IC-HBLF 
 
 JAMES G. FORLONG FUND 
 VOL I. 
 
 THE PRIMITIVE 
 CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 Lectures delivered in 1922 at 
 The School of Oriental Studies (Univ. of London) 
 
 BY 
 
 COLONEL T. C. HODSON 
 
 (Late Indian Civil Service) 
 
 THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY 
 
 74 Grosvenor Street, London, W. I. 
 
 1922 
 
THE PRIMITIVE CULTURE 
 OF INDIA 
 
JAMES G. FORLONG FUND 
 VOL. I. 
 
 THE PRIMITIVE 
 CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 Lectures delivered in 1922 at 
 The School of Oriental Studies (Univ. of London) 
 
 BY 
 
 COLONEL T. C. HODSON 
 
 (Late Indian Civil Service) 
 
 THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY 
 
 74 GROSVENOR STREET, LONDON, W. 1. 
 
 1922 
 
LECTURE I. 
 COMPLEXITY OF INDIAN CULTURE. 
 
 Complexity of Indian Culture Analysis of Fundamental Elements 
 Dream Values and Social Life Prepotency of the Past Mind and 
 Body Belief in Reincarnation Language as a Social Product 
 Assimilation of Customs and the Relations of Higher with Lower Cul- 
 ture Value in situ of Customs The Selective and Comparative 
 Method Common Elements and Range of Variable Elements. 
 
 Before I attempt to define the lower culture or to 
 describe its geographical distribution in India, let me 
 clear the ground by emphasising the fact that primitive 
 characters are not to be looked for in Indian culture as 
 it now is for " existing savage races are not merely peoples 
 who have been left behind in the stream of progress. 
 They are not simply examples of early stages in the 
 development of human culture beyond which other 
 peoples have progressed. It can be shown that each one 
 of them has a highly complex history in which rites and 
 customs introduced from elsewhere, perhaps from some 
 highly-advanced society, have blended with others of a 
 really primitive or infantile kind. . . . Though existing 
 cultures may not be primitive in the sense that they 
 represent simple and uncontaminated stages of social 
 development, we can safely accept the primitive character 
 of their mentality and take them as guides to the history 
 of mental development, though they are of very question- 
 able value as guides to the order of social development." 
 (la). We must therefore dismiss from our minds such 
 catch words as arrested development or continuity of 
 progress. Let us remember the antiquity of India, the 
 complexity of its social groupings, and the immense range 
 of its culture. 
 
 -.. 
 
2 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 ELEMENTS. 
 
 We are all psychologists nowadays. True, the psyche 
 is seldom^ mentioned in the discussions of this rigorous 
 science. fAs I look for the elements of the mental make- 
 up of folk in the lower culture, I find their attitude 
 characterised by the dominance of tradition, and I can 
 ask you from my own knowledge to accept the view put 
 forward by Dr. Rivers whose eminence as a psychologist 
 is as secure as his distinction both as an anthropologist 
 and a historian of the past of human societies. From his 
 personal knowledge of the lower culture in India, in 
 Melanesia and the Torres Straits, he finds that " it is a 
 striking feature of ethnographical investigation among 
 people of lowly culture that it is impossible to obtain any 
 rational explanation of rites and customs even when 
 such explanation would seem to us obvious. The people 
 are content to follow without question their social customs 
 and to practise the often highly elaborate rites of their 
 religion merely because it has been so ordained by their 
 fathers " (2). For my part I think the lack of rational 
 explanations of institutions or customs can be associated 
 with the value assigned to dream experiences. Thus 
 " The Tangkhuls say that a man who is attacked by a 
 buffalo will lose any lawsuit in which he happens at that 
 time to be involved. They also believe that if a man 
 dreams that he is attacked by a buffalo, he will suffer 
 similar misfortune. They attach to the dream precisely 
 the same significance as to the actual event. Does this 
 mean that their dreams are as substantial and possess 
 the same measure of reality as the facts of their waking 
 vision ? If this conclusion were legitimate on these facts, 
 the dream life would have a continuity with the waking 
 life and possess a specific reality for them. The inter- 
 pretation of unusual dreams is left to the maiba or to some 
 wise old man. "(3) 
 
 With the Andamanese there are " certain individuals 
 known as oko-pai. ad (lit a dreamer) who are credited 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 3 
 
 with the possession of supernatural powers such as 
 second sight and of a mysterious influence over the for- 
 tunes and lives of their neighbours." He exploits his 
 reputation thoroughly and must show proof from time to 
 time of his power. He can bespeak property which then 
 is not available for presentation to anyone else. He is 
 " credited with the power of communicating in dreams 
 with the invisible powers of good and evil and also of 
 seeing the spirits of the departed or of those who are 
 ill." (3a) 
 
 Among the Sema Nagas (3b) " there are probably 
 many other forms of genna practised by the thumomi 
 who, indeed, probably invent new forms of what- 
 ever kind and whenever they see fit." He is an 
 interpreter of omens, a dreamer, clairvoyant. . . . 
 Dreams, like omens, are not the exclusive province of the 
 thumomi, and happen to anyone. Indeed, most Semas 
 believe in their own dreams and take note of them as 
 forecasting events to come, in particular those of hunting 
 and war." Throughout this area we find a constant 
 belief in and attribution of authority and prestige to those 
 who dream dreams, who see visions, and are thereby 
 known to be in touch with sources of power external to 
 the individual. 
 
 Of the Kols, it is said that " Daher gibt der Kol viel 
 auf Traume Weil seine Seele im Schlafe heller sieht and 
 mit der Geisterwelt verkehrt, die ihr im wachen Zustande 
 mehr oder minder verschlossen ist. . . . Traume sind 
 dem Kol Offenbarungen aus der Geisterwelt " (4). I 
 take these cases as samples of the ample evidence that 
 " many peoples still trust greatly to the value of dreams 
 as guides to the ordering of their daily conduct "(5). 
 The dream " the form in which experience becomes 
 manifest in sleep " has " the characters of infancy " 
 which modern psychology regards as " due to the removal 
 in sleep of the higher controlling levels " (6). The de- 
 termination of conduct by reference to experience divested 
 
4 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 of higher controls, especially when that class of experience 
 is deemed of special value, will help to understand the 
 behaviour using that word in a large sense of the 
 lower culture. Yet we must confess that " the determina- 
 tion of social behaviour by the unconscious is not confined 
 to rude culture but is only somewhat more obvious in it 
 than among more highly civilised peoples " (7). Further, 
 in the practice of referring unusual dream experiences 
 to " some wise old man," we see a means whereby the 
 wise old man may influence traditional evaluations to his 
 own advantage or to the advantage of his own class, and 
 a means by which the continuity of tradition can be 
 secured from excessive inroads of novel ideas. That 
 changes in and modifications of important elements of 
 the social fabric have occurred from time to time is certain 
 even in the most lowly groups, and we thus can realise 
 how these changes can be effected. 
 
 These beliefs have a real objective existence. They 
 are therefore proper material for examination. They are 
 associated with and form part of a whole of an organically 
 inter-related interdependent corpus or mass of traditional 
 institutions and customs, which cover the whole field of 
 social activity. How vast that field is we may realise by 
 remembering that " an elaborate philosophy " (8) has been 
 evolved by the least advanced Australian group. 
 Systems in their way no less elaborate are to be found 
 among groups of the lower culture in India. The tradi- 
 tional views, as we regard them, are in truth living forces, 
 harmonised, or tending to be harmonised, by social 
 continuity with all other manifestations of social activity, 
 because these beliefs are lived rather than thought out, 
 vegus plutot que pensees. What we regard as traditional 
 and unreasoned, because it appears unreasonable to us, 
 is in the lower culture viewed as reasonable and valid, 
 even more authoritative and important than the data 
 which with us serve as the basis of reasoning. Thus in 
 framing our definition of the lower culture from a 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 5 
 
 psychological aspect we must assign due weight to these 
 factors the dominance of tradition or custom and the 
 superior validity allowed to experiences dreams, hyper- 
 aesthetic apparitions and the like which seem to spring 
 from the liberation of the unconscious elements of mind 
 from the controls imposed by education and normal life. 
 The formation of special interests and values by these 
 processes deserves attention as a possible source of other 
 cultural features. The actions and reactions of the lower 
 culture with its physical environment are affected by 
 these habits. " Environment " is more than the physical 
 environment (9), complex and difficult of analysis as that 
 is. The society in which we live and move and have 
 our being is part of our environment. The past age- 
 long as it is forms part of our environment, for it is 
 active in shaping the conditions as well as our institutions 
 of the present. The prepotency of the past is a char- 
 acteristic of the lower culture. Current in the lower 
 culture are ideas as to the nature of man, psychological 
 ideas they may be called, which express clearly after the 
 manner of the lower culture an unmistakable recognition 
 as well as an explanation of the dominion of the past. 
 The ideas we form of the nature of the physical environ- 
 ment, of the nature of our relations with the physical 
 environment, with our fellow-beings, both with those who 
 constitute our society and those who are members of other 
 societies in contact with our own, affect and help to 
 determine our behaviour. We know chat the processes 
 of forgetting of unwitting repression are not less 
 important, not less worthy of critical investigation than 
 those of memory (10). The student of human culture 
 finds matter for study in the processes which produce 
 stagnation, even retrogression, which cause the abandon- 
 ment of useful arts (11), which cause societies to refuse 
 to adopt new modes of life calculated and proved to be 
 of greater efficienc}' judged by material results 
 than the old and traditional methods (lla), which have 
 
6 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 the support of sanctions ordinarily classified as religious 
 in reality tradition, nothing else! 
 
 These are " witting repressions " which assuming the 
 well-known form of the tabu, impose restrictions on human 
 activity sometimes of an absurd nature often of serious 
 economic disadvantage, as when people place a ban on 
 milk, a most valuable form of aliment (lib). All these 
 are the fruits of the reactions, under the dominance of 
 tradition, of man's mental activity with his environment. 
 Let us remember what in a purely mechanistic explana- 
 tion of psychology we might overlook that, after all, 
 " Institutions are the effects not the causes of mental 
 traits/ '(12), and " It was the machinery of the brain which 
 discovered the uses of fire and iron ; found out the 
 elements which compose the earth, sun and stars ; dis- 
 covered the laws which regulate the movements of 
 planets. . . . Nothing is too small and nothing too great 
 to fall within the compass of its machinery " (13). 
 
 It is mind that matters 'most. I remember that I 
 was shown the war stone at Jftaikel, and was told the tale 
 of the woman who inadvertently and by an accident saw 
 the sacred thing. She died as the result of her imprud- 
 ence. Col. Shakespear tells how "A Lushai named Kela 
 visited Aijal ; on the road he me i a rat which stood up 
 in the tniddle of the road and held its paws to its head. 
 ' What a curious rat/ he said. Two days after he reached 
 his home he died. To see such a rat is certainly 
 ' thianglo.' This incident happened a short time ago ; 
 no one had ever heard of such a rat having been seen 
 before and the unusualness of the occurrence coupled 
 with the death of Kela was, to the Lushais, proof positive 
 of its being the cause of his death " (18a). There are 
 wereleopards and weretigers among the Semas, men and 
 women whose soul passes into a tiger or leopard ; during 
 sleep the soul is the leopard with its full faculties, but the 
 man dies as soon as he hears " that his leopard body has 
 been killed. The son of Yemithi of Lizotomi whose 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 7 
 
 leopard body was killed at Sagami, heard the news as 
 he was returning to his village, and expired on the spot 
 for no other reason. A curious example of the power of 
 the Sema mind over the Sema body." (13b) 
 
 REINCARNATION BELIEFS. 
 
 It is not enough to assert dogmatically that the lower 
 culture is what it is because it is dominated by tradition. 
 Proof is required, and that proof must show the existence 
 of some social idea or belief which, as the core of all social 
 beliefs and the institutions which represent these beliefs 
 in action, can be regarded as capable of explaining how 
 tradition has assumed the dominance assigned to it. 
 That social idea or belief I find to be the belief in rein- 
 carnation, the belief that society is composed of con- 
 stantly recurring units so that the activities of these units, 
 their relations one with another, their social duties and 
 liabilities, are always regulated by reference to the 
 tradition of the activities, the relations, the duties and 
 liabilities of those deceased members of the social group 
 who are regarded as having returned to the group in their 
 persons. " I am my grandfather, " says thL belief. 
 " Therefore I act and behave in all social contingencies 
 as my grandfather behaved. If in any contingency I 
 am confronted by a novelty, by a combination of cir- 
 cumstances which it would seem had not presented itself 
 to my grandfather, I consult those old men of the group 
 whose knowledge of my grandfather exceeds mine and 
 by their interpretation of the circumstances I am guided 
 to the action which is appropriate to the personality of 
 my grandfather." Such is the line of thought. I shall 
 show how the system of social education in the lower 
 culture is, and can only be, inspired by traditionalism, how 
 the idea of reincarnation, the constant succession of 
 identical units, affects all expressions, simple and complex, 
 of social activity, inspires and explains social structure 
 and is the cardinal ideal of social life. Where ancestor- 
 
8 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 worship makes its appearance, whether as in some 
 measure in descent from the idea of reincarnation or as 
 the result of other factors, it is obviously an element of 
 prepotency in the determination of social values in the 
 direction of tradition. Thus there are ideas still active 
 in shaping] the institutions of the lower culture which 
 derive their strength from, as they lend their support to, 
 
 social forces of the traditional order and structure. 
 
 i .- ' 
 
 The great vehicle of tradition is society. Tradition 
 is society and society is tradition. The human units 
 which compose society change constantly, even rapidly. 
 The changes which society undergoes are slower less 
 perceptible and therefore society appears to be immo- 
 bile changeless but there are limits to social memory, 
 there are variations. The dominance of tradition is 
 the dominance of society over the individual (13a). 
 Therefore it is in group life that its dominance in the lower 
 culture can be best studied. This dominance is, after 
 all, a question of degree, for we are all to some extent 
 under the social law (14). The unit of our study is the 
 group. The strength of group life can be well shown by 
 Indian examples. 
 
 GROUP SOLIDARITY. 
 
 We learn from a Settlement Officer, who some years 
 ago investigated the condition of the wretched people 
 who had not been included in the great Reserve where 
 exploitation by the landlord is impossible, that " the 
 Sonthal does not regard himself as a separate unit but as 
 part and parcel of the village community whose head 
 and representative with the outisde world is the Manjhi 
 (15). As he says in a further passage, " It has been 
 remarked by officers experienced in the ways of the 
 Sonthals that the village community is socially the unit 
 amongst the Sonthals, not the individual " (16). Of the 
 Nagas in Manipur, years ago I found that " What gives 
 validity to these unwritten laws is the vague fear that 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA g 
 
 something may happen if they are broken. Something, 
 this terrible death of a tribesman has happened. Why 
 did it happen ? What more logical than the answer 
 that it happened because a sin has been committed. . . . 
 There is always the disturbing thought that not always 
 nor of necessity does the sinner bear the punishment of 
 his sin and the genna system is strengthened, social 
 solidarity is maintained, by the idea of vicarious punish- 
 ment which makes it the business of each man to see that 
 his neighbour keeps the law" (17). 
 
 Among the Nagas of the north are found similar social 
 tabus. One is reminded, says Mr. Hutton (17a) of the 
 reason given by some Semas for reaping by hand only, 
 because one man once slashed his stomach and killed 
 himself when reaping with a dao. . . . How easily such 
 a notion may spring up can be gathered from a single 
 instance which came under my notice of a tabu on an 
 Angami. I was going up from Zubza to Kohima with 
 Srisalhu, of Khonoma, when we met a large snake in the 
 road. I started to beat it, but Srisalhu would not join 
 in. When I had killed it, he said that it was kenna for 
 him to kill snakes. The reason was that his home in 
 Khonoma, or rather his father's home, had been inhabited 
 by a snake. When Srisalhu removed to a new site, the 
 snake appeared in the new house. (It might easily be 
 transferred from one building to another in a dhule or 
 paddy or in part of the thatch). It still lives in Srisalhu 's 
 house and is frequently seen, having survived two re- 
 buildings. This fact impressed Srisalhu, who talked it 
 over with the other men of his kindred, who considered 
 that a man who had a snake like that in his house ought 
 not to kill snakes at all. Accordingly it is now regarded 
 as kenna for Srisalhu and his household to kill snakes. 
 If Srisalhu's descendants are prolific, this kenna will 
 doubtless in time affect a whole kindred/' 
 
10 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 LANGUAGES. 
 
 To turn to another manifestation of social activity, 
 to the means of communication, I may remind you that 
 twenty years ago a great scientific task was carried out 
 by Sir George Grierson, viz., the Linguistic Survey of 
 India. To complete the analysis of the essential char- 
 acteristics of the lower culture I must assay the material 
 yielded by those splendid investigations. Let us not 
 forget that " Le langage a pour premiere condition 
 1'existence des societes humaines dont il est de son cote 
 rinstrument indispensable et constamment employ^ ; . . . 
 le langage est done eminemment un fait social. En effet 
 
 11 entre exactement dans la definition qu'a proposee 
 M. Durkheim ; une langue existe independamment de 
 chacun des individus qui la parlent, et bien qu'elle 
 n'ait aucune realite en dehors de la somme des individus 
 en question, elle est cependant, outre sa generalite, 
 exterieure a chacun d'eux : ce qui le montre, c'est qu'il 
 ne depend d'aucun d'eux de la changer et que toute 
 deviation de Tusage provoque une reaction (18). Lan- 
 guage-sounds, produced and varied and controlled by the 
 will acting on the organs of speech, lips, oral cavity, 
 teeth, tongue, nasal cavity, uvula and throat, organs 
 whose primary use is the ingestion and mastication and 
 preparation of food, involve a convention between 
 speaker and hearer as to the significance of the sounds 
 so formed. II faut parler le meme langage. We may 
 study languages under the aspect of their phonetics, the 
 sounds peculiar to each social group, of their structure, 
 for there is no one sealed pattern. We may analyse their 
 vocabularies, the words or sounds which by social con- 
 vention are attached to specific ideas and things. We 
 cannot overlook their general characters, their power of 
 meeting new ideas with new words or new combinations 
 of familiar words, their power of getting behind the 
 multiplicity of sensation and achieving however par- 
 tially a classification which is abstraction of general 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA n 
 
 qualities. We know that experts are now busy on the 
 scientific record of the phonetics of the Indian languages, 
 we know that unusual combinations of sounds are to be 
 found in common use in many social groups in India, 
 perhaps vestigial evidence of minute physical differences 
 of the structure of the vocal organs. We learn that 
 there is a great diversity of structure in Indian languages, 
 ranging from a wonderful complexity to monosyllabic 
 simplicity ; that there are many devices, tones, generic 
 determinatives, couplets and combinations, infixes, pre- 
 fixes, suffixes, which Indian social groups employ to eke 
 out the material scanty enough in many cases which 
 tradition has allowed them. They would utter the 
 thoughts that arise and there are no words. There are 
 vocabularies which, like those of the primitive languages 
 of the New World (19), are marked by a number of inde- 
 pendent words each expressing some variation, often 
 minute, of some action, or each expressing a different 
 object which we should describe by a class name (20). 
 
 They are marked again like the languages of the New 
 World by a strong personalisation which clings to the 
 parts of the body and the members of the social group (21). 
 as shown by the use of pronominal affixes. Whether or 
 not in this phenomenon we may see the influence of the 
 development of individual as opposed to communal 
 possession is a matter for thought and consideration (22).. 
 What is certain is that language preserved by methods 
 of tradition retains the impress of social conditions 
 even when those conditions have ceased and that language 
 is determined by social conditions, reflects them and 
 describes them. 
 
 MATERIAL CULTURE. 
 
 In the domain of material culture, which I define as 
 the expression of the social activities in utilising or 
 what is more significant refusing to utilise the properties 
 of the products of their immediate physical environment ; 
 
12 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 I seek the distinctive characteristic of the lower culture 
 in the attitudes taken up in regard to the natural resources 
 on which they are dependent for their means of liveli- 
 hood. There are still groups where agriculture is not 
 practised, where the weapons of the chase are the pro- 
 ducts of nature, stones, sticks, bows whose strings are 
 sinews, where the dominion of nature is almost absolute. 
 But there are many degrees in the lower culture. If a 
 group in its material activities refuses experiment, de- 
 clines the trial of new methods, and is illiberal of natura- 
 lisation towards fresh attitudes, it is in jeopardy of stag- 
 nation, even of retrogression, it must be assigned to the 
 lower culture. Thus we return to the general position 
 that the essential characteristic of the lower culture is 
 the habit of mind which, dominated exclusively by 
 tradition, refers all novel experiences to traditional 
 forms, which adapts introduced rites or customs only 
 by so modifying them that they lose their vigour of 
 novelty and " acquire the primitive or infantile character 
 of the culture which assimilates them " (23) We may 
 at times witness this process of denaturalisation and 
 assimilation, for there some cases where the new idea 
 can be assimilated only by a modification of the structure 
 of the culture into which it has been introduced. These 
 moments of partial assimilation of social indigestion 
 are often disruptive to a far greater extent than we might 
 expect. They mark a stage in progress. Since all 
 cultures, lower as well as higher, have an immense history 
 behind them, we may expect to find in them both sur- 
 vivals, that is to say, organs which still retain their 
 individuality and functions and have therefore achieved 
 some measure of congruity and harmony with the general 
 social organisation, as well as vestigial customs, which we 
 may regard as once active, even essential, but not obsolete 
 and meaningless, which survive (24) solely because they 
 satisfy some aesthetic need or because they are harmless 
 and purely neutral in social value. 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 13 
 
 Whether we can ever ascertain the general principles 
 on which assimilation proceeds is hardly probable. Each 
 case has to be considered on its merits. It may be we 
 shall find that in India, as in Australia (24a) " if two 
 races are at a decidedly different level of culture . . . , it 
 is extremely improbable that there would be any amal- 
 gamation on equal terms. The weaker and less cultured 
 would certainly be exterminated by the stronger and more 
 highly cultured/ 1 Contact does not always or of neces- 
 sity involve amalgamation. Imitation, with the limita- 
 tions of differences of speech and of material resources, 
 there has been in plenty, since the prestige of the superior 
 culture leads surely to this. In the process of imitation 
 we may expect to find that much that was vital in the 
 original models has been lost, transformed and meta- 
 morphosed so that the compromise formations which 
 result do not resemble either originals in essentials, in 
 analogy to the results in the human world of marriages 
 across a racial frontier (24b) . 
 
 That there has been, that there is still, peaceful pene- 
 tration of the lower by the higher culture, is undeniable. 
 But it is also true that there have been violent destruc- 
 tions of social groups of the lower by the higher, of the 
 higher by the lower. Indian history is full of such cases. 
 The conditions requisite for " amalgamation of two 
 cultures on equal terms " cannot be laid down definitely, 
 but there are many facts with which we are not now 
 specifically concerned, to indicate that the effects of the 
 interpenetration of cultures which, by reason of its long 
 history, characterises Indian culture as a whole, are not 
 less manifest in modifications of the social attitudes of 
 the higher culture than in those of the lower culture. 
 
 METHOD. 
 
