofed (hòng-plàng). If the house be a large one, a hòng-phārlā, roofed over, for strangers to lodge in, is made on the right side of the hòng-plàng, but disconnected with the thèng-roi-rai; between it and the latter is the ladder to gain access to the platform (dòndòn), usually a tree-trunk with notches cut in it for the feet. The hòng-phārlā may extend also across the front of the house; it is roofed over, but open towards the house. Similarly, at the back of the house is the pàng-hòngkup, or back veranda, and the unroofed pàng beyond. No ladder gives access to this.