With the exception of the three branches just mentioned, the Thados have broken up very much, and are found in small hamlets scattered about the territory of totally different clans, without any reference to locality or ethnographical considerations.
All members of these families, however, admit the claims of the head chief to their allegiance, and in token thereof give him, or his nearest representative, a hind leg of every wild animal killed.
The Thados generally are very truculent; in Manipur they have settled themselves among the more peaceable Nagas, and until the British Government assumed control of the State they lived largely on the labour of these unfortunate people, whom they had virtually reduced to slaves. The Manipuris found it easier to acquiesce in this oppression by the Thados than to coerce them, and the Thados were used on many occasions to punish Naga tribes whom the Manipuris were unable to reduce to submission. The superior cunning of the Manipuris enabled them to maintain their influence over the Thados by skilfully playing off one family against another. On one occasion three of the most powerful chiefs were enticed inside the royal enclosure in Imphal and treacherously murdered. At present large numbers of Thados are moving eastward in unadministered country, carrying on the same bullying tactics, reducing the inhabitants, who as yet have no firearms, to the condition of slaves.
Among the Thados are found the remnants of many other clans, which have been practically absorbed, having adopted Thado customs and language. It is asserted that at the time of the Thimzing (v. [Part I., Chap. V, para. 1]) Lianthang and his brother Thlangom, and Lunkim and his brother Changsan, had such large supplies of skulls of animals killed by them that they were enabled to live through that trying time by using the trophies of their skill in the chase as fuel, and from them the present Lianthang, Thlangom, Lunkim, and Changsan clans claim descent. The Changsan are sub-divided into eight families and are considered a clan of some standing, as is shown by the fact that the Shit-hloh will only take wives from Shit-hloh, Changsan, and Mangyel households.
The following clans are said not to be descended from Thado, but to have emerged from the earth after the Thimzing:—Kulho, Shongte, Kullon, Thāngneo, Hānngeng, Henngār, and Thanchhing. They are now to all intents and purposes Thados, most of them having even adopted the Sakhua, or domestic sacrificial rites, of whichever family of the Thado clan they have attached themselves to. Shongte and his younger brother Kullon emerged from the Khulpi, which is the Thado equivalent of the Lushai Chhinglung. Kulho, Thāngneo, and Hānngeng were sons of Shongte, the two latter being by a different mother to the first. Henngār was Kulho’s son. Kulho celebrated the Chong festival, and invited his half-brothers, but Thāngneo refused to come, so Kulho disowned him, which angered Thāngneo, so that he proposed to Hānngeng that they should kill Kulho, but Hānngeng refused, saying that the removal of Kulho would make Thāngneo head of the family, but would in no way benefit him. This ancient quarrel is sometimes revived even now, and blows are exchanged when representatives of Kulho and Thāngneo meet round the zu-pot.
The houses of the Thados generally resemble those of the Lushais, but are less regular in their interior arrangements, a big house sometimes having two or three hearths irregularly placed. Zawlbuks are not built, the young men sleeping in the houses of well-to-do people. The houses of the chiefs are surrounded by palisading enclosing a courtyard, along one side of which there is often a platform, which reminds one very much of the Chin houses, and is one of the many trifles tending to confirm the tradition of the southern origin of the clan. The following extracts from Lieut. Stewart’s notes on Northern Cachar, written in 1855, show us the Thados as he knew them:—
“Each of the four clans is divided into separate and independent Rajahlics, of greater or less power and numbers, consisting of one or more villages, each of which is presided over by a hereditary chief or Rajah, whose power is supreme, and who has a civil list as long, in proportion to the means of his subjects, as that possessed by any other despot in the world. All these Rajahs are supposed to have sprung from the same stock, which it is believed originally had connection with the gods themselves. Their persons are, therefore, looked upon with the greatest respect and almost superstitious veneration, and their commands are in every case law.
“The revenue exacted by these chieftains is paid in kind and labour. In the former each able-bodied man pays annually a basket of rice containing about two maunds; out of each brood of pigs or fowls reared in the village, one of the young becomes the property of the Rajah, and he is further entitled to one quarter of every animal killed in the chase, and, in addition, to one of the tusks of each elephant so slain. In labour his entire population are bound to devote four days in each year, in a body, for the purpose of cultivating his private fields. On the first day they cut down the jungle, on the second day, the fuel being dry, they fire it and prepare the ground, on the third they sow and harrow, and on the fourth cut and bring in the harvest. Besides the labour of these four days in which the entire effective population, men, women, and children, work for him, small parties are told off during the whole season to assist his own domestic slaves in tending the crop, repairing his house (which edifice is always built afresh by the subjects when a new site is repaired to), and in supplying wood and water for the family. On the occasion of the days of general labour, a great feast is given by the Rajah to all his people; so also, on the occasion of an elephant being killed, to the successful hunters, but this is the only remuneration ever received by them, and calls can be made on them for further supplies and labour, whenever it may be required.
“The Rajah is the sole and supreme authority in the village or villages under him, no one else being competent to give orders or inflict punishment except through him.
“To assist him in carrying on the affairs of government the Rajah has a minister, and more frequently several, called ‘thūshois’ or ‘muntries,’ who have the privilege of being exempt from labour and taxation at his hands. This office is not, strictly speaking, hereditary—although in most cases, except when thoroughly incompetent, the son succeeds the father—but is given to those qualified for it, as being men of property and influence as well as of ability, and good spokesmen. The Rajah himself is, on the contrary, invariably succeeded by his eldest son, for whom, should he be a minor, the kingdom is managed by a council of muntries. In default of sons, the Rajah’s brother succeeds, and failing him the nearest male relative takes the guddee, the Salique law being in full force.