 ' To see life steadily and to see it whole " is no bad 
 maxim for the student of the lower culture, for each 
 custom must be interpreted as part of a whole, in the 
 
14 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 light of the nature of the whole of which it is a part (25). 
 Each custom derives support and validity from all the 
 other customs of the whole, and gives support and 
 validity in its turn to them. Sir Laurence Gomme 
 warned us long years ago that " We must know the exact 
 position of each item before we begin to compare, or we 
 may be comparing absolutely unlike things. Customs 
 and rites which are alike in practice can be shown to have 
 originated from quite different causes, to express quite 
 different motifs and cannot, therefore, be held to belong 
 to a common class" (26). This warning is specially 
 applicable to Indian conditions. Convergence L un- 
 deniable in some cases, such as female infanticide. It is 
 easy to select a fact recorded by a perfectly competent 
 and impartial observer and by neglecting the context to 
 find what is wanted. Qui sait trouver sait chercher. 
 The comparative method in unscientific hands becomes 
 the selective method and is open to the criticism which 
 Sir Laurence Gomme passed on it. The only way is to 
 treat the social life as a psychological unity just as, in the 
 study of the psychology of individuals, the whole man is 
 taken as the unit for investigation. That means we have 
 to ascertain the degree of congruity which any custom 
 belief or institution has with the general mental life of 
 the group and with the whole body of rites, customs and 
 institutions to determine whether it is in organic harmony 
 with them or is a survival, retaining some validity and 
 utility, not altogether out of harmony with the general 
 activities, or is to be classed as vestigial, existing solely 
 because it does no harm, and tolerated so long, and only 
 so long, as it is harmless. Each social group is a different 
 unit. Each group differs from other groups, sometimes 
 by reason of what we are compelled to call racial differ- 
 ences, in other cases by reason of different factors in past 
 history or in present circumstances differences of en- 
 vironment (27). We may seem to be in as difficult a 
 position as the schoolboy when asked to find out the sum 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 15 
 
 of three oranges, two apples and five plums on the plea 
 that they are fruit and are all sold at one and the same 
 shop. Fundamentals come first. The elements must 
 be separated out and then only can we constitute our 
 unities. There are elements common to all human 
 groups, high or low, Western or Eastern. All are made 
 up of men and women. All need food. All get their 
 food from the bounty of nature. For the raw material 
 of food, clothing, shelter and implements all depend on 
 natural products. All the mature individuals in a group 
 have passed through a period, which may be very pro- 
 longed, of dependence on others for their sustenance and 
 nurture. Men and women, high and low, by reason of 
 their sex differences, have different functions. The sex 
 division is natural, inevitable, universal. The problems 
 which the conditions of this struggle with and within 
 nature engender are fundamentally identical for us all. 
 But that very fundamental identity is often obscured by 
 the differences in the standpoint from which the problems 
 are viewed at different levels of culture. Therefore in 
 examining and classifying our material, it is permissible 
 to consider how any problem has been or can be stated 
 for and by any social group, how many solutions of such 
 problems are possible for any group with due regard to 
 the mental powers of that group and its technical abilities 
 and its resources as provided by its physical environment. 
 Then we may endeavour to ascertain why any particular 
 solution of a given problem was preferred, what factors 
 decided the preference. Convergence, diffusion by 
 borrowing, independent invention, centralisation round a 
 common core. Such are the theories of origins. It is 
 not an easy task, and no very certain results can be 
 assured, since the complexity of Indian culture is 
 great, even in the lower levels. Le vrai primitif exists 
 nowhere. What we find is a number of groups who rank 
 in material things with very lowly people, who yet have 
 invented systems of religion, complex and ingenious 
 
16 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 systems, so that the intellectual development ranges to 
 the highest fancies of fine philosophy. We shall find our 
 material among the folk that dwell in the jungles and 
 inaccessible hills of the continent, among that welter of 
 tribes who nestle among the hills of Assam and Burma 
 up to the Himalayas, yielding evidence of their lowly 
 culture in the simple and elementary economic organisa- 
 tion, in the characteristics of their speech as well as in 
 the strength and persistence of sentiments which enwrap 
 their lives in a close mantle of custom. Some are timid 
 and feeble folk, remnants it may be of what were once 
 strong tribes. Others are mighty warriors, quick to 
 revenge. All have a long, unwritten history behind them. 
 Few, if indeed any, are in any real sense the original 
 inhabitants of the secluded spots where they now dwell. 
 They may teach us something of the mental development 
 of human society, for among them are preserved in full 
 vitality modes of thought in sharpest contrast with the 
 spirit of science which seeks " by the constant interro- 
 gation of physical and social facts, to penetrate the secret 
 laws which govern them " (28). 
 
 la. Rivers, Dreams and Primitive Culture, p. 24. 
 
 2. Rivers, op. cit., p. 25. 
 
 3. Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 129. 
 
 3a. Man, E. H., The Andaman Islanders, pp. 28, 29 
 3b. Hutton, Sema Nagas, p. 231, 246. 
 
 4. Hahn, Einfiihrung in das Gebiet der Kols-Mission, p. 116. 
 
 5. Rivers, op. cit. t p. 5. 
 
 6. Rivers, Instinct and the Unconscious, p. 230. 
 
 7. Rivers, Dreams and Primitive Culture, p. 25. 
 
 8. Lang, Anthropological Essays presented to (Sir) E. B. Taylor, p. 211. 
 
 9. McDougall, The Group Mind, p. 11, p. 209 sq., cf. Ellen Semple. 
 Influence of Geographical Environment passim. 
 
 10. Rivers, Instinct and the Unconscious, p. 18. 
 
 11. Rivers, Festskrift Tillagrad Edvard Westermarck. 
 lla. Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 47. 
 
 lib. Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 182. 
 
 12. McDougall, op. cit. p. 117. 
 
 13. Keith, Engines of the Human Body, p. 235. 
 13a. The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 102. 
 
 13b. The Sema Nagas, p. 205. 
 
 14. Cf. Durkheim, Methode Socielogique, p. 10, passim. 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 17 
 
 15. Report on the Condition of the Southals in the Districts of Birbhum, 
 Bankura, Midnapore and Balasore, M. C. McAlpine, I.C.S., p. 13. 
 
 16. Ibid., p. 76. 
 
 17. Archivfilr Religions-wissenschaft, xii. 456. 
 17a. Angami Nagas, p. 396. 
 
 18. L' Annie Sociologique, vol. ix., p. 1. 
 
 19. Payne, History of the New World called America, vol.. ii, p. 103. 
 
 20. Linguistic Survey of India, vol. hi., part 1, p. 5 (characteristics of Tibeto- 
 Burman Languages), vol. iv., p. 23 (characteristics of Munda languages). 
 
 21. Ibid. 
 
 22. See Rivers, History of Melanesian Society, vol. ii., p. 488 sq. 
 
 23. Rivers, Dreams and Primitive Culture, p. 24. 
 
 24. Haddon, Folklore, xxxi. p. 12. 
 
 24a, Sir Baldwin Spencer, Pres. Address Aust. Association, 1921, p. 30. 
 24b. Sir Arthur Keith, Nationality and Race, p. 9. 
 
 25. Methode Sociologique, p. xv. 
 
 26. Folklore as an Historical Science, p. 171. 
 
 27. McDougall, op. cit., p. 209. 
 
 28. Payne, op. cit., vol. i., p. 277. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 The Economic Life of the Lower Culture Analysis of Motives, Re- 
 ligious and Other Dominance of Group Life Density and Conditions 
 physical and political affecting density Size of Social Groups Food 
 Quest and Materials Jhum and Terraced Fields Hunting Groups 
 Houses and Villages Dress Firemaking, Stone, Metal and Woodwork, 
 Pottery. 
 
 I am confronted by certain difficulties in my approach 
 to these studies of the economics of the lower culture. 
 In the first place I shall disappoint the experts in the 
 dismal science if they expect anything very startlingly 
 new or immediately useful as an addition to their know- 
 ledge, because the " natural " mode of existence does not 
 lend itself to any degree of elaborate organisation. In 
 the next place I think it is very difficult and for me 
 impossible to analyse the life of these communities as 
 I know and regard them, into separate and distinct com- 
 partments. The play of purely economic forces is so 
 closely intertwined with social forces of what we are in 
 the habit of treating as a different order, that the whole 
 must be regarded as a whole, not as a mechanical com- 
 bination of so many independent parts. That considera- 
 tions of an economic order do play a real even a large part 
 in determining the behaviour of these societies of the 
 lower culture, cannot be denied, and yet such is the power 
 of tradition that the activity of economic forces is 
 obscured and coloured often when most discernible, by 
 the dominance of sentiments which a modern analytic 
 mind would describe as religious. Then we come to the 
 third of my difficulties, that arises from the notable fact 
 that we are dealing with communities, not with indivi- 
 duals, so that whatever may be the verdict of the 
 specialist in the controversy as to the nature, origin and 
 function of the group mind, we are dealing with groups 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 19 
 
 possessed of no inconsiderable social organisation and 
 structure with a high degree of mental homogeneity, with 
 relatively small spatial extent and therefore enabled to 
 practise collective deliberation and to display collective 
 volition in intense forms. It will be evident that to 
 define the lower culture exclusively on psychological 
 grounds as under the thraldom of tradition would now 
 enable me to include many groups in my survey which 
 I therefore propose to limit by adding thereto an economic 
 element derived from their relations to other communities, 
 for the special reason that we have in India an economic 
 organisation of social units which is based on a definite 
 scale of precedence according to economic occupation, 
 such that, though at any one moment it may appear 
 immobile and rigid, yet on a wide view it appears to 
 possess a degree of elasticity and local variation, according 
 to differences of economic pressure. The groups of the 
 lower culture stand with but few exceptions apart from 
 this organisation which is the Hindu polity. Therefore 
 economic independence of this polity, which varies in 
 degrees as we shall see, and in respect to certain specified 
 commodities, may be taken as a distinguishing feature 
 of the lower culture. 
 
 It will therefore serve our purpose if we investigate 
 the lower culture and its economics by examining typical 
 cases as to their food supplies and the methods of pre- 
 paring them, as to the materials and methods used in the 
 preparation of shelter from the weather, and the clothes 
 they wear, to observe whence and how they obtain, and 
 how they work, metals, with special note of instances 
 where by reason of the development of natural resources 
 special local industries have sprung into being, which 
 necessitate some albeit rudimentary organisation for 
 transport and distribution. 
 
 Attention must be given to the size of the groups 
 classified as belonging to the lower culture, in order to 
 ascertain whether and how far we " accept the general 
 
20 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 principle that, on the whole aid in the long run during 
 the earlier stages of human evolution, the complexity 
 and coherence of the social order follow upon the size of 
 the group ; which, since its size in turn follows upon 
 the mode of the economic life, may be described as the 
 food-group " (1). 
 
 DENSITY. 
 
 Analysis of the facts recorded at the 1911 census (2) 
 shows that one-eleventh of the population is supported 
 by two-fifths of the total area of the Indian Empire ; 
 that one-eleventh of the total area supports one-third of 
 the population ; that the density ranges from one per 
 square mile in Chagai in Baluchistan to nearly 2,000 
 per square mile in part of the Dacca district ; that 
 density of population in India is dependent on the sum 
 total of agricultural conditions in which are to be included 
 the area under cultivation, rainfall, physical configuration, 
 while the effect of variations consequent on the nature 
 of the soil is difficult if not impossible of distinction and 
 separation from the general mass of agricultural pheno- 
 mena. (3) The complexity of these phenomena is in- 
 creased by the obvious fact that the conditions prior to, 
 as well as those which are directly attributable to the " Pax 
 Britannica," exercise an effect on the social life in this 
 aspect of the 300 millions of human beings then enumer- 
 ated. There is evidence which leads to the conclusion 
 that as minute investigations showed was the case in 
 Bihar in 1901, the tracts which can support most people 
 are those where rice is grown (4) . As I see the question, 
 it may be put thus what is the density of population 
 which (subject to any special exceptions) can be fairly 
 regarded as an indication of conditions, social, physical 
 and historical, unfavourable to the development of 
 economic organisation to a stage distinctly higher than 
 that of the simple tribal form ? Is a density of 50 per 
 square mile too high when the average all over India is 
 taken as 175 per square mile ? Is a density of 25 per 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 21 
 
 square mile unfairly low ? The Hills Division of Assam 
 has 34 to the square mile, but in the Lushai Hills we drop 
 to 13 per square mile. In Baluchistan, a land of contra- 
 dictions and contrasts, we get to six per square mile. 
 In parts of Chota Nagpur we have 38 to the square mile, 
 and in Burma as a result of the great dissimilarities of 
 surface conditions, of recent political conditions and of 
 the characters of the inhabitants, there are areas with 
 only 15 to the square mile ; others with 38 and with 23, 
 despite certain advantages which are nullified by the 
 physical conditions, and areas where the population is 
 over 120 to the square mile. Parts of the Central Pro- 
 vinces are but sparsely populated, and in the view of 
 those who know the country the determining factor is 
 to be found in the physical characteristics of the country 
 and in its past history. In Madras there are but few areas 
 which fall below the general average. The Agency tracts 
 in the north, physically conterminous with the Chota 
 Nagpur area, consist of forest-clad ranges, inhabited by 
 improvident and ignorant aboriginal tribes such as the 
 Khond, "a short, thick-set good-humoured jungle man. 
 He lives in a cabin built of rough hewn planks, has a 
 predilection for toddy and an aversion for education : 
 generally speaks the truth, worships singularly unpleasant 
 devils in a strangely unpleasant manner, and in his worldly 
 affairs exhibits a deplorable but eminently cheerful 
 disregard for the morrow " (5). When we touch on the 
 hills, wherein abide the Todas (6) worshippers of the 
 sacred dairy and its buffaloes, the Badagas, the Kurumbas 
 the Irulas and the Kotas,(7) we come again on an area 
 where the population is relatively sparse, and exhibits 
 features which enable it to be assigned to the lower 
 culture. Still further south the high ranges in the 
 Devikulam Taluk of the prosperous State of Travan- 
 core (7), which seem once to have been held by a people 
 of relatively high culture, are now inhabited by wandering 
 folk, as is demonstrated by the low density of 55 per 
 square mile. 
 
22 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 iP 
 
 SIZE OF SOCIA^ GROUPS. ^ 
 
 More significant, especially when regarded in associa- 
 tion with the general distribution of culture, is the size 
 of the social groups. We have seen groups as small as 
 those of the Khereya, who move from jiiJ^Ie to jungle 
 not more than one or two families at a time (8). The 
 Birhors wander about in small groups of from two to 
 about ten families, stop and hunt in one place for about 
 a week or a fortnigl^ and then move on to another 
 jungle until they come back to their original starting 
 point " (9). The Irulas in South Arcot " dwell in 
 scattered huts never more than two or three in one place 
 which are little round thatched hovels with a low 
 doorway through which one can just crawl, built among 
 the fields " (10). The Kadirs of Cochin live in groups of 
 from ten to fifteen or twenty huts, usually built of 
 bamboo, close to water, or in an open glade of the forest. 
 These settlements are rarely permanent, .yet " it is 
 wonderful to see the ingenuity of these people whose 
 wants are few and whose life is very simple. Their 
 requirements are, in fact, satisfied with the materials 
 available in the vicinity of their abodes " (11). We 
 cannot hesitate to classify these people as belonging to 
 the lower culture. A further stage of social and economic 
 development has been reached by the tribes inhabiting 
 the hills of Assam. There are large villages with 5,000 
 or 6,000 inhabitants, yet there are also tiny settlements 
 in the jungles of from four to five huts, built with 
 ingenuity and skill of bamboo and cane, in which dwell 
 Kukis, nomad agriculturists. " The peculiar vagabond 
 strain/' says Colonel Shakespear, " in the blood of the 
 Kuki Lushei race, if not controlled, leads to villages 
 splitting into hamlets and hamlets subdividing till in 
 the Manipur Hills we find single houses in the midst of 
 dense jungle, several miles from the next habitation". 
 (12). The Pax Britannica has removed the need of 
 forming large communities for the purposes of defence. 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 23 
 
 Not only have we to take count of the dominance of 
 the bamboo, but some weight must also be assigned in 
 our explanation of the " peculiar vagabond strain " of 
 the Kuki Lushei race to the custom by which " % Each 
 son of a chief, as he attained a marriageable age, was* 
 provided with a wife at his father's expense and give* a 
 certain number o| households from his father's village 
 and sent forth to a" tillage of his own. Henceforth he* 
 ruled as an independent chief and his success or failure 
 depended on -his own talents for^ling. He paid no 
 tribute to his father, but was expected to help him in 
 his quarrels with neighbouring chiefs, but when fathers 
 lived long, it was not unusual to find their sons disowning 
 even this amount of subordination. The youngest son 
 remained in his father's village and succeeded not only to 
 the village but also to all the property " (13). There are 
 traces of this custom which still lingers among us under 
 the name of Borough English, in the more settled com- 
 munities of the Hills, and one large Naga group, the 
 Semas, contrary to the usual Naga order, has hereditary 
 chiefs, " the elder sons becoming chiefs in their own 
 villages during the fathers' lifetime, provided the sons 
 are able to found separate villages, and one of the 
 younger sons probably succeeding in his father's 
 village " (14). Economic conditions engender social 
 habits which persist as customs long after the original 
 conditions have been modified or ceased to affect them 
 actively. The effect of political conditions upon the 
 social life is especially marked here. In 1911 it was 
 observed that " The decrease in the size of villages had 
 led to an important modification of the custom under 
 which the youngest son inherits his father's village and 
 property. The raison d'etre of this system of inheritance 
 is that elder sons established villages of their own on their 
 marriage. In order to enable them to do so a certain 
 number of headmen or Upas and also of the common 
 people were told off to accompany the young chief and 
 
24 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 form the nucleus of his new village. When all the elder 
 sons had been established in this way, it is not unnatural 
 that the youngest should inherit his father's village and 
 property, and on him rested the responsibility for his 
 mother's support, But while there has been no tendency 
 for chiefs' families to decrease, the average size of villages 
 has been decreased by half, and there are not enough 
 houses to go round among the sons. Indeed, in some 
 cases none of the sons have been able to start a separate 
 village, and it is obvious that under these circumstances 
 inheritance should pass to the eldest son and this change 
 has been readily accepted by the people " (15). 
 
 FOOD-QUEST. 
 
 It is no far cry from the teeming streets of Calcutta 
 to the jungles of Bankura, wherein dwell the Khereyas, 
 whose mode of life is simplicity itself. They make very 
 small huts with the branches of trees thatching them 
 with leaves and using creepers as ropes. They lie down 
 on the bare ground and never use coat or wrapper even 
 in winter. Their most favourite and common food is 
 the boiled roots of creepers, with rice once a day when 
 available. Fire they know and make by friction. Only 
 one or two families live in one jungle, and when the 
 family grows some of them remove to a new jungle. 
 Yet their women are skilful in making very fine mattresses 
 which they sell, but never use ; they know how to sharpen 
 their digging shovels by fire, and work simple leaf 
 bellows (16). Rai Bahadur Sarat Chandra Roy, to whom 
 the science of Indian anthropology owes a great debt, 
 tells us of the Birhors, a jungle folk of Hazaribagh, who 
 have made no progress in fifty years, or none since the 
 days of that great pioneer, Colonel Dalton. They still 
 wander through the jungles in quest of food in small 
 groups of from three to ten families, live in mere impro- 
 vised leaf sheds and subsist on yams, honey, tubers of 
 various kinds, and on the varied produce of the mahua 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 25 
 
 tree. Some settle down, but slender and weak are the 
 ties which fasten them to agriculture. Some revert 
 to the wandering life in the jungle from sheer ennui, 
 others take easy fright and at the slightest ill-treatment, 
 real or fancied, fall back to their old nomad life. Where 
 they do cultivate, it is by burning the jungle, scratching 
 the soil and sowing beans and maize (17). From the 
 same gifted inquirer we learn of the Pahiras, a folk who 
 have now adopted a patois of Bengali as their language, 
 that even to this day most Pahiras have to depend 
 mainly on yams and edible roots and fruits and the 
 corolla of the mahua (Bassia latifolia) which their women 
 gather in the jungles, with some variety from the humble 
 gains of the chase and occasional fishing. To such 
 insects and grubs come not amiss. Simple as is their 
 dress at its best, there are still those who have to wear 
 creeper bark, and there are current traditions of the days 
 not so distant when all wore leaf or bark cloths (18). 
 The bounty of the jungle provides sustenance for the 
 dark-skinned, broad-nosed, short-statured inhabitants of 
 the hills from the Nallamalai range to the Niligiris and 
 on to the hills of Travancore State to Cape Comorin. 
 In them, beyond a doubt, we have specimens of a 
 race which we may call pre-Dravidian, and so avoid any 
 attempt at assigning these interesting peoples to any 
 family of races. 
 
 Set in the path of the monsoon and clothed with 
 dense and lofty forests which generally are filled with 
 evergreen trees covered all over with climbers 
 diversified with patches of deciduous forest, the Andaman 
 Islands are inhabited by a short-statured folk, whose 
 smooth, greasy, satiny skin is an intense black in colour, 
 like a black-leaded stove, whose hair, sooty-black or 
 yellowish-brown in general appearance, grows in small 
 rings on the head, which give it the appearance of growing 
 in tufts. Such is the variety of the yield of forest and 
 sea, whose harvest is never done, that though habitually 
 
26 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 heavy eaters, they never starve, since they find susten- 
 ance in fish, pork, turtle, iguana, wild cat, shellfish, 
 larvae and fruit seeds, roots and honey. Yet when we 
 first went there they did not know how to make fire and 
 showed much skill in so carrying smouldering logs with 
 them by land or sea that they were not extinguished (19). 
 
 In the settled historic South, where Government 
 recognises the rights of the forest tribes to collect and live 
 by the produce of the forests, there are yet folk like the 
 Irulas, whose dietary consists of " roots, wild fruits and 
 honey/' which they gather by " letting themselves down 
 the face of the cliffs at night by ladders made of twisted 
 creepers, who (20) always reject cooked rice, even when 
 gratuitously offered/ 1 But little above them are the 
 Chenchus (21), in the hills of the Kurnool and Nellore 
 districts, the Kadirs (22) of the Animalai hills who like 
 the Veda Malars of Travancore file their teeth, whose 
 women distend the lobes of their ears by massive ear- 
 rings. When a Kadir collects wild honey, he will only 
 do so while his wife or son watches above to prevent any 
 foul play. They have a superstition that they should 
 always return by the way they go down and decline to 
 get to the bottom of the cliff, although the distance may 
 be less and the work of reclimbing avoided. Mr. (now 
 Sir) J. D. Rees, describing the collection of honey by the 
 Kadirs of the southern hills, says that they " descend 
 giddy precipices at night, torch in hand, to smoke out the 
 bees and take away the honey. A stout creeper is sus- 
 pended over the abyss, and it is established law of the 
 jungle that no brother shall assist in holding it " (23). 
 
 How, when, where, and in what circumstances agri- 
 culture had its origin, are questions on which I fear I 
 can throw no light. As I see it, agriculture in the lower 
 culture is not a simple business. It is a complex of 
 many elements, sacrifices, tabus, dances, as well as sowing 
 and weeding. It is the association of these elements, 
 not any single element in the complex, that for the lower 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 27 
 
 culture produces the results. Hence, as it seems to me, 
 we must look for origins in the complex association of the 
 various component elements, the human sacrifice, since 
 we have folk like the Was (24) and Nagas (25) or the 
 Khonds (26) who needed or thought they needed to begin 
 the cultivation with the death of some human being, 
 tabus of a long and oppressive nature, since to the Naga 
 all minor activities are forbidden while the seed is in the 
 soil and the harvest uncut (27), 
 
 A step towards better conditions in the food quest 
 was taken when the simple form of jhum cultivation was 
 introduced : " A tract is cleared by fire, cultivated for a 
 year or two and then abandoned for another tract, where 
 a like process is pursued. Known as Jhum on the 
 North-East Frontier. This is the Kumari of South- West 
 India, the Toungyan of Burma, the dahya of North India. 
 Ponam, or ponacaud of Malabar. In the Philippine 
 Islands it is known as guinges ; it is practised in the 
 Ardennes under the name of sartage and in Sweden under 
 the name of swedjande " (28). It is described by the 
 historian of the New World called America as " the 
 primitive mode of agriculture all over the world and 
 widely practised even yet where virgin forest is abundant, 
 for in such circumstances it is the most economical 
 method becauses it promises the largest net return" (29). 
 
