5. Furniture. Owing to their nomadic habits the Lushais have not much furniture. Even in the houses of powerful chiefs but little will be found but a few rough and low wooden stools, some wooden platters, some earthenware beer pots, strengthened by plaited cane coverings, some brass pots, and many baskets in which valuable or perishable articles are preserved. Property which can be safely buried is often concealed in this way, a custom which is fast dying out now that raids are things of the past.
6. Implements. Agricultural.—The Lushai’s cultivation being confined to cutting down the jungle, burning it, and dibbling in the seed among the ashes, he does not require many or elaborate implements and is content with a dao, an axe, and a hoe. The dao is a knife with a triangular blade, about 3 inches wide at the end and 1 inch or so at the handle. It is ground with a chisel edge, the broad end being also sharpened. This is used for clearing the jungle, and the broad end is used for grubbing the holes in which the seeds are placed. The axe heads are of iron only about 1½ inches wide at the edge, and taper almost to a point; the handles are simply pieces of bamboo, the heads being thrust through the tough root portion. The hoes very closely resemble the axes, the heads being a little lighter and broader.
Musical Instruments.—The commonest are gongs and drums, but a kind of mouth-organ known as “rotchem” and a fiddle made out of a piece of bamboo are sometimes used. The gongs are mostly imported from Burma, as much as Rs. 150/- being paid for large ones, but the most prized are sets of three small gongs, each with a separate note, on which three skilled performers can produce something resembling a tune. The drums are sections of trees hollowed out, the ends being covered with metna hide caps laced together. The rotchem, which is found in all Lushai-Kuki clans, consists of a gourd into which nine hollow reeds are inserted, one to serve as a mouthpiece; the others, which are of various lengths, have small holes cut in them. The performer blows into the mouthpiece, and, by closing and opening the holes with his fingers, he can produce various notes, but the music is dull and monotonous. The fiddle is a very rough affair, produced in a few minutes by loosening a strip of the outer skin of a bamboo, without detaching it at its ends, and raising it up and inserting a piece of stick to act as a bridge; the bow is made out of another piece of bamboo. The sound of a bugle is very cleverly imitated by blowing through several lengths of bamboo inserted one into the other.
Household Utensils.—Besides the articles enumerated under furniture, earthenware cooking pots and bamboo spoons complete the utensils used inside the house.
7. Manufactures. Basket Work.—This is chiefly carried on by men. The patterns are very numerous, each being adapted to some particular use. The material is generally bamboo. The “thul” is a basket with four short legs, about twelve inches square at the bottom, widening till the mouth is a circle with a diameter of about thirty inches; this basket is supplied with a conical lid and is chiefly used to keep valuables in. The outer layer is of finely split bamboo closely woven, and this is lined with broad leaves well dried, which are held in their place by an inner layer of bamboo more loosely woven. These baskets are quite waterproof.
For carrying goods there are the “deron,” a truncated cone 30 to 36 inches long with a diameter at its mouth of about 24 inches, holding about 50 lbs. of paddy; the “em,” similar to the deron, but about half the size. The “bomrang,” an open-work basket with an oval mouth, 15 inches by 12, is used for carrying goods on long journeys. The “paikawng” similar in shape to the em, but with open-work sides, is for conveyance of wood, water tubes, &c. There are also several sorts of flat baskets for holding grain, each with its particular name. The containing power of these is approximately constant, and they are used as measures of quantity.
Pottery.—The women make clay pots, moulding them by hand. There are only two kinds in use—a small circular pot with a mouth some 6 to 8 inches in diameter, used for cooking, and a large jar, about 24 inches high and 15 inches in diameter, tapering to about 9 inches at the mouth, which is used for brewing beer in.
Brass Work.—Occasionally one comes across rough specimens of moulding in this metal, which show considerable if untrained talent, but they are very rare, and I attribute them to captives taken from the plains of India or Burma, or to persons who have learnt from them. The method followed is to make a model in wax and cover it with successive washes of clay till a sufficient thickness is obtained, the whole then being baked till the clay is hard, and the wax has all run out through a hole left for this purpose. Into this mould the molten brass is then poured. The commonest use of this work is for the semi-circular tube required to connect the two arms of the syphons used in drawing off the rice beer. These tubes are sometimes surmounted by quite elaborate designs, a hunter approaching his quarry, a tree with many hornbills perched among the boughs, and on one which I bought are represented Vutaia and his “kawnbawl,” or minister, with leg irons on. The latter carries on his shoulder an elephant’s tusk, which formed part of the ransom of his master, who, in the ups and downs of the troublous times in which he lived, had been captured by the Kamhaus.
Iron Work.—The blacksmith is one of the village officials described in [Chapter III, para. 2]. The forge is placed in the middle of the widest street to lessen the risk of fire; it is only a rough shed with a log platform in front, which is as favourite a resort for loafers as is the forge door in England. The bellows consist of two hollow wooden cylinders in which pistons fringed with feathers are worked up and down. The lower ends of the cylinders are buried in the ground, side by side, and from them two bamboo tubes converge, meeting just behind a stone through which there is a hole; the charcoal fire is placed in front of this stone, and when the pistons are worked smartly a very strong draught is obtained. The blacksmith does little more than make and repair the simple agricultural implements of the village, but I have heard rumours of some who are capable of making gun locks. I think the form of bellows and the art of working iron have been introduced by captives, as the same type of bellows is found in the adjoining plains.
Cloth Manufacture.—Cotton is grown in the jhums. It is cleaned in a home-made gin, consisting of a frame holding two wooden rollers, one end of each being carved for a few inches of its length into a screw, grooved in the opposite way to the other, so that on the handle being turned the rollers revolve in opposite directions, and the cotton is drawn between them, the seeds being left behind. The cotton is then worked by hand into rolls a few inches long, whence it is spun into the spindle of a rough spinning wheel, or occasionally a bobbin is used, which, being given a sharp twist, draws the cotton into a thread by its own weight. This method admits of diligent ones spinning as they go to and from their jhums. The thread having been spun, it is thoroughly wetted and then hung in loops some three or four feet long over a horizontal bar, and stretched by several heavy bars being suspended in these loops.