[1] There are certain particles, jō, jàm, hur, hòr, and krei, used to indicate plurality when this is necessary; but they are inserted between the root and the tense-suffix, which is invariable. [↑]
[2] Pe- and pi- are used with monosyllables, pā- with most polysyllables; pā + ing = pàng. [↑]
[3] See “Khasi Monograph,” p. 211. [↑]
VII.
AFFINITIES.
The place of the Mikirs in the Tibeto-Burman family.
Some idea of the mental equipment of the Arlengs will have been gathered from the two preceding sections. It has been seen that, within the limited circle of their experience, they possess a medium of expression which may be described as adequate to their needs, well knit together in its mechanism, and copious in concrete terms, though, like all such languages, wanting in the abstract and general. Their folk-tales are lively and effective as narratives, and the themes, though probably borrowed from the great treasury of popular story elaborated in Peninsular India, have been appropriated and assimilated to the social conditions of the Mikirs themselves. Little has hitherto been done to enlarge the resources of the language in the direction of higher culture, or to use it for the expression of ideas lying beyond the scope of the tribal life; but there appears to be no reason to doubt that the language of the Mikirs will be found in the course of time to be as capable of development for this purpose as the speech of their neighbours the Khasis.[1]
The leading feature of the race, in contrast with other hill tribes of Assam, is its essentially unwarlike and pacific character. Its neighbours—Khasis, Kachāris, Kukis, Nagas—have for centuries been engaged in continuous internecine strife, and their tribal individualities have been preserved, and differences accentuated, by the state of hostility in which each unit, however small, lived with all adjacent peoples. The Mikirs have always, at least during the last two centuries, been, as Major Stewart described them in 1855, “good subjects.” Numbering some ninety thousand souls, they are extremely homogeneous, while other tribes in their neighbourhood differ in an extraordinary manner from village to village, and constantly tend to split up into smaller aggregates, looking on all outsiders as enemies. No such disintegrating influence has affected the Arlengs. Whether in North Cachar, the Jaintia Hills, Nowgong, or the Mikir Hills, their tribal institutions, their language, and their national character are identical, and they pursue their peaceful husbandry in the same manner as their forefathers, raising in ordinary years sufficient food for their subsistence, and a considerable amount of cotton and lac for export to the plains. In these circumstances, surrounded by warring tribes, and still nomadic in their habits of cultivation, they have from time to time found it necessary to place themselves under the protection of stronger peoples. It has been mentioned in [Section I]. that the traditions of the race show that they were formerly subject to the Khasi chiefs of Jaintia and the eastern states of the Khasi Hills, and that they migrated thence to the territory subject to the Ahom kings.[2] During their sojourn in Khasi-land they assimilated much; dress (p. 5), ornaments (p. 6), personal names (p. 17), methods of divination (pp. 34, 35), funeral ceremonies (pp. 38–42), memorial stones (p. 42), all come from the Khasis, who have also contributed many words to their common speech. Borrowings from Hinduism are equally manifest in their language, their folk-tales, and their religion. Assamese words are numerous in Mikir; Ārnàm Kethē (p. 30) seems to be a translation of Mahādēva; Jòm-āròng (p. 28), and the ideas linked therewith of an after-life, are strongly impressed with a Hindu stamp.