 Alongside of it, in many areas supplementing it, 
 supplanting it, and independent of it, is the system of 
 terraced fields, which are found in Europe, in England, 
 Scotland, Wales and Ireland, (30) as well as in Arabia 
 (31) and America (32). In Manipur, indeed, in one 
 small area, we have " tribes who migrate periodically 
 and practise only the jhum system of cultivation. We 
 have tribes such as the Kabuis (and possibly the 
 Marrings) who keep to the village sites with tenacity, but 
 are compelled to change the area of their cultivation 
 year by year in set rotation. They preserve the memory 
 of other days by taking omens annually to decide the 
 
a8 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 direction in which the cultivation is to be. We have 
 large villages with extensive terraced fields magnificently 
 irrigated with water brought from considerable distances 
 in channels so well aligned that every advantage is taken 
 of any natural slope encountered and awkward corners 
 avoided or turned with admirable ingenuity. But this 
 method of cultivation is not practicable everywhere, and 
 fortunate are the tribes who occupy hills whose declivity 
 is not too steep for such fields. By means of long and 
 assiduous labour a field can be built up and provided 
 with water so that large terraces represent the expendi- 
 ture of a vast amount of energy and farming ability as 
 well as much practical engineering skill." I have ob- 
 served, too, that " when felling the jungle for the jhums 
 it is usual to leave one tree in the middle of the field as a 
 refuge for the tree spirit. Indeed, the scorched, scarred, 
 twisted horror of some of these solitary stumps is enough 
 to account for the belief that some spirit has chosen them 
 as an abode. It is interesting to note the skill with which 
 advantage is taken of the tree logs to employ them as 
 retaining walls to keep the moisture in the ground thus 
 making use of the principle of the terraced field in places 
 where terraced fields are impossible on a large scale." 
 Colonel McCulloch remarks that " Across the fields in 
 parallel lines at no great distance apart they lay the 
 unconsumed trunks of the trees ; these serve as dams to 
 rains and preventives to the soil being carried away with 
 it. In bamboo jungle the bamboo stumps serve the same 
 purpose " (33). In the Khasia Hills " Forest lands are 
 cleared by the process known as j burning, the trees being 
 felled early in the winter and allowed to lie till January 
 or February when fire is applied, logs of wood being placed 
 at intervals of a few feet to prevent, as far as possible, the 
 ashes being blown away by the wind " (34). Exceptional 
 interest attaches to this ingenious method of building 
 up or scarping out the hillside to form terraced fields 
 since they are found all over the world in frequent but 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 29 
 
 not universal association with cultural features such 
 as the erection of stone monuments, sun worship, and the 
 search for wealth, as discussed at length and in careful 
 exposition by Mr. Perry (35). Clearly this is a world 
 problem, and local explanations are of little value. 
 Negative as well as positive evidence has yet to be dis- 
 cussed and its meaning evaluated. The real significance 
 of the frequent but not universal association of jhum 
 cultivation with terraced fields has to be explained. So 
 far as Assam is concerned we now know that people like 
 the Semas, when urged by the Administration to follow 
 the terrace system stated that " they were unable 
 to do so as they did not know the sacrifices for terrace 
 cultivation " (36). The plough is never used ; yet in 
 Manipur they see it in use. Here we have a light thrown 
 suddenly on the minds of the lower culture. Unless the 
 ritual proper to terraced fields is known, it is useless to 
 make the experiment. The sacrifice is part, an integral 
 essential part of the process. When the stars in their 
 courses fight for the old order, not much that is new can 
 be introduced. From the Sema country comes the 
 information that " The heavy rain in 1918, which ruined 
 the millet crop, was put down in Shevekhe village to the 
 irrigation channels dug by a pestilential innovator who 
 wanted to make terraced fields instead of jhuming them 
 like his forebears. The wrathful villagers broke them 
 up " (37). The village Tory muttered " I told you so." 
 I may compare and contrast this recent evidence 
 from the Naga Hills with an experience which I had in 
 a Tangkhul Naga village in Manipur, where I saw a girl 
 whom I had seen the year before in her native village 
 where she was reputed to be a most skilful weaver of cloth. 
 I asked her if she made any cloths of late, and was told 
 that the new village into which she had married in the 
 interval, would not let her make cloths. I asked the 
 village headman why this useful craft was forbidden, 
 and was told that they feared that if they let her do work 
 
30 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 which was right and proper in the village of her birth, 
 they would draw down on them the magic of the other 
 village. Infringement of the patent meant trouble 
 somehow. While we may admire the skill and ingenuity 
 of people in the lower culture who build up these wonder- 
 ful terraced fields, we may ask ourselves whether they 
 understand the process of germination as we do. They 
 have not been brought up on the Epistle of St. Paul to 
 the Corinthians, which might make this mystery as clear 
 to them as it makes other mysteries clear to us. May we 
 regard their position as this ? " We have sown the seed, 
 we have killed the fowls, as is right. In the old days 
 we should have carried a human head round the fields. 
 We have danced the dances, observed the prescribed 
 tabus, gone through the whole ritual as ordained by 
 custom, that is as it was performed by our ancestors who 
 live again in our bodies. Because we have done all 
 these things duly and in order, because each item of the 
 long ritual is, or appears to be, as necessary as any other 
 item in the complex of associated rites, because no item 
 can be omitted, therefore we get the harvest, sometimes 
 tenfold, sometimes fivefold, and sometimes we get no 
 harvest at all." If to this argument the suggestion were 
 made that experiment might be made to see whether any 
 item could be safely left out or modified, the answer 
 would be obvious " Why worry when the known 
 recognised, approved, established methods give all the 
 results desired ? Why run the risk of failure ? Why 
 run the risk of the magic of the other people whose secret 
 we are asked to imitate ? Yet they use matches when they 
 can get them because, as I presume, matches have the 
 prestige of an admittedly superior culture behind them. 
 What comes from people whom they know and regard 
 as at best their equals, more often as their inferiors, has 
 no prestige, is not imitated. What comes to them from 
 a strange culture, regarded as superior and to be imitated, 
 may have prestige partly because it comes from a superior 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 31 
 
 culture or even because it comes from a culture recognised 
 as different to their own. The reasons why this custom 
 is chosen for imitation and that rejected can seldom be 
 ascertained exactly and definitely. The lower culture 
 is what it is because it imposes these restrictions upon 
 itself, because it is illiberal of naturalisation of new ideas, 
 because it is ruled by custom. 
 
 Nor are the conquests won by trouble and difficulty 
 always retained. The force of ancient custom may be 
 too strong, as the Government of India found when trying 
 to cure criminal tribes like the Maghaya Doms (38) by 
 settling them in agricultural communities. The Dom is 
 still a nomad. The settlements, we learn, served as 
 houses for the Women and children, but the men were 
 seldom to be found in them. The Baigas were forbidden 
 to practise the ancient jhum method of cultivation and 
 " attempts made to train them to regular cultivation 
 ... in some villages the Baiga cultivators, if left 
 unwatched, would dig up the grain which they themselves 
 had sown as seed in their fields and eat it " (39). 
 
 Agriculture is not in the lower culture a simple 
 business. Sacrifices have to be offered up, ritual of a 
 long and complex nature has to be performed. All the 
 items are important. None may be omitted. It is a 
 complex of many factors, each of which has validity. 
 Therefore its origins must be sought in a complex of 
 ideas which exhibits the growth and history of the 
 association of the several elements we now perceive in 
 combination. Conditions in India, as far as the typical 
 practices of the lower culture are concerned, do not now 
 afford us much help in our quest for origins. 
 
 In earlier days, no doubt, there were many folk, like 
 the Chenchus who lived in caves ; even now, here 
 and there, are those who use caves as places of temporary 
 habitation (40). In general, the people use and con- 
 struct habitations which are of various degrees of sim- 
 plicity. The Yanadis, who inhabit the Telugu area, a 
 
32 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 dark-skinned broad-nosed people, " live in low conical 
 huts rudely built of bamboo and palmyra leaves, grass or 
 millet stalks, with a small entrance, through which grown 
 up people have to creep (41). In a tanda or settlement of 
 the migratory Birhors the huts are mere improvised leaf- 
 sheds in the form of low triangular kurnbas or straw 
 shelters such as their neighbours the Mundas and the 
 Oraons erect near their rice fields. Each family erects 
 its separate shed or sheds made of branches and leaves. 
 Each of these sheds has one opening, sometimes provided 
 with a door made of branches and leaves (42). Why 
 build more elaborately when in a week or so there will be 
 a move on to another jungle ? When we come to the 
 mountain ranges of Assam, where as we have seen there 
 are in these days tiny hamlets or even solitary huts in 
 the midst of jungle as there are also large well-built 
 villages, there is still a measure of simplicity discernible in 
 the range of material as well as in the methods of con- 
 struction. In the Naga villages are solid houses with 
 plank walls and roofs of heavy thatch. In the jungle 
 the nomad Kuki builds lightly and a habitation of sorts 
 can be erected in a few hours with bamboo mats as walls 
 and with leaves to thatch and keep out the rain. The 
 relaxation of the pressure which kept instinctive nomads 
 like the Lusheis together, has, as we have noted, allowed 
 freer play to the tendency to dispersion, and with that 
 goes a diminution of the architectural skill. The con- 
 struction of the large solidly-built houses involves co- 
 operation, provision of material as well as technical skill. 
 Hence there may be a lessening of these valuable qualities 
 as a result of the weakening of the bonds which drove 
 these people to form large units. 
 
 Intensity of social life seems to go with increase in the 
 size of the social unit and then to diminish by a sort of 
 decreasing return due, perhaps, to difficulties of main- 
 taining communications throughout the unit. Diminu- 
 tion of external pressure may also promote disintegration. 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 33 
 
 One feature of the domestic architecture of the lower 
 culture will require attention, not from its interest as 
 evincing skill in the use of material, but as the most 
 important means of preserving social life. Among the 
 Andamanese (43), among groups such as the Nagas, 
 Lushais, Munda-speaking people of Chota Nagpur, 
 Dravidian tribes of Southern and Central India, Gonds, 
 Khonds, Kurumbas, and in many parts of the world, is 
 found the institution of the Bachelors' Hall where the 
 young men of the community sleep and live. It is 
 often more pretentious* architecturally than private 
 dwelling places, and from that point of view, notable. 
 Its absence in the case of small jungle tribes is an indica- 
 tion of the development of their resources, material as 
 well as mental. Nomadism affords no possibility of the 
 development of an institution such as this, and their 
 circumstances compel them to Nomadism. 
 
 DRESS. 
 
 Such folk as the Andamanese exhibit local variations 
 in the matter of dress, for while Jarawas go naked, others 
 wear a bunch of leaves, or a loose tassel of narrow strips 
 of bark, or a bunching tassel of fibre (44). " No clothing 
 as we understand the word, is worn by either sex ; there 
 are, however, certain so-called ornamental circlets, 
 garters, bracelets, cinctures, and necklaces of bones, 
 wood, or shell, which are its substitute and serve to remove 
 in some measure the impression that they are naked ; 
 these appendages are not worn as symbols of rank or 
 (if we except the ro-gun) of status, and their manufacture 
 devolves always on the females of the community " (45). 
 Absence of clothing as a means of protection against the 
 climate may be intelligible enough in these Islands, 
 where the lowest temperature recorded is 63 and the 
 mean temperature is not less than 70. But in the hills 
 of Assam climatic conditions are different, yet even now 
 (46) there are naked folk. With them as with others 
 
34 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 (47) a cloth is worn when there are strangers about. As 
 typical of the level which has been classified as the 
 figleaf state of society, there are, as Thurston remarks 
 
 (48) some tribes in Southern India who have only recently 
 advanced beyond that state. There are others who are 
 still to be found in that state. The Thanda Pulayans, 
 of Cochin (49) are so called from the thanda garment 
 worn by their females. Thanda is a waterplant (isolepis 
 articulata Nees) the leaves of which are cut into lengths 
 of 2 feet, woven at one end and tied round their waist 
 in such a manner that the strings unwoven hang loosely 
 round the loins up to the knees/' Colonel Dalton 
 records with sombre humour how the Juang girls sat 
 silent in his tent while he discussed customs and religion 
 with the men of the party, till, to his horror, he saw the 
 ladies who " sat nestled in a corner . . . were dropping 
 great tears . . . like dew-drops on the green leaves. 
 Tenderly seeking the cause of their distress he learned 
 that the leaves of their attire were becoming dry, stiff and 
 uncomfortable, and if they were not allowed to go to the 
 woods for a change, the consequences would be serious/' 
 (50). The adoption of cloth by the Juangs was brought 
 about by the persuasive power of Captain, afterwards 
 Major-General Sir James Johnstone, whose Experiences 
 in Manipur and the Naga Hills form an interesting 
 volume. Among the Padam Abors, on the banks of the 
 Dibong River " All females with pretensions to youth 
 wear suspended in front from a string round the loins a 
 row of from three to a dozen shell-shaped embossed 
 plates of bell metal from about six to three inches in 
 diameter, the largest in the middle, the others gradually 
 diminishing in size as they approach the hips. These 
 plates rattle and chink as they move like prisoners' 
 chains. Very young girls except for warmth wear 
 nothing but these appendages but the smallest of the 
 sex is never seen without them, and even adult females 
 are often seen with no other covering " (51). The 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 35 
 
 Ghyghasi-Miris, a poor, meanly-clad, badly-fed, ill-looking 
 people of stunted growth, living in small villages of ten 
 or a dozen houses, built closely together in some position 
 difficult of access, deem their women dressed when wearing 
 only a small petticoat made of filaments of cane woven 
 together, about a foot in breadth and fastened tightly 
 round the loins (52.) 
 
 From the sancta simplicitas of " dress " of this kind 
 I turn to the elaborate costume of an Angami warrior, 
 whose prowess in war and in love, whose status in society 
 can be determined accurately by the distinctions of his 
 dress distinctions as important to him as the " Third 
 pip " to some of us a few years ago. Kilt and tail and 
 cloth and sporran, if I may call it so, are not left to in- 
 dividual choice. Each has a social value, a meaning and 
 a significance (53). 
 
 FIRE-MAKING. 
 
 That curious creature, Neanderthal man whose 
 massive brows, receding chin, big brain, thick 
 neck, loose-limbed with an easy, shuffling gait, make 
 him still an interesting study from the history of the 
 physical evolution of mankind was skilled as a flint- 
 worker, " had fire at his command and buried his dead " 
 (54). Thus as far back as the mid-Pleistocene Age, 
 there was in the world a race of human beings using fire. 
 I know of no tribe which is completely ignorant of fire. 
 (55). The Andamanese "like the quondam aborigines 
 of Tasmania have always been ignorant of the art of 
 producing fire, they naturally display much care and skill 
 in the measures they adopt for avoiding such incon- 
 venience as might be caused by the extinction of their 
 fires. When they all leave an encampment with the 
 intention of returning in a few days, besides taking with 
 them one or more smouldering logs wrapped in leaves if 
 the weather be wet, they place a large burning log or 
 faggot in some sheltered spot where, owing to the 
 character and condition of the wood invariably selected, 
 
36 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 it smoulders for several days, and can be rekindled when 
 required " (56). The production of fire by friction is 
 still practised in two forms by many peoples in India. 
 Indeed, the most sacred fire of Brahmanic Hinduism, the 
 Homa, is produced by this means (57). " In making 
 fire by friction, the Kotas of the Nilgiris employ three 
 forms of apparatus : (1) a vertical and horizontal stick 
 with sockets and grooves, both made of twigs of Rhodo- 
 myrtus tomentosus ; (2) a small piece of the root of Salix 
 tetrasperma is spliced into a stick, which is rotated in a 
 socket in a piece of the root of the same tree ; (3) a small 
 piece of the root of this tree made tapering at each end 
 with a knife or fragment of bottle glass, is firmly fixed in 
 the wooden handle of a drill. A shallow cavity and 
 groove are made in a block of the same wood, and a few 
 crystalline particles from the ground are dropped into 
 the cavity" (58). The sawing method is employed by 
 such people as the Paniyans and Vizagapatam hillmen, 
 who take a piece of dry bamboo, split lengthways, and 
 make a notch in the convex side. A knife edge is then 
 cut on a piece of tamarind wood, shaped to fit the notch. 
 A piece of cloth is laid below the notched bamboo, across 
 which, in the notch, the tamarind wood is drawn violently 
 till dust drops on to the cloth below, till smoke, and 
 finally flame, appears in the cloth (59). The flint and 
 steel are used by the Kadirs (60) and the Irulas (61). 
 It is recorded that " though the Badagas make fire by 
 friction, reference is made in their folk legends, not to 
 this mode of obtaining fire, but to chakkamukhi (flint and 
 steel), which is repeatedly referred to in connection with 
 cremation " (62). Are we to suspect that the use of 
 flint and steel has been superseded by the frictional 
 method, except in the solemnity of funeral rites, pre- 
 served there by reason of its associations ? Iron, we 
 know from the same authority (63), is carried by the son 
 or representative of the deceased as having a " repulsive 
 power over the spirits that hover about the dead/' It 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 37 
 
 may be that iron, a new, strange, powerful material is 
 used for its novelty, just as with the Lusheis the hunter 
 who kills a rhinoceros can escape the penalty of his success 
 by going to the forge while the corpse of a man 
 who has died by accident or by wild animals, if 
 brought into the village at all, which is forbidden in 
 some cases, is " deposited in the forge " (64). Among 
 the Semas it is also advisable to sit on a dao because 
 iron breaks all gennas, the evil effect of the forbidden 
 act being neutralised by the iron of the dao (65). 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting method of firemaking is 
 that by means of the fire piston whose use " extends 
 sporadically over a wide area, from Northern Burma 
 and Siam through the Malay Peninsula and the Malayan 
 Archipelago to its eastern limits in the islands of Luzon 
 and Mindanao in the Philippines " (66). As Sir Edward 
 Tylor observed (67) " There is a well-known scientific 
 toy made to show that heat is generated by compression 
 of air. It consists of a brass tube closed at one end into 
 which a packed piston is sharply forced down, thus 
 igniting a piece of tinder within the tube. It is curious 
 to find an apparatus on this principle (made in ivory, 
 hard wood, etc.) used as a practical means of making fire 
 in Burmah, and even among the Malays." Mr. Henry 
 Balf our, in summarising the evidence, shows that the 
 fire piston was discovered in France in 1802, that it was 
 patented in England in 1807, and was sold in a pocket 
 form by tobacconists in Paris. As he remarks, " The 
 problem is to ascertain whether this peculiar and very 
 specialised method of fire-production was introduced 
 into the oriental regions from Europe, or whether it was 
 invented independently by the little civilized peoples 
 among whom it is found as an appliance of practical 
 everyday use " (68). No very definite conclusion is 
 formulated, perhaps ex abundanti cautela, though in answer 
 to the objection that " It seems almost incredible that so 
 delicate and far from obvious a method can have been 
 
38 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 discovered whether by accident or by gradual develop- 
 ment by any of the eastern peoples amongst whom it has 
 been found in use " our authority recognises that " There 
 is no inherent impossibility in such a double origin, cases 
 of independent invention of similar appliances in widely 
 separated regions having frequently arisen, and " there 
 is no record of introduction by Europeans " (69). The 
 impossibilities of yesterday are the certainties of to- 
 morrow, and while, beyond a doubt, there has been much 
 transmission of culture, without which it is impossible to 
 explain the complexity of existing cultures, I myself 
 am convinced that the extreme advocates of the " trans- 
 mission of culture " tend to overstrain a good case, 
 laying down, as a law without exceptions that in no 
 case be the merits or the circumstances ever so clear 
 may we admit the possibility of independent origins, 
 of convergence or even of singular solutions. 
 
 In the lower, as in the higher culture, the raw 
 materials used by man in satisfaction of his various needs 
 are the products of either the animal or the vegetable 
 or the mineral kingdom. They may be used in the 
 condition in which they are found. They may be used 
 after being subjected to processes controlled by man 
 which range in order of complexity from the application 
 of fire (involving a knowledge of means of making fire) to 
 the combination of long complicated chemical processes 
 in the course of which use is made of methods and 
 knowledge derived from many often very distinct 
 sources. These methods, this knowledge, can be traced 
 back in many cases and dated, chronologically. Even 
 the simple processes the direct processes involve a 
 knowledge which is not immediately given, but can be 
 won only by observation, of the properties of the materials 
 yielded by these three sources. I believe that " In the 
 early stages of culture progress, the stones employed as 
 implements and in the manufacture of implements and 
 other articles, as well also as building stone, were gathered 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 39 
 
 at random wherever they happened to be found on the 
 surface of the ground " (70). The practices of living 
 races may give evidence of the methods and processes 
 employed in the past, as, for instance, that just as in the 
 lower culture men bury food with their dead, because 
 they think the spirit of the dead will need food, so in the 
 distant Palaeolithic age when men buried food with their 
 dead, it was because in those remote days they too 
 believed that the dead man had a spirit, and that it needed 
 and could get benefit from food. I will not now discuss the 
 assumptions which underlie this attitude. In dealing 
 with cultural data it is possible to classify the facts 
 according to the degree of elaboration to which knowledge 
 based on and derived from observation, is used in pro- 
 ducing which is needed and desired, from the raw materials 
 as found in nature. 
 
 The Andamanese use cyrena shells and quartz flakes 
 as cutting instruments and " the more distant tribes 
 still retain the use with scarcely any modification of most 
 of the stone and other implements which served their 
 ancestors " (71) but " maintain that they never, even 
 when iron was scarce, made arrowheads, axes, or adzes 
 or chisels, of stone " (72). They are now aware of the 
 superiority of iron over stone and work pieces of hoop- 
 iron, keel-plate, etc., cold, without application of heat, 
 by simple hammering and grindery on stone anvils and 
 whetstones, with stone hammers, by the processes which 
 were, and are, used to make stone implements. In many 
 parts of the peninsula stone implements are occasionally 
 found, and are commonly regarded as thunderbolts and 
 as endowed with magical qualities (73). Copper imple- 
 ments have been found in the Central Provinces, the 
 Gangetic Valley, and in Burma, where both they and stone 
 weapons are said to be thunderbolts. (75). Such tribes 
 as the Semas use regularly a hoe " made of a piece of 
 pliant wood or bamboo bent into the form of a horseshoe, 
 with the ends prolonged to cross one another, which Mr. 
 
40 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 Hutton considers may be the prototypes of iron hoes of 
 the same shape used by some of the Lhotas and many of 
 the Ao and Konyaks (74). The truth is that wooden 
 as well as stone implements are used largely by tribes 
 who use iron implements and know how to use fire to 
 work iron. From elsewhere, from America (75a) comes 
 the proof of the extraordinary culture in matters of 
 technique that may be reached by people ignorant of 
 metal tools and examination of the products of the lower 
 culture in any good museum will reveal the excellence 
 of the products of what not unfairly may be called the 
 wooden age as distinct from the stone age. 
 
 When Colonel Dalton made the acquaintance of the 
 Juangs, he found them with " no knowledge whatever 
 of metals. They have no iron smiths nor smelters of iron. 
 They have no word in their own language for iron or 
 other metals. They neither spin nor weave nor have 
 they ever attained to the simplest knowledge of pottery." 
 
