The Khasis

by P. R. T. Gurdon

Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Distributed Proofreaders Team.

The Khasis

By

Major P.R.T. Gurdon, I.A.
Deputy Commissioner Eastern Bengal and Assam
Commission, and Superintendent of
Ethnography in Assam.

With an Introduction by
Sir Charles Lyall, K.C.S.I.

(Published under the orders of the Government of
Eastern Bengal and Assam)

Illustrated

Preface

This book is an attempt to give a systematic account of the Khasi people, their manners and customs, their ethnological affinities, their laws and institutions, their religious beliefs, their folk-lore, their theories as to their origin, and their language.

This account would perhaps have assumed a more elaborate and ambitious form were it not that the author has been able to give to it only the scanty leisure of a busy district officer. He has been somewhat hampered by the fact that his work forms part of a series of official publications issued at the expense of the Government of Eastern Bengal and Assam, and that it had to be completed within a prescribed period of time.