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The Syntengs have a story that when the strong west wind blows in the spring this is due to the advent of U Kyllang, who comes to visit his wife, the river Umngot, at that season: amongst the Khasis hills are all of them masculine, but to rivers is usually attributed the feminine gender. U Symper is another isolated rocky eminence rising from the Maharam plain close to the village of K'mawan.

As there is no religious ceremony which is compulsory to the Khasis on the occasion of an adoption, perhaps we are almost justified in concluding that in former times the adoption custom did not exist, more especially as the Khasis possess a special word, iap duh, for describing a family the females of which have all died out; and it is admittedly the custom for the Siem to succeed to the property of such a family.

The Khasis, like the Alfoors of Poso in Celebes, seem to be somewhat reluctant to utter the names of their own immediate relations, and of other people's also. Ka kmi ka Weri, U kpa u Philip. The actual names of the parents, after falling into desuetude, are often entirely forgotten.

As the different people speaking these languages advanced in civilization they learned to count further; but by this time they had become in some cases like those of the Khasis, the Palaungs, and Mons, widely separated from one another.

It can well be imagined how important a matter it is also, in the light of Grierson's and Kuhn's linguistic conclusions, to ascertain whether any of the Mon-Khmêr people in Anam and Cambodia and neighbouring countries possess social customs in common with the Khasis.

The cost of the marriage ceremonies amongst Khasis, Syntengs and Wárs, may be put down at between Rs. 50 and Rs. 200 according to the position of the parties. Lamdoh Ceremony. This ceremony is identical with that of Pynhiar synjat, except that the bride and bridegroom do not interchange rings, and that there is no sacrifice of the pig.

They preserve strict maternal descent, and like the Khasis, the deities of all the clans are goddesses. The life and social habits of the people have been described by Kubary, a careful and sympathetic observer, for long resident in the island. The tribes are divided into exogamous clans, and intermarriage between any relations on the mother’s side is unlawful.

The War law of inheritance differs greatly from that of the Khasis, and the customs of the Bhois or Mikirs, who inhabit the Bhoi doloiship of the Jaintia Hills, are totally different from those of the Khasis, thereby supplying another link in the chain of evidence in support of the conclusion that the Bhois, or, more correctly speaking, the Mikirs, are of Bodo origin, and not Khasi or Mon-Anam.

The young people meet at the dances in the spring-time, when the girls choose their future husbands. There is no practice among the Khasis of exchange of daughters; and there is an entire absence of the patriarchal idea of their women as property. Marriage is a simple contract, unaccompanied by any ceremony. After marriage the husband lives with his wife in her mother’s home.

All forms of animistic religion make it their chief business to avert the wrath of the gods, to which calamities of all kinds sickness, storm, murrain, loss of harvest are ascribed, by some kind of propitiation; and in this the Khasis are not singular.