 (76) In the vocabularies collected for the Linguistic 
 Survey of India the word for iron in Juang is given as 
 luha, a Hindu loan word (77). Yet it is symptomatic of 
 Indian economic policy that iron workers are low down 
 in the scale of precedence because " The iron industry 
 is associated with the primitive tribes who furnished the 
 whole of the metal prior to its importation from 
 Europe " (78). Formerly a flourishing industry it has 
 now sadly diminished, as in the Khasi Hills, owing 
 partly to the competition of iron from England and partly 
 to the denudation of the country of its timber so that 
 charcoal can no longer be made (79). In the Chota 
 Nagpur area in the case of the less advanced groups 
 such as the Kharias the blacksmith is a member of the 
 group, as he is among the Nagas and Lusheis. In larger 
 communities such as the Mundas and Oraons, he is a 
 village official and an outsider. The supplies of the 
 metal (63) (generally in the shape of roughly-worked hoes) 
 are obtained from sources outside. By this dependence 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 41 
 
 on outside supplies some of these backward people come 
 into contact with representatives of superior culture. 
 Iron-smelting demands means to get the high tempera- 
 ture necessary, of devices for tempering and annealing 
 the tools fashioned, and in some cases a knowledge of 
 fluxes and reduction-agents, so that even though, as with 
 the Angamis, the tools actually used by the blacksmith 
 are stones, for anvils and hammers, split bamboos used 
 as tongs and the double piston bellows, made of bamboo 
 tubes and skin packing, the practical knowledge of metal 
 working processes has reached a fair level (80). 
 
 The Andamanese make pots from a particular kind of 
 clay, found only in a few places, where the work is carried 
 on. Strips of kneaded clay from which all stones have 
 been removed, are made by the fingers and palms. The 
 cup-like base, round or sometimes pointed, is first shaped 
 and then the pot is built up, one roll after another being 
 added and pressed to the desired thinness. The vessel 
 is scraped inside and out by a cyrena shell, and wavy, 
 checked or striped designs engraved by means of a pointed 
 stick. It is then placed in the sun or before a fire to dry, 
 and care taken to harden all parts equally. It is then 
 baked by placing burning pieces of wood both inside and 
 around the vessel. The pots so made are of three sizes, 
 the largest seen only in permanent encampments, a 
 medium size which is almost invariably provided with a 
 rough basket work casing, and a small size useful when 
 occasion for a migration as for a death (81). I have 
 seen pots made in circular form by a simple use of the 
 bamboo as a core. ' The clay is slightly damped and 
 then rolled out on a board which is first powdered with 
 fine grit to prevent the clay from adhering too closely. 
 It is then coiled round a bamboo stem and the base of 
 the vessel cut out. At first the shape is that of a plain 
 cylinder. It is then moulded by hand into the curves 
 required, and after a partial hardening in the sun is baked 
 in a furnace outside the village. They make vessels 
 
42 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 of all sizes. These vessels are devoid of any but the 
 simplest ornamentation" (82). Among the Angamis, 
 " pots are only made in certain villages . . . where clay 
 is available. They are modelled from the lump by hand, 
 without the aid of any wheel or implements, roughly 
 round, with a somewhat greater circumference near the 
 base than at the mouth, the lip of which is turned out- 
 wards "(83). 
 
 Among the Lusheis (84) as with the Semas and other 
 Naga tribes (85) only women make pots. 
 
 Wooden vessels, platters, cups, bamboo cylinders, 
 buffalo horns, gourds, leaves, are used in the storage, 
 preparation and consumption of food, and are all articles 
 made from raw materials furnished by the immediate 
 environment. 
 
 These localised and specialised industries such as pot- 
 making, salt working, have a special economic importance 
 since from these centres springs up trade by barter, with 
 the subsequent development of special groups for the 
 transportation to markets and distribution there of these 
 products. It was to procure iron that the Jarawas made 
 their long series of raids on the outlying parts of the 
 Andaman settlement (86). It is to procure iron and salt 
 that the Naga visits the plains (87). Peaceful penetra- 
 tion is effected by simple trade of this sort. The economic 
 effect is to develop specialisation and differentiation of 
 function to lay the foundation of economic organisation 
 which is here presented in its simplest forms. 
 
 1. Marett, Anthropology, p. 169. 
 
 2. Census Report, 1911, vol. i., p. 13 el seq. 
 
 3. Ibid., p. 26. 
 
 4. Ibid., p. 29. 
 
 5. Census Report, 1911, vol. xii., p. 6. 
 
 6. Ibid., p. 16. 
 
 7. Census Report, 1911, vol. xxiii., pp. 22-26. 
 
 8. Report on the condition of the Santals, p. 67. 
 
 9. Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Dec., 1916, p. 3. 
 
 10. Castes and Tribes of Southern India, ii. 389. 
 
 11. Cochin Tribes and Castes, i. 3, 4. 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 43 
 
 12. The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 21. 
 
 13. Ibid., p. 43. 
 
 14. Hutton, The Angami Nagas, p. 358. 
 
 15. Census Report, 1911, vol. iii., p. 138. 
 
 16. Report on the Condition of the Santals, pp. 66, 67. 
 
 17. Journal of the 'Bihar and Orissa Research Society, December, 1916, pp. 1-11. 
 
 18. Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, December, 1920, p. 527- 
 539. 
 
 19. Census Report, 1901, vol. iii., pp. 47-67. 
 
 20. Castes and Tribes of S. India, ii., 383, 389. 
 
 21. Ibid., p. 26 et seq. 
 
 22. Castes and Tribes of S. India, iii., 6 et seq. 
 
 23. Ibid., p. 14. 
 
 24. Gazetteer of Upper Burma, vol. i., part 1, p. 497 et seq. 
 
 25. Hutton, The Angami Nagas, p. 161. 
 
 26. Castes and Tribes of S. India, vol. iii., p. 372 et seq. 
 
 27. Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 166 sq. 
 
 28. Hobson Jobson, s.v. Jhum. 
 
 29. History of the New World called America, i. 333. 
 
 30. The Village Community, p. 75 et seq. 
 
 31. Arabia Infelix, p. 101 sq., picture, p. 103. 
 
 32. History of the New World called America, i. 340. 
 
 33. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 50 et seq. 
 
 34. The Khasis, p. 39. 
 
 35. The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia, passim. See also The Semas, p. 391 sq. 
 
 36. Nature, December 15, 1921, p. 512. 
 
 37. The Sema Nagas, p. 214 n. 
 
 38. The Outcasts, G. R. Clarke, I.C.S., p. 6. 
 
 39. Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, ii. 90. 
 
 40. Castes and Tribes of S. India, iv. 169. (Plate). 
 
 41. Ibid., vii.. p. 422 and p. 427. 
 
 42. Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, December, 1916, p. 5. 
 
 43. Census Report, 1901, p. 61. 
 
 44. Ibid., p. 50. 
 
 45. Man, The Andaman Islanders, pp. 109, 110. 
 
 46. Hutton, Angami Nagas, p. 384-6. 
 
 47. Ethnographic Notes in Southern India, pp. 630-2. 
 
 48. Ibid., p. 624, cf. Crooke in J. R.A.I., xlix., 237 et seq. 
 
 49. Cochin Tribes and Castes, i. 89. 
 
 50. Ethnology of Bengal, p. 155. 
 
 51. Ibid., p. 27. 
 
 62. Ibid., p. 30. 
 
 63. Hutton, Angami Nagas, 28 sq., 364. 
 
 54. Keith, Antiquity of Man, p. 159. 
 
 55. Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 228 sq. 
 
 66. Man, The Andaman Islanders, p. 82. Census Report, 1901, p. 50. 
 
 57. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, ii. 193. 
 
 58. Ethnographic Notes in Southern India, p. 466. 
 
 59. Ibid., p. 469. 
 
 60. Castes and Tribes of S. India, vol. iii. 11. 
 
44 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 61. Ibid., vol. ii. 385. 
 
 62. Ibid., vol. i. 99. 
 
 63. Ibid., vol. i. 119. 
 
 64. The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 103 and p. 86. 
 
 65. The Senta Nagas, p. 180. 
 
 66. Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor, p. 23. 
 
 67. Early History of Mankind, p. 246. (1878 Edn.) 
 
 68. Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor, p. 23. 
 
 69. Ibid., p. 40. 
 
 70. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 60, part 1, p. 155. Cf. Journal 
 Royal Anthropological Institute, vol. 36, p. 13. 
 
 71. Man, Andaman Islanders, p. 159. 
 
 72. Ibid., p. 161. 
 
 73. ERE, xi. 875 d. The Angami Nagas, p. 403 sq. 
 
 74. The Angami Nagas, p. 79, p. 405. 
 
 75. Burmese Sketches, ii. 366. The Khasis, p. 12. The Angami^, p. 404. 
 75a. The American Indian (Clark Wissler), p. 122, p. 243. 
 
 76. Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 153. 
 
 77. Linguistic Survey of India, vol. iv., p. 247. 
 
 78. Tribes and Castes of Central Provinces, iv. p. 123. 
 
 79. The Khasis, p. 58. 
 
 80. The Angamis, p. 63. 
 
 81. The Andaman Islanders, p. 154. 
 
 82. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 48. 
 
 83. The AngaiKis, p. 64. 
 
 84. The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 29. 
 
 85. The Semas, p. 53. 
 
 86. Census Report, 1901, vol. hi., p. 66. 
 
 87. Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal p. 20 Report on the Condition of the 
 Santals. p. 67. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 The Linguistics of the Lower Culture Variability and Imitations The 
 Classificatory System of Relationship Principles of Loans General 
 Characteristics, Concreteness, Lack of Abstracts Effect of General 
 Conditions Phonetics and Tones Education in the Lower Culture 
 Special Linguistics Secret and Special Languages Sign and Gesture 
 Language Tabus on Names as Things Legends and Myths Folklore 
 and Poetry Dances. 
 
 What can we learn of the mental habits of the lower 
 culture by studying the language spoken there ? Shall 
 we learn what will interest us most from the structure 
 of the languages, or from the vocabularies, or from the 
 way in which new ideas or things are dealt with and 
 spoken of ? There is a deal of social history and social 
 effort in every word, since there must at least be a concord 
 between speaker and hearer as to the significance and 
 import of the sounds. Yet as M. Levy Bruhl fitly reminds 
 us, " II est probable que par suite des migrations des 
 melanges des absorptions de groupes les uns par les autres, 
 nous ne rencontrons nulle part une langue correspondant 
 exactement a la mentalite qui s'exprime dans ses repre- 
 sentations collectives " (1). The classical instance of 
 " the rapidity with which a community may change all 
 the characteristics which are generally supposed to 
 indicate its race " (2) is to be found in the tangle of tribes 
 on the North-East Frontier of India, all in a relatively 
 low state of culture, where " in two generations all but 
 the vaguest traces of their origin are lost " (3) . Languages 
 are changed with every few miles of migration. Indeed, 
 it is characteristic of these languages that they soon 
 split up into dialects which are not mutually intelligible. 
 Thus as Hutton tells the tale. Among the Semas " Seven 
 men of different villages happened to meet by the road 
 
46 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 one evening. They asked one another what they had got 
 with them to eat with their rice. Each mentioned a 
 different thing, atusheh, gwomishi, mugishi, amusa, 
 akelhe, etc., including as some understood it, dried fish, 
 meat, and various kinds of vegetables. They agreed to 
 pool their good things and share alike, and sat down pre- 
 pared for a feast, each one thinking how he had scored 
 by agreeing to share with his neighbours. When they 
 opened their loads, they all produced chillies " (3). In 
 the nature of these forms of speech are tendencies to 
 variation and elements making for the formation of 
 dialectical differences, just as there are groups marked 
 by " a peculiar vagabond strain " (4). 
 
 When describing the classificatory system as " one 
 of the great landmarks in the history of mankind/' Sir 
 James Frazer finely puts it that " the distinction between 
 the system of group relationship and the system of indi- 
 vidual relationship coincides, broadly speaking, with the 
 distinction between savagery and civilisation ; the 
 boundary between the lower and the higher strata of 
 humanity runs approximately on the line between the 
 two different modes of counting kin, the one mode 
 counting it by groups the other by individuals. Reduced 
 to its most general terms, the line of cleavage is between 
 collectivism and individualism ; savagery stands on the 
 side of collectivism ; civilisation stands on the side of 
 individualism " (5). I myself have found that what 
 affects one member of a social group is believed to affect 
 others of his social group, so that " The sense of social 
 solidarity is such that all members of the social unit are 
 constrained by custom to regard the tabued object as 
 potentially dangerous by them, and therefore to be 
 avoided" (6). Thus in studying the cases, as we find 
 them in India, where the classificatory system either in 
 full vigour or in a modified but still identifiable form, 
 continues to indicate the structure of social units and 
 their relations, we may note this expression of social 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 47 
 
 mentality as conclusive evidence of the social interests 
 of the groups examined. 
 
 It has long been known that " The Dravidians are 
 in possession of a complete and typical system of the 
 classificatory or group system of relationship " (7). Much 
 has to be done ere we can determine the part which the 
 South of India has played in the long past in shaping the 
 social scheme as it now exists for " many of the greatest 
 Hindu teachers were Dravidians and at the present day 
 it is in the Dravidian region that the temples are most 
 splendid, the Brahmans strictest and most respected "(8). 
 Among the Birhors, that broken wandering folk of the 
 hills and jungles of Chota Nagpur, Sarat Chandra Roy 
 finds the classificatory system in force, with special 
 features due to clan exogamy and the recognition of 
 kinship through the father's side (9). The evidence of 
 "language" is striking and unmistakeable. "The 
 Birhor uses the same kinship term (Mamu) for his 
 mother's brother and his father's sister's husband, and 
 similarly the same term (Hatom) is used for the father's 
 sister and the mother's brother's wife and to this day 
 cross-cousin marriage in which these two relationships 
 are combined in one and the same person, is not un- 
 known in this tribe " (10). From the most backward 
 of the tribes speaking Munda languages I turn to the 
 Khasis, the most advanced, at any rate in linguistic 
 power, of this group and there find a prohibition against 
 the marriage with a daughter of a man's mother's 
 brother so long as that uncle is alive (11). By reason of 
 this notable prohibition, due, as I think, to the develop- 
 ment of Khasi society on special lines (12) there is no 
 common term for maternal uncle and father-in-law as 
 in the cases such as Garo, where these marriages are pre- 
 scribed or preferred. But as evidence of the order of 
 things which once existed, this relation, 'U Kni, as he is 
 called, is also the husband of the father's sister, thus pre- 
 serving an archaic feature of social structure. In the 
 
48 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 term Kha for male relations, we have direct evidence of 
 the recognition of male kinship side by side with a matri- 
 lineal system developing from conditions still prevailing 
 among the Garos. Among the Sema Nagas, " If other- 
 wise suitable, marriage with the mother's brother's 
 daughter, or father's sister's son, is preferred " (14). 
 This preference finds expression in the use of one and the 
 same term Angu, for mother's brother and wife's father 
 and of the same term Ani (which is a common Naga and 
 Kuki form) for the father's sister, and the husband's 
 mother (15). Sema terms of relationship exhibit curious 
 features which may be due to the extraordinary social 
 history of this very mixed people (16). Thus in Dravi- 
 dian, in Munda and in Tibeto-Burman forms of speech 
 are preserved linguistic forms which can be correlated 
 with modes of social structure, typically associated with 
 lower culture. 
 
 Nothing in their experience can be more " concrete " 
 more direct and constant in interest than the behaviour 
 which by social custom they have to observe towards other 
 members of the group in which they live. Thus the classi- 
 fication of persons with whom by marriage and by the 
 rules relating to marriageability they have special 
 relations, is obviously a matter of prime interest, since 
 the " classificatory system," as it is called, of relation- 
 ship is found in its most notable forms among people 
 whose languages afford evidence of a very low power of 
 classification in general. Only the special prominence 
 given in social attention to the matters which are 
 associated by custom with the various relations, can 
 explain this feature of their mental life, and it behoves 
 us to search diligently for the principles on which the 
 classificatory system is based, a task to which I shall 
 return later when discussing social structure. 
 
 On what principle does one language borrow words 
 from another ? We read that " Whereas other Nagas 
 readily borrow new words from Assamese or Hindustani 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 49 
 
 and assimilate them into their own tongue (this is parti- 
 cularly noticeable in Sema) the Angami invents a word 
 of purely Angami form. Thus an Angami speaks of a 
 steamboat as mi-ru, literally fire-boat, while the Sema 
 who on the Angami principle could perfectly well coin the 
 word ami-shuka, would never dream of using anything 
 but jahaz, even when speaking in his own tongue to other 
 Semas. Similarly, while the Angami always speaks of a 
 gun as Misi (= fire-stick) the ordinary word used by the 
 Sema is alika, which really means the cross-bow used by 
 his Chang and Sangtam neighbours, or mashcho, which 
 seems to be borrowed from the Angami word " (17). 
 In a note we find that " Some Angamis who went with 
 the Naga Labour Corps to France saw aeroplanes for 
 the first time, but were at no loss at all for a word, dubbing 
 them kepronya (= flying machines) without hesita- 
 tion " (18). Is there anything to show why one group 
 should borrow freely from foreign sources while its 
 neighbour should ingeniously invent words true to the 
 current form ? Am I wrong in saying that we have cases 
 of word formation on natural principles in instances such 
 as the Kukis who give the name Miaocha to the harmless 
 necessary cat ? There are Munda speaking folk who call 
 it Pusi (19). There are descriptive words such as 
 cheklaobi, the Meithei for a snipe which means the bird 
 that calls chek chek. There are words which enshrine a 
 local myth as the Meithei Nong-Thang-Kuppa, the flash 
 of the Rain God's dao. 
 
 I remember my interest in this aspect of mental 
 activity when a Thado Kuki, who was quite unacquainted 
 with tents, without hesitation described my tent as 
 " pdn-in " literally cloth-house, as do the Angamis, 
 Lhotas, Semas and Changs (letter from Mr. Hutton). 
 As a matter of curiosity upon comparing the various 
 words for gun in the hill dialects, I find that the Meithei 
 calls it Nongmei, meaning thunder-fire, the Lushei calls 
 it Si-lai, the Lakher call it Mei-Thei-Paw, the Thado 
 
5o PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 call it Mepum, while in Kachin a flint lock is Miba. The 
 word for fire, mei, appears in these words, including 
 the Kachin form, though the actual word for fire in 
 Kachin seems to be wan, which seems to be related to 
 the form ban, commonly meaning sky in many dialects. 
 Whatever the exact meaning of the Lushei word, silai, 
 it is clearly a local word. In Chang it is nemthing iron 
 tube. Konyak and Ao have words of the same import. 
 In Ao it is prang-pung, said to mean the prang tube, 
 an onomato-poeic compound. We may therefore con- 
 clude that all these people drew on the resources of their 
 own language for a word for gun, using various methods, 
 analogy, visual and auditory description, concrete de- 
 scription, etc. Yet the thing itself came to them from 
 external sources. To turn to another area and another 
 linguistic family, I find that the word for iron in Santali 
 and Mundari Mdrhdt (20) conforms to local structure, but 
 in the broken speech of folk such as the Birhors, the 
 Juangs and Kharrias (21) who all get their supplies of 
 the metal from Bengali traders, it is loha, an Indo-Aryan 
 iron word. The Santals and Mundas are people who 
 have developed a strong economic system, and are able 
 to maintain themselves and their institutions against 
 external pressure more successfully than feeble folk like 
 the Birhors. The village smith is a member in many 
 cases of the group, not an outsider. It is quite legitimate 
 to infer that many groups in the lower culture are able 
 of their own material in their own speech, to invent 
 new words to describe new objects. But before we can 
 formulate any definite principle for the preference in any 
 given case of a loan word over a word of indigenous 
 fabrication the general circumstances of the intercourse 
 between the groups have to be known, and it is possible 
 that as in the case of other novelties weight must be 
 allowed to the prestige factor. 
 
 As to the general characters of languages of the lower 
 culture in India, Sir George Grierson says of the Munda 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 51 
 
 languages that " they belong to that class which possesses 
 a richly varied stock of words to denote individual things 
 and ideas, but is extremely poor in general and abstract 
 terms. ... In a similar way nouns denoting relation- 
 ship are seldom conceived in the abstract, but a pro- 
 nominal suffix restricting the sphere of the idea is usually 
 added " (22) . The languages of the hills of Assam (except 
 Khasi, which is a member of the Austric family and has 
 evolved on distinct lines, arriving at a grammatical device 
 by means of which at will any root can be treated as an 
 abstract) exhibit the same characters, the richly varied 
 stock of words, the absence of abstract terms, the rigid 
 definition of relationship terms by pronominal prefixes 
 (23). Precisely the same phenomenon is found in other 
 parts of the world as in America and in Melanesia where, 
 as Dr. Rivers tells us (24) " The nouns which take the 
 true possessive pronoun in Melanesia are of three kinds ; 
 terms of relationship ; terms for parts of the body, and 
 terms denoting expecially close possession." To the 
 trend towards individual ownership and individual rela- 
 tions which were started by the contact of the indigenous 
 inhabitants with immigrants who disturbed the com- 
 munal organisation of the country they invaded, are 
 ascribed these features of Melanesian linguistics. In 
 the same way the importance of the body, due to foreign 
 ideas, gave " to parts of the body that social interest 
 which made a definite system of nomenclature necessary." 
 Be it remembered in this connection that terms of 
 relationship are classificatory, so that " The term ' father ' 
 for instance, is applied to all those whom the father 
 would call brother, and to all the husbands of those whom 
 the mother calls ' sister/ both brother and sister being 
 used in a far wider sense than among ourselves 1 ' (25). 
 The trend towards individualisation which is civilisation 
 is variously marked. As to individual ownership of 
 property, while there are evidences of communal rights 
 in certain forms of property, as where thatching grass 
 
52 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 " is usually village or clan property " (26), it may be said 
 to be well established, since it extends to " special trees 
 though they may grow on the land of another person 
 so much so that a dispute will arise as to the ownership 
 of a tree which is actually growing on the ground of a 
 third person not a party to the dispute " (27). The 
 use of possessive affixes to parts of the body which, after 
 all, survives in our own speech since we say, " I have 
 washed my hands/' when a Frenchman says, " I have 
 washed the hands/' may be susceptible of the simple 
 explanation that the most elementary advance in con- 
 sciousness is that of self as distinct from other members 
 of the same group, so that the use of possessives would 
 follow on this fact. Languages such as Santali have 
 preserved forms of inclusive and exclusive plurals, which 
 might, as in Melanesia, " have arisen through a definite 
 social need, a need for the distinction between acts 
 performed by one or both of two peoples living in close 
 intercourse with one another and yet preserving in large 
 measure their own customs and interests " (28). The 
 features of Santali society, composed of clans each 
 marked from the others by separate " passwords/' and 
 separate group worship, with strong social solidarity 
 may be deemed to afford the elements required for the 
 social need called in to explain this phenomenon in 
 Melanesia. 
 
