Under the house are the pigsties, phàk-roi, and in front is a yard or compound (tikup), usually fenced round.
The furniture of the house is of the simplest description. The floor, or a raised platform of bamboo, serves as a bed. A block of wood (inghoi; Ass. pīrā) is used as a stool to sit on. Baskets of bamboo and cane are employed as cupboards in which to store the household goods, the paddy, and the clothes. These baskets are of various shapes and sizes, and bear many different names. Joints of bamboo (Ass. chungā; Mikir, làng-bòng) are used for holding water, and also as boxes to contain valuables of all kinds.
The Mikirs have few manufactures. Weaving is done by the women of the family on rude wooden looms (pè-theràng), the cotton raised in their fields being previously spun on a wheel (mī-thòngràng). They also raise ēṛī silk (inkī), the cocoon of the Attacus ricini, fed on the castor-oil plant, and weave it into coarse fabrics, chiefly the bor-kāpor, or blanket, used in the cold weather. They dye their thread with indigo (sibū), a small patch of which is grown near every house. The indigo is not derived from Indigofera, but from a species of Strobilanthes, generally identified as S. flaccidifolius. Mr. Stack notes that there are two kinds, bū-thī and bū-jīr; the latter, he says, is trained up poles, and has a longer leaf. The leaves of the plant are bruised in a wooden mortar and mixed with water, and the blue colour develops, as in ordinary indigo, in a few days’ time by chemical change. Besides indigo, they use a red dye, the source of which is probably the same as the Khasi red dye (see Khasi Monograph, p. 60).
Blacksmiths (hēmai) have existed among them from remote times, and they can fashion their own dāos and various kinds of knives. They also make needles (for which old umbrella-ribs are in much request), and hooks for fishing.
They also make their own gold and silver ornaments (necklaces, bracelets, rings, ear-ornaments).
Pottery is made without the wheel, as among the Khasis (Monograph, p. 61). It is thick and durable, and well burnt. There are few potters among them, and the accomplishment is not common.
In all these branches of manufacture the tendency, with the increase of intercourse and the cessation of isolation, is to give up domestic workmanship and rely more upon outside markets.
MIKIR HOUSE: FAMILY GROUP.
(Jaintia Hills).