 At the same time Naga society is composed of clans, 
 each acting as independent social units in many matters 
 of social interest, but there seem to be no precise in- 
 dications of the use of the linguistic device of inclusive 
 and exclusive plurals among Naga tribes. It may be 
 that the device exists but has not been recorded. It 
 may be that it does not exist because the Naga tribes on 
 their travels from their original home have absorbed 
 other groups on terms of equality. Intermarriages, the 
 practice of local rather than clan exogamy and the 
 development of sub-groups (29) may also explain the 
 absence of this feature. 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 53 
 
 What, then, are we to make of the habit of mind dis- 
 closed by the possession of a " richly varied vocabulary " 
 in which '" the different varieties of some particular 
 animal are denoted by means of different terms where 
 we should use one and the same word " ? Can we be 
 satisfied with the explanation that it is the outcome of 
 " a tendency to coin a separate word for every individual 
 concrete conception " ? As Sir George Grierson reminds 
 us in the passage from which I have quoted, " This 
 peculiarity is shared by most languages spoken by tribes 
 in a primitive stage of civilisation (30). This tendency 
 to concreteness of expression is associated intelligibly 
 enough with a poverty of abstract ideas, or rather of 
 linguistic devices to express abstract ideas which may be 
 a different thing. In estimating the nature and extent 
 of this tendency to concreteness of expression, be it 
 remembered that evidence of the power of these groups 
 of the lower culture to classify and systematise their 
 conditions in linguistic expression is afforded by the 
 existence among them of the classificatory system in whole 
 or in part. Be it also remembered that as we have seen 
 they extend their field of experience by allowing equal 
 even superior validity to dreams and other impressions 
 derived from the uncontrolled activities of the lower levels 
 of consciousness which they interpret either conven- 
 tionally or by reference to special persons which has much 
 the same practical effect as the conventional method. It 
 is clear that every individual specimen of any one of the 
 varieties of some particular animal (which varieties are 
 denoted by means of different terms), will be described 
 by the same term as any other individual member of the 
 same variety, and be identified with all the other indivi- 
 dual members of that variety. " In Lushei we find nine 
 words for ' ant ' and twenty different translations of 
 the one word ' basket/ J There are doubtless nine 
 kinds of ant which an expert entomologist would classify 
 correctly, but they are different kinds. There are many 
 
54 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 uses to which a basket may be put and the shape and 
 size of basket suitable for one purpose are not suitable 
 for other purposes. They are different things, and are 
 spoken of and recognised as different things. The 
 " interest " differs in each case, in kind as in degree. 
 After all, systematists in modern science do not appear 
 to be in perfect accord at all times in all matters pertaining 
 to their craft, so that the evidence of the nature and extent 
 in the lower culture of classification in matters of special 
 interest has peculiar value to us in forming a correct 
 estimate of their conditions. 
 
 The test is a fair one, since the language of a group is 
 significant in a high degree of the mental life of that 
 group. By this test, then, the lower culture is char- 
 acterised by definite features in its linguistics, and in 
 framing further estimates of their activities in other 
 directions the evidence of linguistics as to the concrete- 
 ness of their mental attitudes must be taken into account. 
 
 We know something in this country of the idea that 
 " Le progres de la civilisation s'est produit par une action 
 reciproque de la main sur 1'esprit et de 1'esprit sur la 
 main " (31). It is characteristic of this level of culture 
 where there is no machinery that everything tends to be 
 individual, distinct. May I quote myself once again ? 
 A chance remark may let in more light than all the careful 
 inquiries and systematic notes. I was once in a village 
 far from the beaten track and had shown them the 
 magic lantern. I had given them practical illustrations 
 of the utility of a repeating pistol ; I had amused them 
 with a galvanic battery, and when all was over, I was 
 enjoying their hospitality by the camp fire and had 
 listened to tales of the bad old days when they were left 
 severely alone by restraining influences. The conversa- 
 tion flagged until I asked a man who had hung about me 
 all day what of all that I had shown was the most sur- 
 prising to him. That started a discussion which ended 
 in a verdict that the strangest thing that the Sahib-log 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 55 
 
 had brought within their ken was coined money, and on 
 further inquiry I found that its uniformity was the special 
 feature which had so excited their interest. Nor is this 
 to be wondered at, for at the level of their civilisation 
 all their crafts are innocent of machinery ; everything 
 they make tends to variety, everything is individual. 
 This feature of their material life is reflected in their 
 language, for they have a separate name for articles and 
 actions which we classify together. They insist on the 
 points of difference while we classify by identities" (32). 
 
 A chance incident may reveal a social ideal. I was 
 busy learning Thado Kuki and had reached the stage 
 where " useful phrases/' conversational small talk were 
 being acquired. I asked of my interpreter what is the 
 Thado for I have enough to eat. Ka-va-tai. Now what 
 is the Thado for I have enough to drink Zu ka-kam-tai. 
 Proud in the possession of polite useful phrases, I went 
 on, and reached my next village ahead of my coolies and 
 interpreter. As in duty bound, they brought out stoops 
 of zu, for the rice beer is refreshing to a weary man, and 
 when I had had a glass I tried the new phrase. Zu ka- 
 kam-tai, I said, gracefully waving away the dusky 
 Hebe. The village immediately dissolved into laughter, 
 and I feared I had said something improper when I 
 merely meant to be grateful. When the interpreter 
 arrived I asked him what " zu ka-kam-tai " meant. 
 Huzur, he said, it means to be dead drunk. Then I 
 saw that the limit of saturation for a Kuki was not mine, 
 in the matter of rice beer. 
 
 A word as to what may be learnt from a study of the 
 phonetics and of the grammar of languages of the lower 
 culture. There are preserved by groups of the lower 
 culture methods of using sound which have either been 
 discarded or have never been possessed by more advanced 
 groups. There are phonetic differences which, as Dr. 
 Rivers surmised of those characterising Melanesian 
 languages, " must be due to definite structural differences 
 
56 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 in the organs of speech, and it is most unlikely that these 
 could be produced by such differences of environment 
 as exist within the regions " (33). Thus far-reaching 
 identifications may be effected by the scientific investiga- 
 tion and correlation of phonetic data, especially those 
 recorded among groups of the lower culture, since, as 
 Mr. Richards has urged, " the typical Jungle Tribe of 
 South India does not speak a typical Dravidian tongue, 
 but a grotesque caricature of it" (34). 
 
 As to the more prominent features of social mentality 
 as they seem to be revealed by the set forms or gram- 
 matical structure of languages of the lower culture, I 
 do not think we shall ever reach a true estimate of the 
 real significance of the social effort involved in the 
 establishment of so many different organised modes of 
 communicating with fellow men, members of the same 
 social group, as to common needs, until we depart fully 
 from our own traditionalism. It ought to be possible, as 
 Sir Richard Temple urged years ago, to frame a theory of 
 Universal grammar (35). Various are the devices which 
 are used in the lower culture for grammatical purposes. 
 Complexity marks the methods of the Andamanese 
 dialects where they use prefixes whose function is purely 
 to modify the meaning of a root, and so to form, in 
 combination with the root, a pure stem, (36) prefixes to 
 indicate personal possession of an intimate nature, where 
 there is classification (an important piece of evidence of 
 their mental power) of things animate and inanimate. 
 Or take the Santali verb whose mysteries are sketched in 
 outline by Sir George Grierson (37) and consider the 
 ingenuity of a language which can convert any word 
 into a verb by adding a simple suffix. Or again, in the 
 Tibeto-Burman dialects there are languages with a 
 wealth of tones (38), others that employ determinatives 
 to bring out shades of meaning with a remarkable pre- 
 cision (39), others, again, using couplets, grammatical 
 complexity and grammatical order, but all efficient in 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 57 
 
 their purposes. But all this comes slowly ; these pheno- 
 mena are the work of many generations. There have 
 been changes, for in the songs and popular ritual formulas 
 are preserved archaic modes of speech often now so 
 mutilated as to have become completely unintelligible. 
 Rich is the harvest which awaits the scholar who shall 
 take in hand the comparative analysis of the archaic 
 speech as preserved in the song and ritual of the lower 
 culture and trace the life history of the speech, for there is 
 a " biology of speech," and laws of that science can be 
 best discovered by examination of the lower culture and 
 its forms of speech, for which there is available much 
 material from India. Nor are we concerned only with 
 the diversity and range of linguistic devices as evidence 
 of the power of the human mind. They afford evidence 
 of the strength and constancy of social life. Thus special 
 importance attaches to the institutions created in and 
 by society by means of which the education of the lower 
 culture is carried on and the traditions preserved without 
 the artificial aid of writing. The elements are often 
 obvious enough which make for variation and modifica- 
 tion of the mental life of the lower culture, but at the 
 same time the elements and factors in social life which 
 make for continuity and stability possess a vitality and 
 vigour altogether remarkable. 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 The educational system of the lower culture is simple. 
 It centres in an Institution known as the Men's House, 
 which, as Hutton Webster has shown, is of world-wide 
 occurrence (40). In India we know it as the Morung or 
 Kichuki of the Nagas (41) ; the Pakhonval of the 
 Meitheis (42) ; the Nokpante of the Garos (43) ; the 
 Zawl-buk of the Lushais (44) ; the Mandaghar of the 
 Bhuiyas (45) ; the Giti-ora of the Mundas and Birhors 
 (46) ; the Jonkh-erpa of the Oraons, Malers, Maria 
 Gonds, Kandhs (47), the Gotalgarh of the Gonds of 
 
58 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 Chattisgarh and the Feudatory States (48), while the 
 Kurumbas know it as "the pundugar chavadi, meaning 
 literally the abode of vagabonds " (49). It is not uni- 
 versal since the Santals have it not. They have, however, 
 a village official, the Jagmanjhi, " whose most important 
 duty is apparently to look after the morals of the boys 
 and girls, and if he is at all straightlaced, they must often 
 lead him a hard life of it ... and Jagmanjhis have 
 admitted to me that they have plenty of such love affairs 
 to arrange " (50). The Khasis do not have this, but they 
 are acquainted with it among their neighbours, the Bhois 
 and Lalungs, for they have a special word, ka trang (51) 
 for it. The Andamanese Jarawas, the widest group, 
 build in the rains a communal hut, which shelters several 
 families (52), and custom demands that "even at the 
 homes they are careful to maintain this order, viz., of 
 placing the bachelors and spinsters at either end of the 
 building and the married couples in the space be- 
 tween " (53). Among the Meitheis the house itself is 
 no longer built, but the words, Pakhonval and Ningonval, 
 show that they once possessed this institution, and they 
 still have village officers, the Pakhonlakpa and Ningon- 
 lakpa, who correspond to the Jagmanjhi of the 
 Santals (54). It is disappearing among Nagas, for we 
 find that with the Semas " It is occasionally found in a 
 miniature form not unlike a model of a Lhota morung. 
 Such a model is often built in times of scarcity, the under- 
 lying idea apparently being that the scarcity may be due 
 to the village having neglected to conform to a custom 
 which has been abandoned. ... A miniature morung 
 of this sort is always built when a new village is made (55). 
 " In these days when alarms and excursions are no 
 longer in the order of things, it is only used " on the 
 occasions of ceremonies and gennas which, by traditional 
 usage, call for a house definitely allotted to the young 
 men of the clan. ... At other times it is used merely 
 as a casual resort for the village bucks and perhaps as 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 59 
 
 an occasional sleeping place . . . among the Memi they 
 are used by the young girls as well as the young 
 men both in some cases using the same house, the young 
 men sleeping on an upper shelf and the girls below them. 
 The publicity probably entails great propriety of be- 
 haviour " (56). It was a guard house. It was the 
 sleeping place of the men of the community except the 
 very old, who alone were allowed to sleep in the village. 
 The Old Kukis (Chiru, Kom and Tikhup) allowed no 
 woman to enter these buildings (56a). Its social 
 importance lies in the fact that it was " a useful seminary 
 for training young men in their social and other duties and 
 an institution for magico-religious observances calculated 
 to secure success in hunting and to augment the procrea- 
 tive power of the young men " (57). The Pax Brit- 
 annica, the spread of Christian morality, economic 
 progress have contributed to the decay of the institution 
 which had its abuses as well as its uses (58). There are 
 grades, age-grades, in the adolescent life. Thus among 
 the Oraoris a boy is admitted at about 11 or 12 years of 
 age, when he is called a Puna Jokhar. Three years later 
 he becomes a Majh-turia Jokhar or lad of the middle 
 grade, in which he stays for three years at the end of which 
 he becomes a Koha Jokhar, retaining his membership of 
 the Institution to all intent and purposes till he has one 
 or two children (59). 
 
 The interesting feature is that the education in social 
 matters is largely carried on by the adolescents them- 
 selves, orally and by example, on purely traditional lines. 
 
 The formation of special groups, isolated by social 
 reasons, within a society, leads to specialisation in the 
 use of words of the common stock and as Meillet (60) has 
 shown, the opposite is true, viz., that a word may pass from 
 a special group to the common stock. The lack of econo- 
 mic specialisation in the lower structure is characteristic. 
 But equally characteristic are the clearly marked divisions 
 by age and sex, by social standing, by relationship, so 
 
60 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 that there are features in the social life of the lower 
 culture which, given the necessary conditions, would 
 facilitate special linguistic developments by specialisa- 
 tion consequent on parallel, conterminous or aterminous 
 associations. Thus as a result of the special functions 
 which women perform in the social economy, there have 
 developed in many groups special words used only by 
 women, whose influence as a factor producing variation 
 would be enhanced by the possibility of local exogamy, 
 bringing in women of alien stock, as mothers, directing 
 the early education of the young. 
 
 There are secret languages as with the Todas (61), 
 who are often brought into intercourse with Badagas and 
 Tamils, from whom they seek by this means to keep their 
 conversation secret. Mr. Hutton finds that " There is a 
 practice which seems to be known in most Sema villages 
 of inverting or altering the order of words in a sentence 
 or of syllables in a word, so as to make the language 
 meaningless gibberish to anyone not knowing the slang. 
 There does not seem to be any fixed system on which 
 this is done. . . . There does not seem to be any very 
 real advantage gained by the use of this slang beyond 
 that of being able to irritate one's neighbours who do 
 not know it, by speaking it in their presence. ... At 
 the same time it is said that the Sema slang is used with 
 some effect in trade, as it is possible for one man to warn 
 another that the price asked by a third is too high. . . . 
 This slang is also said to be useful in intrigues and un- 
 doubtedly is used to make offensively personal remarks 
 and to abuse strangers who do not understand it. ... 
 In one Sema village, apparently the only one, Aichis- 
 agami, the whole village has acquired this slang, and to 
 such an extent that it has almost become the ordinary 
 language of the village and is normally used by the people 
 of the village in speaking to one another. . . . The 
 result of this in Aichisagami has been the production of 
 secondary slangs based on the first, which are spoken by 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 61 
 
 a number of the villagers in the same way that what may 
 be called primary slang is used in other villages (62)." 
 This is perhaps an exceptional case, but it gives an indi- 
 cation of a way in which the diversity of dialects char- 
 acterising this area may have arisen, and the alterations 
 may, it is clear, extend to the order of the words, thus 
 modifying the structure as a whole. 
 
 Can we say that the languages of the lower culture 
 as I have sketched them, are on an artificial not a natural 
 basis of thought ? Is there any relation between the 
 spoken language and what is called the language of signs ? 
 Pieces of charred wood, chillies, bullets, stones, splintered 
 bamboos, all these things are used as messages (63), whose 
 import, whose meanings as symbols, are clear to all. 
 Perhaps with development of graphic art, this method 
 of communication may become more extended. But it is 
 to the use of sign or manual language that I must turn. 
 Parler avec les mains, c'est a la lettre, dans une certaine 
 mesure, penser avec les mains. ... Si done la langue 
 orale decrit et dessine, dans le dernier detail, les positions, 
 les mouvements, les distances, les formes et les contours, 
 c'est que le langage par gestes emploie precisement ces 
 moyens d'expression (64). " Among the Angami Nagas 
 the language of signs has reached a high state of develop- 
 ment . . . indeed the writer has known a dumb man 
 make a long and detailed complaint of an assault in which 
 nothing was missing except proper names, and even these 
 were eventually identified by means of the dumb man's 
 description of his assailants dress and personal appear- 
 ance "(65). 
 
 This visual language is not symbolic, not as the 
 message system referred to above, but is descriptive and 
 concrete. Herein we may ponder the findings of the 
 French linguist who holds that " Le langage visuel est 
 probablement aussi ancien que le langue auditif . . . 
 la plus part des langages visuels en usage aujourd'hui 
 sont simplement derives du langage auditif" (65a). 
 
62 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 Words are possessed of a concreteness, a value, a 
 significance in social life such that it is sometimes custo- 
 mary to place a ban upon words which by their associa- 
 tion with sacred things or persons are thought to be able 
 to influence the affairs of man. Thus a tabu is placed 
 by the Mai Saren Santals on the word mat " when engaged 
 in a religious ceremony or when sitting on a panchayat 
 to determine tribal questions " (66) at the moments 
 when their membership of the group is in special promin- 
 ence. A Savara has no name for a numeral above twelve 
 because " One day, long ago, some Saoras were measuring 
 grain in a field, and when they had measured 12 measures 
 of some kind, a tiger pounced in on them and devoured 
 them " (67). I know of a village whose chief, a religious 
 rather than a secular authority, if such a distinction be 
 in any degree valid, " must not use abusive language to 
 anyone whatever the provocation, nor must he lay an 
 imprecation on anyone " (68) because so sacred is he as 
 the man of the village that his word would have power 
 to destroy since his words and acts are needed to make 
 the village prosper. 
 
 Among the Angamis, " Bad language must be avoided 
 while a child's first cloth is being woven, as if bad language 
 is used under such circumstances the child that wears 
 it will be affected for the worse " (69). Variations in 
 the factors which regulate the formation of social values 
 would thus find expression in variations of linguistic 
 values. 
 
 LEGENDS AND MYTHS; 
 
 I have described the languages of the lower culture 
 in India as preserved without the " artificial aid of 
 wilting/ 1 There is, however, current among the hill 
 tribes of Assam (70) a myth that they once possessed this 
 art but lost it because they used skins while their more 
 prudent neighbours used boards. One day the dogs 
 got at the skins, ate them all, and so destroyed forever 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 63 
 
 the art. One tribe points to a bodkin now used to pin 
 their hair up as the pen they once owned and also as part 
 of the same myth tell how, " to distinguish the sexes 
 apart, the men tied their hair in front while the women 
 tied it behind. . . . The men shortened their cloth and 
 made it into a waistcloth, while the women lengthened 
 their cloth, making of it a petticoat." Arts as useful 
 as that of writing have been lost (71). It is often possible 
 that there may be some shred of truth in these narratives 
 which are told as true, as giving an account of a noted 
 and notable, if negative, feature in their social environ- 
 ment, and are therefore classifiable as myths. What 
 made them think it necessary for them to account for 
 their ignorance of writing ? What made them accept 
 this account of their loss of the art ? As I said of another 
 tale, " We may infer that the particular mechanism of 
 the explanation was selected and the explanation itself 
 accepted because they were in harmony with popular 
 ideas of causation as regards social phenomena of this 
 order. It gives us a glimpse into the minds both of those 
 who invented the tale and of those who accepted it and 
 adopted it as article of faith (72). There clearly has 
 been contact with a society which practises the art of 
 writing, such as the Meithei culture, but as evidence of 
 the mentality which accepts as valid such a tale, it is 
 specially interesting. Risley records Santal myths 
 "concerning the origin of the five additional septs. . . . 
 The eighth tribe, Baske, at first, belonged to the seven, 
 but by reason of their offering their breakfast (baske) to 
 the gods while the Santals were still in Champa they were 
 formed into a separate sept under the name of Baske. 
 The Besras (No. 9) were separated on account of the 
 immoral behaviour of their eponym, who was called 
 Besra, the licentious one. The tenth sept, Pauria, are 
 called after the pigeon and the eleventh, Chore, after the 
 lizard ; and the story is that on the occasion of a famous 
 tribal hunting party the members of these two tribes 
 
64 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 failed to kill anything but pigeons and lizards, so they were 
 called after the names of these animals. The twelfth sept, 
 the Bedea, was left behind and lost when the Santals 
 went up out of Champa. They had no father, so the 
 story goes at least the mother of their first ancestor could 
 not say who the father was and for this reason they were 
 deemed of lower rank than the other septs." (73) These 
 tales are good evidence that Santals consider themselves 
 able to accept some irregular mode of worship, specially 
 licentious behaviour, signally poor luck in hunting on a 
 conspicuous occasion, or illegitimacy, as grounds for the 
 formation of a new group. It is psychological evidence 
 as regards the people who regard these accounts of social 
 divisions as adequately explained by the tale. It is not 
 historical evidence that the divisions were created under 
 the circumstances stated. Of tales whose purpose would 
 seem to be purely aesthetic, there is a store collected from 
 all over India. They may be classified as Contes, " those 
 which seem to be told, not for the explanation of any 
 custom or the handing down of any record, but simply 
 and solely for the sake of the tale itself. Here are fairy 
 tales, animal stories, and cynical observations of human 
 foibles " (74). As psychological documents they possess 
 a significance apart from any evidence yielded by them 
 incidentally for " When a social condition is mentioned 
 incidentally, or is revealed by the general colouring of a 
 myth we can be confident that it is not the pure product 
 of imagination, but has a definite historical value " (75). 
 In the folk tales told by the people as amusement, for 
 their aesthetic value, resides a mass of interesting informa- 
 tion, and one of the puzzles of scientific anthropology 
 is to account for the distribution in many parts of the 
 world of identical tales. Have they travelled during the 
 long ages from one common centre or are they the pro- 
 ducts of the human mind working on similar experiences, 
 attaining similar results ? Convergence, contact, 
 common conditions, independent inventions to which 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 65 
 
 of these shall we incline ? It is easy in a way to construct 
 hypotheses as to the transmission, through a series of 
 intermediaries, of a tale found to be common to both 
 Naga and Santal, such as the Naga tale of the Rat Princess 
 and the Greedy Man (76). Actual direct transmission 
 would be impossible by reason of the fundamental differ- 
 ences of language. 
 
 Of the poetry of the lower culture there are in the songs 
 of the Nagas as recorded and translated by Mr. Hutton, 
 sure evidence of a real poetical sense, <r ' Behind their 
 spontaneous geniality lies a vein of deep melancholy. 
 The thought of death is never far from them, and the fear 
 of it is a potent factor in their lives. . . . There is a 
 tendency in the vast majority of their songs to animadvert 
 on the brevity of life and the dread finality of death." * As 
 an example at random it may not be out of place to give 
 a rough rendering of a part-song sung at the Thekrangi 
 genna by the young men and girls of Khonoma and being 
 in point of fact of an almost flirtatious tendency. 
 
 MEN. Seeds are in the earth and seeds keep falling to the earth. 
 
 Men take them away but still they spring up, 
 
 But if man die, he riseth not again. 
 WOMEN. Girls, delay not too long to marry. 
 
 When your hair groweth long you grow old, 
 
 When you grow old you die. 
 BOTH. The moon waneth yet it waxeth again, 
 
 But when I lose my beloved there is no more meeting. (77), 
 
 DANCES. 
 
 In the combination of song and dance, of the spoken 
 expressions of the fancy, the social emotions, and the 
 acted representations of the deeds told of in speech, we 
 have a height of aesthetic attainment to which the lower 
 culture often attains. Sir W. Ridgeway avers that 
 " wide induction leads irresistibly to the conclusion that 
 Tragedy and serious Drama, wherever they are found 
 under the sun, have their roots in the world-wide belief 
 in the continued existence of the soul after the death of 
 the body " (78). 
 
66 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 Throughout the lower culture are found ritual dances 
 always part of cultural complexes now in connection with 
 the honoured dead, now with the agricultural rites which 
 secure prosperity for the living, both of a practical purpose 
 since society, constituted of those that return and in 
 constant relation with those that are separated from 
 them, derives its substance and its wellbeing from this 
 dual estate. " Among the Garos dancing . . . appears 
 to form a very prominent feature of every social function 
 as well as of religious ceremony " (78a). With the Angami 
 Naga " Dancing, singing and dhan-pounding, as a rule, 
 go hand in hand with ceremonial dress . . . the songs 
 sung include both particular songs traditionally asso- 
 ciated with the occasion and sometimes in archaic 
 language not fully understood except by those skilled in 
 them as well as songs in common use which may be 
 fancied by the singers " (79). 
 
 For the Khasis " dancing forms part of all the Khasi 
 festivities, and is an important adjunct of some of their 
 religious festivities " (80). 
 
 The Nongkrem dance, one of the greatest festivals in 
 the Khasi Hills " is really part of what is known as the 
 pom-blang, or goat killing ceremony, performed by the 
 Siem of Nongkrem or Khyrim ... to Ka Blei Synshar 
 the ruling goddess) that the crops may prosper and that 
 there may be a successful era for the people of the State. 
 .... A goat is then sacrificed and the sacrifice is 
 followed by a dance of twenty-two men armed with swords 
 and shields and chowries (flyflaps). Having danced 
 before the altar the party returns to the house of the Siem 
 priestess and executes another dance in the great court- 
 yard. The Siem and certain selected persons dance in 
 front of the rishot blei or holy post of Khasi oak inside 
 the house of the Siem priestess, the dancers being enter- 
 tained with dried fish and ginger. Then follows the great 
 dance of girls and men in front of her house ... it is 
 only the unmarried girls who dance . . . then there is 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 67 
 
 ka shad mas tieh, or the dance of the men. . . . After 
 gyrating for some time two men at a time rapidly 
 approach one another and clash their swords together in 
 mock combat. . . . Dancing forms part of the ceremony 
 of placing the ashes in the sepulchre of the clan " (81). 
 
 From the Central Provinces and Chota Nagpur comes 
 the same combination of song and dance and imitative 
 action. Mr. Russell observes that 'fThe dances of the" 
 Kol tribe consist partly of symbolical enactments of 
 events which they desired to be successfully accom- 
 plished. Some variations of the dance, Colonel Dalton 
 states, represent the different seasons and the necessary 
 acts of cultivation that each brings with it. ... The 
 Bhils danced at their festivals and before battles. . . . 
 The object was to obtain success in battle by going 
 through an imitation of a successful battle beforehand. 
 . * . The Sola dance of Gonds and Baigas in which 
 they perform the figure of the grand chain of the lancers, 
 only that they strike their sticks together instead of 
 clasping hands as they pass, was probably once an 
 imitation of a combat. It is still sometimes danced before 
 their communal hunting and fishing parties. In these 
 mimetic rehearsals of events with the object of causing 
 them to occur we may perhaps discern the origin of the 
 arts both of acting ' and dancing. Another, and perhaps 
 later form was the reproduction of important events or 
 those which had influenced history. For to the primitive 
 mind, as already seen, the results were not conceived of 
 as instrumentally caused by the event itself and of its 
 life and personality. Hence by the re-enactment of the 
 event the beneficial results would be again obtained or 
 at least preserved in undiminished potency and vigour. 
 This was perhaps the root idea of the drama and the 
 representation of sacred or heroic episodes on the 
 stage " (82). 
 
 I carry this further and assert that they dance these 
 dances not as representatives, but as the living reincar- 
 
68 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 nated personalities of those who fought and won these 
 battles who thus made the crops to flourish who in this 
 manner and by these preparations became mighty in 
 the chase, whose distinction and eminence in the arts 
 which are so important to society, were thus achieved 
 and signalised. 
 
 1. Les fonctions mentales dans des Soctttts Inferieures, p. 151. 
 
 2. Census Report, 1911, ix. 184, 186, 193, 249. 
 
 3. The Semas, p. 266, 
 
 4. The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 21. 
 
 5. Folklore of the Old Testament, ii. 227. 
 
 6. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, 199 a. 
 
 , 7. Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, ii. 241. 
 
 8. Eliot, Hinduism and Buddhism, I. xxxiii. 
 
 9. Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, December, 1917, p. 543. 
 
 10. Ibid., p. 548. 
 
 11. The Khasis, p. 78. 
 
 12. Man In India, i. (2) 25 sq. 
 
 13. Ibid,, p. 28. 
 
 14. The Semas, p. 132, p. 141. 
 
 15. Cf. Dictionaries, Tangkhul, Lushei, Thado, S.V. Ni. 
 
 16. The Semas, p. 379. 
 
 17. The Angamis, p. 295. 
 
 18. Ibid., note. 
 
 19. L.S.R., iv. p. 248. 
 
 20. Ibid, p. 247. 
 
 21. Ibid, p, 247. 
 
 22. L.S.R. iv., p. 23. 
 
 23. L.S.R., iii., part 1, p. 5. 
 
 24. History of Melanesian Society, ii., p. 490. 
 
 25. Kinship, and Social Organisation, p. 3. 
 
 26. The Angamis, p. 77, p. 141. 
 
 27. Ibid., p. 78. 
 
 28. History of Melanesian Society, ii., p. 487. 
 
 29. The Angamis, p. 115. 
 
 30. L.S.R., iii. part 1, p. 5. 
 
 31. Levy Bruhl, op. cit., p. 179. 
 
 32. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 123. 
 
 33. History of Melanesian Society, ii., p. 471 ; cf. Language (Jespersen), p. 255. 
 
 34. Presidential Address to Mythic Society, p. 19. 
 
 35. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, July, 1899. 
 
 36. Ibid., p. 17, p. 28. 
 
 37. L.S.R., iv., pp. 45-51. 
 
 38. L.S.R., iii., part 1, p. 4. 
 
 39. Ibid., p. 6. 
 
 40. Primitive Secret Societies, pp. 1-19. 
 
 41. The Angamis, p. 49. 
 
 42. The Meitheis, p. 61, p. 153. 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 69 
 
 43. The Garos, p. 37. 
 
 44. The Kuki Lushei Clans, p. 21. 
 
 45. Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, June, 1919, p. 239. 
 
 46. The Mundas, p. 385. 
 
 47. Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 247. 
 
 48. Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, iii., p. 131. 
 
 49. Castes and Tribes of S, India, iv. 162. 
 
 60. Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 214 ; see also pp. 217. 218. 
 
 61. Khasi- English Dictionary, s.v. Ka trang. 
 
 62. Census Report, 1901, vol. iii., pp. 62, 78. 
 
 63. The Andaman Islanders, p. 40 n. 
 
 64. The Meitheis, p. 61. 
 
 65. The Sema Nagas, p. 37. 
 
 56. The Angami Nagas, p. 49. 
 56a. Lushai Kuki Clans, p. 151. 
 
 57. The Oraons, pp. 211 sq. 
 
 68. Hahn, Einfuhrung in das Gebiet der Kols-tnission, p, 64. 
 
 59. Hahn, ibid., The Oraons, p. 215. 
 
 60. L'Annee Sociologique, ix., p. 14 sq. 
 60a. Language (Jespersen), p. 254 et seq. 
 
 61. The Todas, p. 616. 
 
 62. The Sema Nagas, p. 296 sq. 
 
 63. The Angami Nagas, p. 292. 
 
 64. Levy Bruhl, Les Soci6tes Inferieures, p. 180. 
 
 65. The Angami Nagas, p. 291. 
 65a. Le Langage (P. Vendryes), p. 9. 
 
 66. Tribes and Castes of Bengal, ii. 228. 
 
 67. Castes and Tribes of Southern India, vi., p. 312. 
 
 68. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 181. 
 
 69. The Angami Nagas, p. 219. 
 
 70. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 30. 
 
 71. Rivers, The Disappearance of Useful Arts. 
 
 72. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 199 c. 
 
 73. Tribes and Castes of Bengal, ii. 227. 
 
 74. The Angami Nagas, p. 253. 
 
 75. Rivers, Sociological Significance of Myth ; Folklore, xxiii., p. 311. 
 
 76. The Angami Nagas, p. 272 ; Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 168. 
 
 77. The Angami Nagas, p. 39. 
 
 78. Dramas and Dramatic Dances, p. 385. 
 78a. The Garos, p. 54. 
 
 79. The Angamis, p. 194. 
 
 80. The Khasis, p. 155 
 
 81. The Khasis, pp. 156, 157. 
 
 82. Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, i. 128. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 SOCIAL STRUCTURE. 
 
 Social Structure Sex Divisions Teknonymy Kinship and Social 
 Grouping Exogamy and True Dual Organisation Cross-Cousin 
 Marriages Break Up of Dual Organisation Cases of Specific Exogamy 
 Free Exogamy. 
 
 All human societies are composed of individual men 
 and women, All need food. Children are unable to 
 procure food for themselves for a period of some duration 
 without the help of adults who win their food and that 
 of the children dependent on them from the material 
 provided by their physical environment. In time the 
 child becomes adult, physically mature, able to take an 
 active part in the food-quest, able, if a female, to bear 
 children. In course of time that adult dies. Some of 
 these stages in the life of the individual are quite clearly 
 marked by visible physical changes. The fundamental 
 elements of the groupings of human beings, called human 
 societies, rest on the necessity of food and the biological 
 conditions (if the group is to continue) of producing and 
 rearing children. Man is a zoon politikon by reason of 
 the relatively long immaturity of the human young. The 
 fashionable and elaborate comparisons with the other 
 orders of Primates are only remotely relevant since the 
 main characteristic of human society as I see it, is the 
 manner in which the mind of man, as moulded by his life 
 with his fellows, interprets, explains, adapts and modifies 
 the data of the physical environment. Man, the rebel, acts 
 on the ideas which he forms of his relations both with his 
 physical environment and with his human environment, 
 which consists primarily of the members of the group to 
 which he belongs, and then secondarily of the members of 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 71 
 
 other human groups. He is never completely free of the 
 restraint which the elementary facts of his physical nature 
 impose on him. His freedom consists in the slow, 
 laborious discipline of submission which teaches that the 
 conquest of nature is by obedience to partnership, by 
 observation to knowledge and intimacy. 
 
 MAIN DIVISIONS. 
 
 There are social divisions directly based on natural 
 or biological distinctions. As a result of the " ideas " 
 which men form of their relations to natural phenomena, 
 there are social divisions based on the concepts formed in 
 and by society of human maturity, concepts which are 
 but distantly influenced by physical data. Thus social 
 and physical maturity, as evidenced by marriageability, 
 may, and sometimes do, coincide, but in many cases are 
 separated by social convention. M. Van Gennep puts 
 the case thus : II convient done de distinguer de la 
 puberte physique la puberte sociale, de meme qu'on 
 distingue entre une parente physique (consanguinite) et 
 une parente sociale, entre une maturity physique et une 
 maturity sociale (majorite) etc. (1) . In some groups, again, 
 the mature are for some purposes divided into those that 
 are married and fertile, and those that are married but 
 infertile. There are also groups whose bond of union is 
 physical relationship and groups where the principle of 
 union is based on social views consequent on mere pro- 
 pinquity, as there are also groups formed by recognition 
 of common interests, common difficulties, common 
 knowledge, common habitation. And the dead form 
 groups in relation to the living. 
 
 The main lines, therefore, in our classification are 
 those of (a) sex ; (b) maturity, and (c) relationship. 
 Each of these, again, is subdivided by reason of the dif- 
 ference between social and natural demarcations. Add 
 thereto the fertility division as a sub-grouping of social 
 maturity and we have at least seven distinct or distin- 
 
72 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 guishable divisions. Some are, of course, permanently 
 distinguished from the others. There are distinctions 
 of dress, coiffure and ornaments. In some cases it is 
 possible to identify the division only by reason of its 
 emergence, as specially qualified for some social purpose, 
 on some occasion of social action. Every one of those 
 divisions is composed of individuals and is therefore con- 
 stantly changing its component units. The moments 
 when an individual enters into, or departs from, any one 
 of these divisions are moments when the constitution of 
 the division is modified, when the poise of the division is 
 disturbed, when the individuality of the individual stands 
 out in contrast to the solidarity of the division which 
 he disturbs by his entering or departure. Adjustments 
 have to be made both in and by the division which loses 
 a unit and in and by the division which gains a unit. 
 Those adjustments are effected by action on the part of 
 the divisions affected by the movement. The nature, 
 as society sees it, of the necessity for these periodical 
 adjustments and the ideas current in the groups as to 
 the means to be employed to effect these adjustments 
 can be deduced from a study of the rites performed on 
 0* these occasions. The degrees of " individuality " are 
 observable, and therefore recognised, utilised in social 
 adjustments (la). 
 
 It is said that only Parliament can turn a woman into 
 a man, but in Lushai society there are " men known as 
 Tuai who dressed as women and did women's work " (2). 
 There are occupations specially reserved for women. 
 Thus weaving is women's work all through the Assam 
 Hills where, however, some tribes do not allow their 
 womenfolk to make cloths (3). Again " Up to this 
 point (the shaping of the pot) the whole process is 
 performed by women, men not being allowed to touch the 
 pots or even to approach too closely during their pre- 
 paration as this would cause them to break during the 
 firing. The women of the household are genna on the 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 73 
 
 day of pot -making, speaking to no one outside their 
 household, and their own men folk even may not be 
 spoken to by them or come close to them, after once 
 having left the house in the morning, until the raw pots 
 have been placed on the shelf over the fire " (4). 
 
 While in many parts of India there are special rites 
 for the prosperity of the crops which can only be per- 
 formed by women as described by Dr. Crooke (5), among 
 the Oraons " Should a woman happen to drive the plough, 
 even for a minute, the whole village would be thrown into 
 consternation, as drought and famine would be appre- 
 hended as the consequence ... in any case a " Rog- 
 khedna " expedition has to be undertaken by the village. 
 . . . The touch of a woman, it is believed, impairs the 
 strength and effectiveness of a plough and of certain other 
 implements and weapons. If an Oraon cultivator, while 
 driving the plough feels thirsty and asks his wife or 
 daughter to hand over a cup of water to him, he must for 
 the nonce leave hold of his plough to take the cup of water 
 in order that a female may not come in contact with the 
 plough. Similarly a sword or shield is believed to lose 
 its sharpness or effectiveness through the touch of a 
 woman. The rule prohibiting a woman to thatch a 
 house appears to be based on a similar consideration. 
 Should a woman be found getting up on the thatch of a 
 house, disease and death to some inmate or inmates of 
 the house and misfortune to the village in general are 
 apprehended and a rogkhedna expedition has to be 
 undertaken/' (6) The agricultural implement of the 
 woman is the digging stick. The plough is the novelty. 
 May be, too, a woman would lose her " effectiveness " if 
 she handled dangerous novelties like the plough or the 
 men's peculiar weapon. From the Kols is found that 
 " eigentumliche Sitte der Frauenkrieg " when " die 
 jungen Frauen and Madchen sich hoch aufschurzen das 
 Oberkleid und fast neckt, mit Stocken und Axten be- 
 waffnet, wie Furien durchs Dorf stiirmen und die alle 
 
74 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 Hiihner and Schweine tot-schlagen, die sie finden. Die 
 Manner und Junglings durfen sich auf der Strasse nicht 
 sehen lassen, sonst werden auch sie von der aufgeregten 
 kreischenden und tobenden Frauenbande angegriffen." 
 (7) This orgiastic rite is performed when there is a 
 drought or epidemic sickness. The association of woman 
 with agricultural rites, part of the scheme for procuring 
 the necessities of life, is well shown in the gennas of the 
 Tangkhuls who have two rope-pulling festivals when 
 the women and girls pull against the men and boys by 
 the first of which the omens for the year's harvest are 
 determined (8). In the Naga area we find the tempo- 
 rary separation of the sexes at moments of grave social 
 import as the Sekrengi genna (9) among the Angamis 
 when male children leave the " women's side, eminently 
 a stage in their social career, and \\hen the health of the 
 community for the coming year is assured or the The- 
 wuukukwu genna (10) which marks the cutting of the 
 ahu dhan. At the Thekrangi genna there is "dancing 
 and singing on the part of the young men, boys and 
 girls who are unmarried, or married, but who have no 
 children "(11). 
 
 Among the Chirus, Koms and Purum and Old 
 Kukis " The young women also have houses in which 
 they gather at time of festivals " (12). 
 
 The custom of teknonymy is undoubtedly in some 
 cases a token of the distinction drawn in social order 
 between the fertile and the sterile. It is found among 
 the Lushais, who have given ingenious but unsatisfying 
 explanations of its origin and purpose among them, 
 (13), among the Khasis (14), the Garos (15), the Kachins 
 (16), where in decent society the word " wife " is con- 
 sidered " too coarse in speaking of one's own wife, and 
 a man should speak of her as " my child's mother.' ' 
 
 It must clearly be viewed as part of the general mass 
 of social institutions and customs. " Le changement 
 de nom est 1'un des rites du bapteme, de I'lnitiation, du 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 75 
 
 mariage, de I'intronisation c'est done aussi comme un 
 rite de passage, de categorisation dans un nouveau groupe 
 special, qu'il convient d'interpreter la tecnonymie " (17). 
 The full significance and meaning of the name and the 
 changes made in the name of the individual as he pro- 
 gresses through the stages of social life are clearly and 
 directly related to the phases of the " cycle of life." 
 
 TABUS ON WOMEN. 
 
 Nature and society lay a burden upon women, as the 
 unwed woman, as the mate, as the vessel of hope, as 
 parent when passing from hope to certainty, as the mother 
 and nurse of the young. Thus, by Sema custom women 
 must abstain " from the flesh of kites and hawks. Some- 
 times the reason given is that it causes unthrift, some- 
 times that it makes the woman who eats it too free with 
 her nails, making her unpleasantly addicted to biting 
 and scratching . . . women may not eat of the goat 
 for fear of becoming libidinous, nor of chickens that lay 
 here and there in different places lest they should become 
 unfaithful and light of love. They may not eat either 
 of any animal that dies in giving birth (no doubt for fear 
 that they should do likewise) or of the flesh of any animal 
 killed by a wild beast " (18). The list of foods genna 
 for Angamis is long and interesting, and similar to the 
 Sema rules (19). Among the Tangkhul Nagas " In some 
 villages, such as those in which the cloth-weaving 
 industry is carried on, unmarried girls are not permitted 
 to eat dog or the flesh of any male animal " (20). 
 Women in hope are still further beset by limitations on 
 their diet, as well as on their domestic activities, since, 
 as among the Khasis, she may not " finish any sewing 
 she may have commenced before she became enceinte " 
 (21), or as among the Anal she may not eat " chillies or 
 honey " (22), while the ,Nagas forbid her the flesh of 
 " bear or of any animal that has died a natural death " 
 (23). A Kuki tribe, the Kolhen, "prohibit her from 
 
76 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 killing a snake, attending a funeral ceremony, and 
 eating a crab and a certain vegetable called chak in its 
 young state " (24). Perhaps they are forbidden to kill 
 snakes for the reason given by the Semas and Tangkhuls 
 (25) that the child might be " born with a tongue quiver- 
 ing in and out like a snake." 
 
 During her time of hope a woman among the Tang- 
 khul Nagas can only wash her feet and hands ; she may 
 not take wild plantain fruit lest she die in child-birth, 
 the result of the twisted bunches of the fruit ; she may 
 not gather burnt wood from the jungle lest the child be 
 born coal black, nor carry any sharpening stone to the 
 fields lest the child be born without hands or legs : she 
 may not kill frogs for the frog is like a human being with 
 hands and legs and fingers and toes, and must not be 
 harmed (26). 
 
 TABUS ON MEN. 
 
 So, too, for men, as male, as unmarried, as married, 
 as aged, as warrior, as hunter, parent, there are special 
 rites, special duties, special disabilities. Among the 
 Semas the food prohibitions fall " into two distinct 
 classes, that of the animals, the flesh of which is not eaten 
 because of some habit of the animal which inspires 
 disgust for its flesh, and those the flesh of which is not 
 eaten for fear of the consequences entailed by eating 
 it. ... In regard to the latter class of food gennas 
 among the Semas it is to be noticed that the ill conse- 
 quences which are held to follow the use of certain animals 
 and birds as food more often attend the offspring of the 
 eaters than the eaters themselves, and these foods, there- 
 fore, can be eaten by old or childless men who have no 
 prospect of bringing more children into the world/' The 
 flying squirrels are " idiot," and " the eaters would 
 therefore be liable to beget idiot children." Men who eat 
 the crow pheasant " are liable to get cut up by their enemies, 
 and young men will not eat it." Again, " if the spoon 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 77 
 
 breaks with which the cooked rice is being taken from 
 the pot, males may not eat of that rice (except the very 
 old and practically bed-ridden). If this prohibition were 
 not observed and the eater were at any time to run, he 
 would get a stitch of violent and appalling severity, as 
 though a piece of broken bamboo spoon were piercing 
 his vitals, while if he were so naughty as to lick a chilli 
 pestle, he would be haunted on the march by a noise just 
 behind him, as of a pestle thumping on the mortar. 
 Again he may not eat of a chicken that impales iteslf 
 on a spear when flying from its roost in the house, for this 
 would render him liable to slip and fall on his own 
 spear "(27). 
 
 Much liberty is allowed to the unmarried in the matter 
 of food, but with the Naga (28) as with the Kol, marriage 
 marks a definite stage in social progress with the imposi- 
 tion of the full disabilities of tribal life. " So darf ein 
 Kind, selbst bis zum Alter seiner Verheiratung, essen 
 was Fremde ihm reichen, ohne seine Zugehorigkeit zu 
 seinem Volke zu verlieren " (29). 
 
 Of the rites which the social sense demands of men 
 as males, illustration may be given from the Angamis 
 who for the due and adequate performance of the 
 Derochu sickness genna kill a pig and " two chaste un- 
 married boys, one a Pezoma and the other a Pepfuma 
 (Pezoma and Pepfuma are the names of the two moieties 
 of Angami social structure), are sent into the jungle to 
 bring a bit of tree to make a wood hearth, some firewood 
 and some wormwood." They make fire, kill the pig, 
 etc., and then " eat with the household and observe the 
 same henna. ... In the evening the two boys are 
 allowed to go " (30). The unmarried Oraons perform a 
 rite each year in order to secure an increase of male 
 children and good luck hunting (31). In the case of 
 Khonoma and of most Eastern Angami villages the 
 unmarried man wears a different cloth " (31 a). 
 
 Among the Old Kuki clans in Manipur, there are rites 
 
78 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 when the dual structure of some of the villages is specially 
 marked by a rope-pulling ceremony as " marriages are 
 only allowed between the young people who pull on the 
 same side with the exception of the Chongthu who, 
 being of the chief's family, may marry a girl of any family 
 except their own " (32). There are rites, too, when " the 
 unmarried girls take a prominent part " (33) rites at 
 which " all the men attend but no women " (34), rites 
 when the " young men and girl dance and drink to- 
 gether " (35). 
 
 In Mandla, in the Central Provinces " the Gonds still 
 perform, or did till recently, various magical or religious 
 rites to obtain success in fishing and hunting. The men 
 of the village were accustomed to go out fishing as a 
 communal act. They arrived at the river before sunrise 
 and at midday their women brought them pej or gruel. 
 On returning the women made a mound or platform 
 before the house of the principal man of the party. All 
 the fish caught were afterwards laid on this platform, and 
 the leader then divided them, leaving one piece on the 
 platform. Next morning this piece was taken away and 
 placed on the grave of the leader's ancestor. If no fish 
 were caught on the first day the women took the men 
 no food. And if they caught no fish for two or three 
 days running, they went and dug up the platform erected 
 in front of the leaders' house and levelled it with the 
 ground. Then the next morning early all the people of 
 the village went to another village and danced the Sela 
 dance before the tombs of the ancestors of that village. 
 .... The Sela dance is danced by men alone. When a 
 single Gond intends to go out hunting in the forest, he first 
 lights a lamp before his household god in the house or 
 if he has no oil he will kindle a fire, and the lamp or fire 
 must be kept burning all the time he is out. ... A 
 Gond never takes food in the morning before going out 
 hunting, but goes out in a fasting condition, perhaps in 
 order that the god, seeing his hunger, may send him some 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 79 
 
 game to eat. Nor will a Gond visit his wife the night 
 before he goes out hunting " (36). 
 
 Thus, for the hunter and warrior, phases of male 
 activity closely akin, there are special rules separating 
 him from his wife when preparing for or returning from 
 an expedition. Should a Naga bee hunter neglect the 
 rule, for " any mistake leads to fearful stinging " (37), he 
 is also " liable to be killed by enemies, and before the bee 
 hunters leave their houses early in the morning to secure 
 the best, nothing whatever must be taken out of the 
 house. Should a domestic animal give birth to young, 
 or a fowl hatch chickens within three days of going to 
 take bees, the owner cannot go " (38). When a Tangkhul 
 is about to make salt, he is separated from his wife (39), 
 and no Sema woman may weave while her man is away 
 hunting, fighting or trading. " If this prohibition were 
 not observed, the husband will get his legs caught in a 
 tangle of creepers when going through the jungle and 
 thus meet with an accident " (40). Again, "should a 
 man light his pipe at a fire on which a woman is dyeing 
 thread, he becomes a weakling and turns black in com- 
 plexion " (41). From the Angami area comes the 
 account how, " In the matter of dress, we may compare 
 the genna which forbids a man who has not taken a head 
 to wear the hornbill's feather, the insignia of the successful 
 warrior, with the genna which prohibits a man from not 
 merely putting on, but even laying across or against, 
 his body a petticoat which has once been worn by a 
 woman " (42). 
 
 Ere a child is born, his father is, among the Khasis, 
 not allowed to thatch the ridge of the house or to put handle 
 to dao or axe (43). A Lushai will not cut open any animal 
 that has been killed or cut off its limbs for fear lest his 
 child be born without those limbs ; he believes, too, that 
 if he takes the flesh of any wild beast found dead, his 
 child will be still-born ; if he gives away any article of 
 clothing to a man of a distant village, the child's health 
 
8o PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 will be permanently impaired ; he also avoids hard work, 
 because his performance of hard work-is considered to 
 be injurious to the child's health " (44). All through the 
 Naga area are similar customs on the birth of a child, 
 indeed on the birth of any domesticated animal within 
 the house (45). For the first ten days after a child is 
 born to him a Mar am Naga " must not go out in a high 
 wind or cloudy weather for fear that the Wind God 
 might injure the child " (46). For the first seven days 
 " after a child's birth its spirit is supposed not to be 
 quite at home in the little body and to spend some of its 
 time perched like a bird on the parent's bodies and 
 clothes, and therefore, for fear of injuring it, the parents 
 keep as quiet as possible for these seven days " (47). 
 Five to ten days after the child is born its body is said to 
 be covered with small pimples, its lips become black and 
 its strength decreases. The family then obtain a parti- 
 cular kind of creeping plant called Vawm, which they 
 make into a coil. In the evening everything in the house 
 that has a lid or covering is uncovered, and the child is 
 passed thrice through this coil, which act is supposed to 
 clear the child's skin and restore its strength. After 
 this is finished, the parents go to bed and the pots or 
 other receptacles are covered again by any of the other 
 members of the family. The parents themselves must 
 not replace any of these lids for fear that they might shut 
 up the spirit of the child in them " (48). A Lamgang 
 father may not eat of chicken for five days, but his wife 
 is not restricted as to her diet (49). Of the curious 
 custom known as the " couvade " there are notable 
 instances in India. 
 
 Many come from a level of society above that with 
 which we are concerned, evidence of the strength and 
 persistency of the sentiments and beliefs of earlier days 
 (60). 
 
 Age brings some release from the restrictions laid on 
 vigorous manhood, but has its appointed tasks and 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 81 
 
 responsibilities. Angamis consider it " improper for any 
 but old men to make " the wooden dolls, some of which 
 are elaborate and well dressed (51). There is here, too, 
 an interesting genna at which the old men, when parti- 
 cipating at a genna for the acquisition of social rank, 
 may drink from leaves only (52). At Khonoma there is 
 " a genna for stopping rain which has results out of all 
 proportion to its simplicity, if, indeed the full rite has 
 been revealed, which is perhaps unlikely. All that is 
 said to be necessary is for a man who has had no children 
 to take a dish of water and evaporate it out of doors by 
 boiling it. When dry, he must say " Let the days be 
 fine like this/' and no rain will fall for seven years " (53). 
 
 Among the Anal " the first stones and earth are placed 
 in the grave by aged men " (54) and the grave is dug 
 " in case of unnatural death only by old grey-headed " 
 men " (55) So too among the Tarau " Women dying in 
 childbirth are buried by old men who have no further 
 hope of becoming fathers, far from the village " (56). 
 
 There are yet other social groupings within these 
 main bodies. Success in the chase or war, success in love, 
 the due performance of a series of sacrifices, entitles the 
 warrior or lover or social aspirant to display on his person 
 or about his house the insignia of his achievements in 
 these varied fields of human activity. The social order 
 depends on the encouragement of marital ardour. Much 
 might be said by way of criticism about a social order 
 which kept the lads unwed till they could prove to the 
 ladies of their choice their fitness for the estate of matri- 
 mony by securing somehow a human head. Moralists, 
 too, are not ostentatiously ready to approve the religious 
 sanction which opens the gate of a delectable heaven to 
 gay Lotharios. Among the Lushais, to become a Thangch- 
 huah, to be entitled to wear a special kind of striped 
 cloth, with turban and feather plume, to have a verandah 
 at the back of his house, to have a window in his house 
 and an additional shelf near his bed, glories terrestrial, 
 
82 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 and to attain to Pielral, a desirable place from which there 
 is no return to the worries of this life ; in short, to reach 
 a glory celestial, it is necessary to kill certain 
 animals or provide expensive sacrifices or achieve con- 
 spicuous success in the Courts of Venus (57). Nor 
 are these ideas confined to the Lushais for among the 
 Nagas of Chakrima and Kezama, custom has crystallised 
 into a convention and the man who has to his credit a 
 successful intrigue with a married woman living with 
 her husband, may wear a fourth line of cowries on his 
 kilt, an emblem which, in the bad old days, signified a 
 head. The same badge of honour is worn by the man 
 who has to his score success \vith two unmarried 
 girls. The comparative scale is instructive (58). Nor 
 is this all, for at the feet of statues of the dead erected 
 by the grave are placed stones with faces carved on them 
 for the enemies he had killed, and plain stones for the 
 women he had loved (59). 
 
 SEX GROUPS. 
 
 Thus sex plays an important part in the economy of 
 the lower culture. It affects social structure in the case 
 of the Hill Kacharis who have " forty families or sects 
 to which males may belong and 42 for females. The 
 two extra in the latter case remain unaccounted for 
 To give an example, one male sect is called Hasungsa 
 and one female sect Sagaodi. A Hasungsa marrying a 
 Sagaodi, the male issue are Hasungsas and the female 
 Sagaodis " (60). It may be possible that some such idea 
 underlies the Aimol custom by which at a ceremony, 
 when the " thempu " invokes the spirit of the new-born 
 child to take up its residence within the new-born infant 
 " The name is given at the same time, the father's family 
 choosing the name of a son and the mother's of a 
 daughter "(61). 
 
 Much importance attaches in the lower culture to 
 the " name." The significance and purpose from a 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 83 
 
 social aspect of the rites by which the name is given to a 
 " little stranger," shows clearly that in some cases it is 
 definitely part of the Cycle of Life (61). 
 
 MARRIAGE GROUPS, 
 
 The sex grouping of the clans among the Hill Kacharis 
 is most unusual, possibly unique. In other cases the 
 children follow and belong to the clan of one or other 
 of their parents and there are groups where, while the 
 main line of descent is reckoned through one parent, 
 there are social regulations affecting the individual, 
 created by and resting on recognition of relationship 
 through both parents. 
 
 With the Garos the system of matrilineal descent is 
 clearly marked. Of the Santals we read that " He may 
 marry into any other sept, including that to which his 
 mother belonged ... he may not marry into the sub- 
 sept to which his mother belonged " (62), yet even here 
 there is some, albeit slight, recognition of kinship through 
 the mother in the bar against marriage into the mother's 
 subsept. As typical of the order where matrilineal 
 descent is primary and only secondary or minor effect 
 is produced by the relationship through the father, I cite 
 the Khasis, since they have a rule forbidding marriage 
 with the daughter of the father's sister during the life- 
 time of the father as well as a rule forbidding marriage 
 with the daughter of his father's brother (63). Moreover, 
 they have definite relationship terms, (Dei Kha and 
 Para Kha) for male relations who may and may not 
 marry and the term Kha means relation by male descent, 
 while Kur is used for relatives on the mother's side. Then 
 among such tribes as the Kukis and Lushai in recognition 
 of kinship through the mother a fine is payable by the 
 heir to her " pu " or protector on and by reason of her 
 death (64). 
 
 Thus, always, everywhere, it would seem that the 
 family (the adult woman with her dependent children, 
 
84 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 and the adult men who by social custom have marital 
 access to her and the duty of protecting her), is primary 
 and fundamental. It is a bilateral unit. 
 
 There has been of recent years important work on 
 the Andamanese, which indicates that among them " A 
 tribe is a loose aggregate, held together by a common 
 dialect and vague feeling of kinship. It consists of local 
 groups in no sense septs or clans, and these in turn of 
 households, each of husband and wife with dependent 
 immature children (65). Apparently there are cases of 
 intermarriage between the local groups, especially where 
 they come into contact and the practice of adoption 
 which is common within the local group brings the 
 groups closer together than Would otherwise be the 
 case (66). 
 
 A typical " tribe " in the lower culture is defined as 
 a society speaking a common language, occupying in 
 common a definite area, divided up into clans, which, 
 again, are subdivided into families or households. As 
 with Naga society the actual unit may be a village not a 
 tribe since the language test fails and customs differ 
 from village to village. The " tribe " may, and often 
 does, regard itself as descended from a common ancestor. 
 Community of descent is also often postulated for the 
 clans, which, as a matter of fact, may be local groups of 
 heterogeneous descent and not constituted by kinship 
 real or fictive. As a rule, the reality of the kinship of 
 the several members of the families or household is a 
 matter capable of direct proof. Genealogical methods 
 afford singular but convincing evidence of the nature 
 of the bonds uniting these various divisions of society. 
 There are exceptions, often most instructive, to generali- 
 sations, but, speaking generally, tribal feeling in the 
 lower culture in India does not allow its women to go 
 to other " tribes " for their husbands, nor does it exactly 
 encourage, though it cannot always prevent, its men if 
 they bring in women from other tribes to produce 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 85 
 
 children are to be reckoned as members of the tribe. 
 Within the tribe itself marriage is universal, compulsory 
 on all those who reach or desire to reach social maturity. 
 A superior social status attaches to the married and 
 fertile over the unmarried as well as over the married 
 but infertile, and benefits of a spiritual order accrue to 
 those who have married and produced children. These 
 are the methods of social coercion. 
 
 EXOGAMY : THE CLAN : DUAL ORGANISATION. 
 
 The marriage regulations rest almost universally on the 
 law of exogamy which " is a common rule among savage 
 and barbarous peoples never to marry a woman of their 
 own tribal subdivision or group, but always to marry a 
 woman of a subdivision or group different from their 
 own " (67). That rule means that there must be at 
 least two subdivisions within the tribe, a form 
 of social organisation which subsists in full vigour 
 in two distinct tribes in India and was more widely 
 spread because it is fundamentally and causally related 
 to the classificatory system of relationship, of which there 
 is abundant evidence in groups no longer constituted 
 on the dual basis (68). It is a positive rule, it is pros- 
 pective for it settles the status of the issue. 
 
 A word as to the clan. " The sib (the clan of British 
 anthropologists) is most briefly defined as a unilateral 
 kinship group. The family is bilateral ; to say that an 
 individual belongs to a certain family implies that he 
 recognises relationship with a certain man as his father 
 and a certain woman as his mother. The sib traces 
 kinship through either parent to the total neglect of the 
 other " (68a). The discussion of social origins from 
 which this quotation is taken is an admirable exposition 
 of the views of an American expert who has handled 
 field material and knows the rhythm of living structure. 
 He recognises that the clan is only part and by definition 
 a dependent part of a larger unit. So far as the lower 
 
86 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 culture in India is concerned the clans are exogamous, 
 obliged, therefore, by their fundamental constitution to 
 maintain relations with other, at least one other, similarly 
 constituted exogamous clan. Thus membership of a 
 clan, be it patrilineal or matrilineal, involves duties and 
 responsibilities towards and relations with persons who 
 are not members of the individual's own clan. True 
 vision of the clan, what it is, what it does, in and for the 
 social economy, can be secured only by viewing it as 
 part of a whole, not as a self-contained, self-sufficient 
 unit, in the air as it were. The classificatory systems 
 of relationship include terms for members of the alien, 
 as well as for the members of their own, clan. Thus in a 
 matrilineal exogamous group with two clans, A and B, 
 there are A men and A women, B men and B women. 
 Any A man uses the term for " father " of an individual 
 who is a member of the B clan, and the term for 
 " father-in-law " of a member of A clan. In a patrilineal 
 exogamous group with two clans any A man uses the term 
 for " mother " of a woman of group B and the term for 
 " mother-in-law " of a woman of group A. If analysis 
 be succeeded by a synthesis which shall have regard to 
 the whole society, the true nature and mode of function 
 of the clan are evident ; it is one half of what in its 
 simplest form is a bilateral or dual organisation. The 
 symmetry of the dual structure ceases to be evident when 
 the dual structure disappears or is replaced by a multiple 
 order. Nevertheless each clan in a multiple group, one 
 composed of any number of exogamous clans of similar 
 constitution, has the characteristic of being incomplete 
 as a true unit unless count be taken of its relations, its 
 complementary relations, with the other clans. Sym- 
 metrical arrangements are found in societies which are 
 organised on a multiple clan system. The vivid interest 
 which social arrangements have for society is manifest 
 in the order and method with which these relations are 
 organised. 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 87 
 
 CASES OF DUAL ORGANISATION. 
 
 In the lucid account of the Tribes and Castes of the 
 Central Provinces by the late Mr. R. V. Russell, it is 
 stated that " The remains of a two-class system appear 
 to be traceable among the Gonds of the Central Provinces. 
 In one part of Bastar all the Gonds are divided into two 
 classes without names, and a man cannot marry a woman 
 belonging to a clan of his own class, but must take one 
 from a clan of the other class. Elsewhere the Gonds are 
 divided into two groups of six-god and seven-god wor- 
 shippers among whom the same rule applies "(69), 
 and of their marriage rules and practices we are 
 told that " The marriage of first cousins is considered 
 especially suitable. Formerly, perhaps, the match be- 
 tween a brother's daughter and sister's son was most 
 common . . . and the union of a brother's son to a 
 sister's daughter has also become customary. The 
 children of two sisters cannot, it is said, be married, and 
 a man cannot marry his wife's elder sister, any aunt or 
 niece, nor his mother-in-law or her sister. But marriage 
 is not prohibited between grandparents and grand- 
 children. If an old man marries a young wife and dies, 
 his grandson will marry her if she is of the proper age. In 
 this there would be no blood relationship. ... It is 
 said that even among Hindu castes the grandfather will 
 flirt with his grand-daughter and call her his wife in jest 
 and the grandmother with her grandson. In Bastar a 
 man can marry his daughter's daughter or maternal 
 grandfather's or grandmother's sister. He could not 
 marry his son's daughter or paternal grandfather's sister 
 because they belong to the same sept as himself " (70). 
 
 Again, " the smaller septs seem to serve no purpose 
 for regulating marriage and to be no more than family 
 names. The tribe might just as well be divided into 
 two great exogamous clans only (71)." Apparently in 
 " another part of Bastar there were found to be five 
 
88 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 classes and each class had a small number of septs in it. 
 .... This class, A, had six septs, Class B five, Classes 
 C and D one each, Class E four and Class F two. A man 
 could not marry a woman of any sept belonging to his 
 own class " (72). 
 
 From the Garos, a matrilineal people speaking a 
 Tibeto-Burman language, inhabiting the hills immedi- 
 ately to the west of the Khasia Hills, comes evidence of a 
 dual structure. They " are divided into two Katchis, or 
 phratries, called Marak and Sangma (one of them has a 
 third called Momin). A Marak may not marry a Marak, 
 nor a Sangma a Sangma " (73). The Garo scheme is 
 complete. If there be a cousin available, he is required 
 to marry the youngest daughter, to live in his father-in- 
 law's house and ultimately to marry his wife's mother 
 who is also his father's sister. His father-in-law is also 
 his mother's brother. If there be no cousin available, a 
 man is selected called the nokrom or pillar of the house, 
 who marries the daughter, lives in the house, and has to 
 marry the widow. If there be neither cousin nor nokrom, 
 the law of Akim obliges the clan to which the deceased 
 man belonged to select a man of that clan to be the 
 consort of the widow, for the sake of the interest of the 
 clan, which had thus an interest in and exercised a dual 
 control over the property (74). It is through the widow 
 that succession to the property is effected, for, as Colonel 
 Dalton states, " Inherent in males there is no right to 
 succeed to any property of any description, and this is 
 all to secure a transmission of pure blood ; but though a 
 son cannot inherit his father's property, his mother 
 cannot be ejected from the position she enjoyed con- 
 jointly with her husband. The successor must recognise 
 in her the mistress of the house, not only as his mother- 
 in-law, should she stand in that relation to him, but also 
 as his wife, though the marital rights be shared with her 
 own daughter " (75). If a woman refuses to marry 
 her nephew and marries another man, the nephew is 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 89 
 
 entitled to compensation from both of them. Thus in so 
 far as the succession to property is concerned, it is clear 
 that the only way to enjoyment of the property is by 
 marriage with the widow, who is often both the mother 
 of the man's wife and the sister of the man's father. 
 
 As the law of Akim shows, the clans are comple- 
 mentary, each to the other, and together form a definite 
 whole. 
 
 The Lonte have two, only two, exogamous divisions 
 Lanu and Changom (75a), and we are told that a Lonte 
 girl's proper husband is her maternal first cousin. This 
 is an obvious necessity in the circumstances of the case. 
 The dual structure of the Kolhen tribe, one of the Old 
 Kuki groups, described by Colonel Shakespear, is revealed 
 incidentally at the " Keidun " festival, when the village 
 is separated into two parties for the tug-of-war. " On 
 one side are all the young men of the khul-lakpa's 
 family viz., the Chongthu and on the other those of 
 the Jete, to which the luplakpa belongs. With the 
 Chongthu pull the young men of the following families 
 viz., Tulthung, Maite, Tiante, Laishel, Songchungnung, 
 while with the Jete are associated the young men of the 
 Lunglai, Rembual, Mirem, Tumtin and Vanbie. The 
 girls of each family pull on the opposite side to the young 
 men of their family. . . . Marriages are only allowed 
 between the young people who pull on the same side, with 
 the exception of the Chongthu, who, being of the chief's 
 family, may marry a girl of any family except their own " 
 (76). Clearly, then, we have two divisions, and 
 a chief's family above, taking its wives from the other 
 two groups. Here, as with the Garos, membership of 
 the two main groups regulates marriage. 
 
 OTHER DUAL GROUPINGS. 
 
 The Angami have two main divisions, Kepezoma and 
 Kepepfuma, so distinct that at the Derochu genna, " two 
 chaste unmarried boys, one a Pezoma and the other a 
 
go PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 Pepfuma," are brought into the ceremony for an active 
 share (77). Elsewhere in this area, I found that " In 
 nearly every Tangkhul village we find two village officers, 
 the khullakpa and the luplakpa. In the village of Liyai 
 in the Mao group, we have two pairs of exogamous 
 divisions, with a prohibition against the intermarriage of 
 the members of the paired clans. The Mao group is 
 internally divided into two groups, the cause of their 
 separation being, according to tradition, religious rather 
 than social. The groups intermarry, it is true, but not 
 to any great extent. At Maram there are two khullakpas, 
 who are both under the same extended range of prohibi- 
 tions. The Kabui tribe, according to Colonel McCulloch 
 consists of two divisions, Songboo and Pooeron. . . . 
 The Marrings again possess two divisions, Saibu, the 
 elder, and Marring, the younger, which do not inter- 
 marry " (78). Further examination of this particular 
 area brings out the facts that " Shongashon has four 
 khel grouped in two exogamous pairs. Kalanamei has 
 six khels ; 1 and 2 form an exogamous group, and 4, 5 
 and 6 another ; number 3 intermarries with both 
 groups. The other three villages are divided into khels, 
 which are exogamous, but are not grouped. Maram has 
 three khels, which are exogamous, and two of them form 
 an exogamous group " (79). The whole of this area is 
 occupied by tribes whose traditions point to the existence 
 of a dual organisation. Still some at least of these 
 curious combinations may be the result of accretion of 
 migratory groups, which joined with existing groups, 
 so that as local legends assert the village has a multiple 
 origin. 
 
 There are among the Khasias States which have two 
 chiefs, a White and a Black Siem, and examination of 
 the terms of relationship and the present conditions and 
 prohibitions affecting marriage among the Khasias has 
 led me to the opinion that the Khasis were at one time 
 organised on a dual basis. When this social scheme was 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 91 
 
 broken up either by internal growth and development or 
 by external forces bringing in strangers as rulers, certain 
 modifications of social structure were then effected 
 which find preservation in the terms of relationship and 
 in the new regulations prohibiting or restraining marriages 
 on which the old order rested. It became necessary to 
 make arrangements for giving wives to and taking wives 
 from the new groups and the steps then taken separated 
 them from an order still preserved among their neighbours 
 the Garos (80). 
 
 Fuller and more penetrating inquiries may reveal 
 features of social structure elsewhere which belong to 
 and are survivals from an order based on simple duality 
 of grouping. 
 
 The classificatory system of relationship holds among 
 the Dravidian-speaking peoples among the Munda groups 
 of ChotaNagpur, and modes of it, with variations due to 
 local conditions, are certainly found in Assam. What- 
 ever may be its significance its principles are derived, can 
 be derived only from duality of social structure. 
 
 COUSIN-MARRIAGES. 
 
 Much importance attaches to the custom of marriage 
 with a first cousin, the daughter either of a mother's 
 brother or of a father's sister, but especially with the 
 daughter of a mother's brother, which, as Sir James 
 Frazer remarks, " has been, as a rule, permitted, and even 
 favoured among all races except the Aryan " (81) in 
 India. A man has, or may have, four female first cousins, 
 the issue of his father's brother, of his father's sister, of 
 his mother's brother and of his mother's sister. In a 
 society constituted on the basis of exogamy with matri- 
 lineal descent, the issue of his mother's sister will be 
 forbidden to him. In a society constituted on the basis 
 of exogamy with patrilineal descent, the issue of his 
 father's brother will be forbidden to him. In a society 
 composed of only two exogamous divisions, not only 
 
92 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 will the issue of his father's brother be forbidden, but the 
 issue of his mother's sister will also be forbidden, so that 
 the only marriageable cousins will be the issue of his 
 father's sister or of his mother's brother. These marriage- 
 able cousins are called cross-cousins and distinguished 
 from the unmarriageable cousins whom Sir James Frazer 
 calls ortho-cousins. It is not fair, though necessary 
 from considerations of economy of space, to select pass- 
 ages from the long, thorough and scientific account of 
 cross-cousin marriage in India and elsewhere given by 
 Sir James Frazer (82) since the account should be studied 
 as a whole, but I venture to call special attention to his 
 finding that " the dual organization . . . was the source 
 both of the systematic preference for the marriage of 
 cross-cousins and of the systematic prohibition of the 
 marriage of ortho-cousins " (83), and that " so far as the 
 imperfect evidence at our disposal permits us to judge, 
 the two areas (of cousin marriage and the dual organisa- 
 tion) appear to coincide exactly." To compare the 
 tribes discussed in regard to the dual organisation, we 
 find that " When a Gond wants to marry his daughter, 
 he first looks for a husband among his sister's children, 
 as it is considered the proper thing for first cousins to 
 marry whenever such an arrangement is possible, though, 
 strange to say, the rule is only thought absolutely binding 
 where the brother's child happens to be a girl and the 
 sister's a boy ' J (84) . The matrilineal Garos practise cross- 
 cousin marriage in a most notable form (85), (86), (87). 
 
 INTERMEDIATE CASES OF SYMMETRICAL OR SYSTEMATIC 
 OR SPECIFIC EXOGAMY. 
 
 I turn now to an interesting class of cases which seem 
 to be intermediate between the dual order (with its sub- 
 divisions) and the multiple or free order. As recorded 
 by Colonel Shakespear (88) among the Tarau clan there 
 are four families, and they marry thus : Pachana man 
 marries Tlangsha girl ; Tlangsha man marries Thimasha 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 93 
 
 girl ; Thimasha man marries Khulpu-in girl and Khulpu- 
 in man marries Pachana girl. 
 
 By this rule a Pachana always marries a Tlangsha 
 woman so that a Pachana son will marry a Tlangsha 
 daughter, the daughter of his mother's brother, or a 
 woman of that status by the classificatory principle. 
 
 A Pachana girl must marry a Khulpuin man. Every 
 Khulpuin man's mother was a Pachana woman. There- 
 fore a Pachana marries a man who is actually or is classed 
 as the son of her father's sister. Therefore a Pachana 
 woman calls her husband's mother by the term used for 
 her father's sister. Hertz records a similar grouping 
 among the Kachins (89) ; Marip gives girls to Maran, 
 who marry with N'Khum, also its girls go to Lepai, 
 who marry Lahtawng, and their daughters are the 
 wives of the Marip. It is thus intelligible that 
 later accounts should display the Kachins as having the 
 " general rule that a man should marry a first cousin on 
 the female side, or, more precisely, the daughter of a 
 mother's brother" (90). 
 
 Of the Chawte (91) Colonel Shakespear notes that 
 A Marem lad may only marry a Makhan girl, 
 A Makhan lad may only marry an Irung girl, 
 An Irung lad may only marry a Marem, Thao or 
 
 Kiang girl, 
 A Kiang lad may only marry a Makhan or Marem 
 
 girl, 
 A Thao lad may only marry a Makhan girl. 
 
 It will be observed that a Marem lad may only marry 
 a Makhan girl, but the Marem girls get spouses from Irung 
 and Kiang, clans from which their brothers do not get 
 wives. Thao gets wives from Makhan and gives girls 
 to Irung but has no relations with the others. Irung gets 
 wives from Marem, Thao and Kiang and gives girls only 
 to Makhan, while Makhan gets wives only from Irung, but 
 gives to Marem, and Kiang. Thus all clans give 
 
94 
 
 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 girls to clans from which they do not get wives. Thao 
 is irregular. 
 
 Information has been sent to me from the Manipur 
 Durbar which, compared with that published in the 
 Burma Census Report, 1911 (92) and Mr. Button's 
 account of the Semas (93) indicates the linguistic ex- 
 pression of the relationship between the modes of social 
 structure. 
 
 
 Tarau 1 
 
 Kachin 2 
 
 Sema? 
 
 Chawte* 
 
 Mother's brother 
 
 Pute 
 
 Tsa 
 
 Ngu 
 
 Pu 
 
 Father's sister 
 
 Ni 
 
 Moigyi 
 
 Ni 
 
 Ni 
 
 Mother's brother's wife 
 
 Pite 
 
 Ni 
 
 Zaor 
 Fu 
 
 Pi 
 
 Father's sister's husband 
 
 Marang 
 
 Ku 
 
 Chi 
 
 Rang 
 
 Husband's mother 
 
 Ni 
 
 Moi 
 
 Ni 
 
 Ni 
 
 Wife's father 
 
 Pu 
 
 Tsa 
 
 Ngu 
 
 Pu 
 
 Husband's father 
 
 Marang 
 
 Ku 
 
 Ngu 
 
 Arang 
 
 Wife's mother 
 
 Pi 
 
 Ni 
 
 Ni 
 
 Pi 
 
 An early authority quoted by Sir James Frazer (94) 
 describes the " Nagas of Assam " as practising cousin 
 marriage and preferring the daughter of the mother's 
 brother. Precisely to what Naga tribe this applied is 
 not stated, but we know that among the Sema Nagas, 
 " If otherwise suitable, marriage with the mother's 
 brother's daughter or father's sister's son is pre- 
 ferred " (95). Among the Semas, as among other 
 Naga tribes, the greatest respect is enjoined on a man 
 
 From Manipur Durbar. 
 
 Burma Census Report, 1911, Appendix B. xiii. 
 
 Hutton's The Semas, pp. 140, 141. 
 
 From Manipur Durbar. 
 
 Te is a plural form, 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 95 
 
 for his mother's brother (96), and while " There is no 
 social penalty attaching to the breach of this etiquette, 
 the breach is believed to entail its own penalty of serious 
 misfortune or death." There are definite obligations of 
 gifts and returns between a man and the husband of his 
 sister's daughter. A " Sema may marry his father's 
 wife, other, of course, than his own mother, after his 
 father's death " (97). One and the same term, Aza, is 
 used for mother, for mother's sister and for the 
 mother's brother's daughter, as if indicating that 
 as a man may marry a woman having the status of 
 mother as well as a woman having the status of mother's 
 brother's daughter, so that the same term is applied to 
 them both, as well as to the mother's sister, since " the 
 vast majority hold that a man may marry his mother's 
 sister by the same father and mother without any sug- 
 gestion of impropriety' 1 (98). But by preference 
 they marry their mother's brother's daughter (99), so 
 that one and the same term (Angu) is naturally used for 
 mother's brother and wife's father. 
 
 FREE EXOGAMY. 
 
 Many are the tribes which are in the stage of free 
 exogamy with special " local " rules to prevent marriages 
 which may be deemed too close. How close, according 
 to our ideas, marriages can be and yet be permitted, even 
 encouraged, may be seen by some well-known cases. 
 An Ernadan used to take his eldest daughter as his second 
 wife (100). A Sema may marry his father's widow (not 
 being his own mother), or his mother's sister (101). A 
 Garo must marry his wife's mother when the latter 
 becomes a widow in order to enjoy the property, and his 
 wife's mother is naturally often his father's sister (102). 
 A Kuruba may marry his elder sister's daughter (103). 
 A Gond may marry his grand-daughter (104). But the 
 principle of exogamy is still observed for the women 
 belong to a group other than that of their husband's. It 
 
96 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 is not individual kinship, but membership of a definite 
 group which regulates marriage. The groups are as 
 wheels with individuals as cogs and the motion of the 
 wheels is transmitted through the engagement of the 
 cogs. The fact is that status, as Sir Henry Maine (105) 
 pointed out long ago is the mark of societies in the lower 
 culture. Status is a matter of the rights and duties of 
 members of a group as such to one another, and to 
 members of a similar group as such. Marriage rules 
 are essentially matters of group relations. Both indi- 
 viduals as individuals, and groups as groups, are affected 
 by marriage, and the fundamental reason is that group 
 consciousness is stimulated by individual action. The 
 group marriage question I do not propose to discuss. 
 
 As Lowie shows (106) " Sex moieties, divisions on 
 the basis of matrimonial status, social clubs, secret 
 fraternities, all criss-cross the bonds of the family and 
 the sib, creating new units of incalculable significance for 
 the individual's social existence. These ' associations ' 
 exist simultaneously. Their interests may conflict, may 
 be independent, separable and distinct, may be combined 
 and harmonised, and in the vast range and variety of 
 institutions beliefs and customs may be found evidence 
 of the phases of conflict, compromise, interaction and 
 harmonisation by co-ordination with some central domin- 
 ant social idea." 
 
 I cannot stay to describe the modes of exchange, of 
 purchase, of servitude, nor the strange rites and practices 
 which gather round marriage, that social process by 
 which an individual forms a partnership with an indi- 
 vidual of the opposite sex so that a family is started, a 
 new social, economic and biological unit. As we see it, 
 this process is conditioned by rules and regulations which 
 are partly social, partly economic, partly biological. 
 The rites marking this process in its stages are therefore 
 of a similarly varied nature. Some refer distinctly to 
 the biological aspect of the process ; others are significant 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 97 
 
 of the economic importance : the purely social factors 
 the modification of status, immediate and prospective, 
 the accretion of a new unit are evident. To under- 
 stand the process adequately, the effects of the several 
 factors must be ascertained, simply at first, then in 
 combination and in combined interaction. The future 
 effects of the process, the status of the issue, the economic 
 adjustments are clearly contemplated and provided for 
 by the rules and the rites which are valid and observed 
 only because they rest on the authority of society. What 
 ideas, what imaginings, lie behind the authority of 
 society can often be divined only with difficulty. 
 Marriage is essentially a process envisaging definite 
 problems, prospective of issue, regulating the social 
 status of that issue, regarding that issue as the reincarna- 
 tion of deceased members of the group. Thus for me 
 the whole mass of marriage rules and rites is dominated 
 by, and intelligible as a whole, only if regarded as 
 organised in relation to the concept of society as com- 
 posed of ever-changing, ever-recurring, units of a living 
 organism of complex and varied, every- varying, structure, 
 to be viewed as we are asked to view life itself, where 
 " en realite le corps change de forme i tout instant. 
 Ce qui est reel, c'est le changement continuel de 
 forme : la forme n'est qu'un instantan6 pris sur une 
 transition/' (107). 
 
 1. Rites de Passage, p. 97. 
 
 la. Primitive Societies (Lowie), p. 324 ; Anthropology (Marett), p. 243. 
 
 2. Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 55. 
 
 3. Sema Nagas, p. 51 n. 
 
 4. Ibid., p. 54. 
 
 5. Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, i. 69. J. R.A.I., xlix.. 
 pp. 237 sq. 
 
 6. The Oraons, p. 272 et seq. 
 
 7. Gebiet das Kols Mission, p. 65. 
 
 8. Naga Tribes of Manipur, p, 168. 
 
 9. The Angami Nagas, pp. 197, 204. 
 
 10. Ibid., p. 199. 
 
 11. Ibid. t p. 205. 
 
 12. Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 152. 
 
98 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 13. Ibid., p. 19. 
 
 14. The Khasis, p. 190. 
 
 15. The Garos, p. 147. 
 
 16. Practical Handbook of Kachin (H. F. Hertz), p. 130. 
 
 17. Rites de Passage, pp. 88 sq., 67 n. See Lowie, Primitive Society, pp. 102, 
 250. 
 
 18. The Semas, p. 95. 
 
 19. The Angami Nagas, p. 94. 
 
 20. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 182. 
 
 21. The Khasis, p. 160. 
 
 22. The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 160. 
 
 23. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 182. 
 
 24. The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 160. 
 
 25. The Sema Nagas, p. 90 n. Census Report, 1911, vol. iii., p. 76. 
 
 28. Census Report, 1911, vol. iii., loc. cit. Cf. Folklore of the Santal Pargetnas 
 p. 415. 
 
 27. The Sema Nagas, p. 95. 
 
 28. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 78 
 
 29. Gebiet das Kols Mission, p. 88 ; see p. 62. 
 
 30. The Angami Nagas, p. 234. 
 
 31. The Oraons, pp. 225, 239. 
 
 3 la. The Angami Nagas, p. 26. 
 
 32. The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 167. 
 
 33. Ibid., p. 168. 
 
 34. Ibid., p. 168. 
 
 35. Ibid., p. 169. 
 
 36. Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, iii. 107. 
 
 37. The Angami Nagas, p. 236. 
 
 38. The Sema Nagas, p. 72. 
 
 39. The Angami Nagas, p. 71. 
 
 40. The Sema Nagas, p. 51. 
 
 41. Ibid., 
 
 42. The Angami Nagas, p. 191. 
 
 43. The Khasis, p. 160. 
 
 44. Census Report, 1911, vol. iii., p. 140. 
 
 45. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 177. 
 
 46. Census Report, 1911, vol. iii., p. 77. 
 
 47. The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 81. 
 
 48. Census Report, 1911, vol. iii., p. 140. 
 
 49. The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 162. 
 
 50. Ethnographic Notes in Southern India, pp. 547-551. 
 
 51. The Angami Nagas, p. 67. 
 
 52. Ibid., p. 231. 
 
 53. Ibid., p. 236. 
 
 64. The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 164. 
 
 65. Ibid., p. 165. 
 56. Ibid., p. 174. 
 
 67. Census Report, 1911, vol. iii., p. 141, and Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 62. 
 
 58. The Angami Nagas, p. 25. 
 
 59. Ibid., illustrative note, p. 227. 
 
 60. Soppitt, Account of the Kachari Tribes, p. 36 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 99 
 
 61. Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 161. 
 
 62. Tribes and Castes of Bengal, ii., 227-228. 
 
 63. The Khasis, p. 78. 
 
 64. Lushei Kuki Clans, pp. 51, 82, 86, 199. 
 
 65. Hartland, Primitive Society, p. 28. 
 
 66. Census Report, 1901, vol. iii., p. 51 ; cf. Brown, Andaman Islanders, 
 73, 
 
 67. Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv., p. 72. 
 
 68. Frazer, Folklore of the Old Testament, vol. ii., p. 223, 227. sq. 
 68a. Lowie, Primitive Society, p. 105. 
 
 69. Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, vol. i., p. 144. 
 
 70. Ibid., vol. iii., p. 71. 
 
 71. Ibid., vol. iii., p. 65. 
 
 72. Ibid., p. 65. 
 
 73. Census Report, 1911, vol. i., p. 253. 
 
 74. The Garos, pp. 68, 69, 72, 73. 
 
 75. Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 63. 
 75a. The Kuki Lushei Clans, p. 173. 
 
 76. The Kuki Lushei Clans, p. 167. 
 
 77. The Angamis, pp. 110, 234. 
 
 78. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 74 sq. 
 
 79. The Angamis, pp. 117, n., 361. 
 
 80. Man in India, vol. i., pp. 106-127. 
 
 81. Folklore of the Old Testament, ii., p. 134. 
 
 82. Ibid, pp. 96-371. 
 
 83. Ibid., p. 240. 
 
 84. Gazetteer of the Central Provinces, p. 276, 
 
 85. The Garos, p, 58. 
 
 86. Census Report, 1891, vol. i., 229. 
 
 87. Man in India, vol. i., pp. 106-127. 
 
 88. The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 173. 
 
 89. Handbook of Kachin Grammar, p. 140. 
 
 90. Gazetteer of Upper Burma, vol. i., part 1, p. 404. 
 
 91. The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 154. 
 
 92. Census Report, 1911, vol. ix. f p. Ixxiii. 
 
 93. The Sema Nagas, pp. 140, 141. 
 
 94. Folklore of the Old Testament, ii., 133. 
 
 95. The Sema Nagas, p. 132. 
 
 96. Ibid., p. 137. 
 
 97. Ibid., p. 136. 
 
 98. Ibid., p. 131. 
 
 99. Ibid., p. 132. 
 
 100. Castes and Tribes ofS. India, vol. ii., p. 217. 
 
 101. The Sema Nagas, p. 136. 
 
 102. Census Report, 1891, vol. i., p. 229. 
 
 103. Ethnographical Survey of Mysore, Bulletin 1, p. 8. 
 
 104. Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, vol. iii., p. 72. 
 
 105. Ancient Law, p. 170. 
 
 106. Primitive Society, p. 283. 
 
 107. Bergson, Evolution Creatriee, p. 327. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 The Cycle of Life Birth and Name-giving Rites Initiation and 
 Puberty Rites The Educational System Marriage Social Distinc- 
 tions Death and Mortuary Ritual Re-incarnation Beliefs The Origin 
 of Death Religious Beliefs The Nature of the Soul Causes of Death 
 Treatment of Sickness Man and Nature Totemism The Lower 
 Culture as the Matrix of Higher Culture. 
 
 I propose to trace the life history, briefly, of indi- 
 viduals as they pass from stage to stage of their career 
 in the social group of which they are members. The 
 first rite is that by which a name is given to the infant. 
 It is well agreed that " Names also are regarded as con- 
 crete ... as part of the person or thing to which it was 
 applied, and containing part of his life " (1) More 
 than that it is the part of him which is his soul. The 
 rites of name-giving are a social act by which the child 
 is made an individual, and is brought into a group, be it 
 small or large. Thus with the Garos " The child is nearly 
 always named after an ancestor who has been dead for 
 some years. The name of a living relative or of one who 
 has recently died is never given (2). By the Kabui 
 Nagas " names are not given at random, but are com- 
 pounds of the father's and grandfather's names or those 
 of other near relations " (3). There are name cycles 
 which may conceal a personal name and are certainly 
 supplemented by nicknames (4). But there are other 
 means to hand by which the name may be ascertained. 
 Dreams will help, and so the parents among some Nagas 
 will " note " their dreams so that the name of their new- 
 born child may be rightly chosen. Omens, too, are 
 taken among the Khasis (5) as also among the Kols and 
 Hos who call neighbours and relations together for the 
 rite. " Es wird nicht ein beleibiger Name gewahlt, 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 101 
 
 sondern zuerst muss eine Art Orakel gefragt werden- 
 und nur wenn dieses schweigt, wird ein Name gewahlt. 
 Das Orakel besteht darin, dass ein Gefass mil Wasser 
 gefiillt wird, In dieses Wasser wird bei Nennung des 
 Namens ein Reiskorn gewerfen ; sinkt es, dann wird 
 dieser Name genommen, bleibt es atuf der Oberflache, 
 wird er verworfen. Bei einem erstgeborenen Knaben 
 werden die Namen des nachsten verstorbenen Ver- 
 wandten gerufen, indem Glauben, dass vielleicht einer 
 der selben aus der Unterwelt zuruckgekehrt und in dem 
 kleinen Neugeborenen auss neue in diese Welt einge- 
 treten sein konnte (6). By the Oraons the same 
 method is employed, but the test lies in two rice grains 
 meeting when a name is called. The names are called 
 over in regular order. " First the paternal grandfather's 
 name, then the paternal great grandfather, the father's, 
 the paternal uncle's and the maternal grandfather, then 
 the names of other relatives " (7). " The practice 
 of naming children after ancestors," says the Bengal 
 Census Report for 1911 (8), " also seems to point to a 
 belief in the conservation of spirits in the same family. 
 This is clearly expressed in the ceremony attending the 
 naming of children among the Khonds. A Guru is called 
 on the seventh day after its birth to discover by divina- 
 tion which of the ancestors has animated the new-born 
 child. . . . The Santals also name their children after 
 ancestors. The eldest son takes the name of his paternal 
 grandfather, a second son that of his maternal grand- 
 father, a third son that of the paternal grandfather's 
 brother, a fourth son that of the maternal grandfather's 
 brother, etc. A similar custom is observed in the case 
 of girls, the names relations on the female side being 
 taken in the same order. Among the Bhuiyas the name 
 of the grandfather is given to the eldest son, that of 
 the great grandfather to the second son, and then the 
 names of collateral relatives according to seniority." 
 Sarat Chandra Roy makes it clear that " for the Bhuiyas 
 
102 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 all the names taken must be those of deceased relations, 
 for the child is supposed to be the reincarnation of some 
 dead relatives " (9). The little stranger is no stranger 
 but he must be identified. 
 
 There may be other motives at work as in the Sema 
 custom, where he " never gives to the child the name of a 
 living relation, though the names of dead ancestors are 
 popular among those with a child to name/' The ex- 
 planation given is that, if the name of a living senior be 
 given the elder will die, as a substitute for him in this 
 world has been provided. Possibly there is behind this 
 some fear that such nomenclature would be tantamount 
 to saddling one body with two souls, one of which being 
 useless would die. The very strong objection which 
 Semas have to having an animal named after them may 
 be connected with the same idea. At the same time they 
 do not appear to have, at the present time, any belief 
 at all that the dead are reincarnated in the living " (10). 
 
 There follow then the domestic ceremonies when the 
 first hair is cut, when the ears are bored, when the teeth 
 are filed, when the tattooing is begun, when the maiden 
 is known to be mature, ceremonies whose full and varied 
 significance can be ascertained only by careful explora- 
 tion of the " mixed motives " which influence the people 
 who practise them. The Santals brand the young man 
 on the left forearm, for " Unless these marks are fully 
 visible when he comes to die, a terrible fate will befall 
 him. As soon as the breath leaves his body, a large 
 worm will burrow into his breast and slowly devour his 
 body " (11). Among the Abors and Nagas tattooing 
 has much the same purpose, " for thereby is provided a 
 means of identification in the life hereafter 1 ' (12). As 
 Dr. Thurston shows (13) vague ideas of hygiene may 
 operate as well as aesthetic motives of self-adornment, 
 but there is no doubt that the religious or traditional 
 factor is most strong, involving complex associations 
 which explain its wide validity. These mutilations 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 103 
 
 serve to differentiate one group from another, to em- 
 phasise their unity with their fellows who practise the 
 same rites. 
 
 In due course, after the years of dependence on the 
 mother, whose part in the development of the mental 
 capacities of the young is very great, the boy or girl 
 will enter the " school/' the Bachelor's Hall, or the 
 Spinster's House, wherein they will receive an education 
 of an entirely vocational nature, fitting them, be it 
 admitted, rather well for the life that lies before them. 
 Civics and crafts, to use the jargon now in vogue, form 
 the substance of the training of these years. For some 
 the " school period " will not cease till they enter the full 
 life of the married, even in extreme cases, till a child is 
 born to them. The rites of marriage, the preliminaries, 
 the bargaining and the omen-taking, the conditions, 
 physical and social regarded as proof of fitness for this 
 estate, the complex ceremonies which remove the boy 
 and girl from a stage of social tutelage to plenary social 
 responsibility almost by violence, have been described in 
 amplitude of detail by many skilful observers. The 
 range of complexity is considerable. Simple cohabita- 
 tion by mutual consent is accepted as " marriage " by 
 the jungle tribes of Southern India such as the Chenchus 
 and the Yanadis (14) or by the poorer Gonds (15) . Among 
 the Andamanese, " When the elders of a sept are 
 aware that a young couple are anxious to marry, the bride 
 is taken to a newly-made hut and made to sit down in it. 
 The bridegroom runs away into the jungle, but after 
 some struggling and pretence at hesitation, is brought in 
 by force and made to sit in the bride's lap. This is the 
 whole ceremony. The newly-married couple have little 
 to say to, and are very shy of, each other for at least a 
 month after marriage, when they gradually settle down 
 together " (16). Indeed the marriage is not socially 
 complete till a child has been born, since " In the case of 
 a young married couple who are childless, if either die, 
 
io4 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 the survivor is not the chief mourner and does not even 
 assist at the obsequies which are performed solely by the 
 relatives of the deceased (17). The long-drawn-out cere- 
 monies of the Mundas and Santals who, nevertheless, 
 recognise minor modes of marriage, include the rite 
 known as Tree-marriage by which the bride and bride- 
 groom are married to a mango or mahua tree. The 
 sociological interest of this rite arises in part from the 
 fact that it is an integral part of rites forming the main 
 and most important of the marriage modes of these 
 people. What does it mean, does it mean anything at 
 all ? The votary of totemism.(18) sees in it a totemicrite, 
 but these trees are not totems and the rite is universal, 
 not confined to the clans which have totems and are the 
 marriage units. It is said that it is an act of penance 
 for a violation of communal rights (19), but exactly and 
 in what matter the penitential aspect of the rite consists, 
 is left obscure. A third explanation (20) is that it is a 
 mock ceremony destined to baffle the vigilance of the 
 evil spirits who are specially active on such solemn 
 occasions, and to secure the lawlessness in success of the 
 marriage. They take it in all seriousness, however, 
 and in the explanation of the rite as a fertility rite, 
 definite, concrete, specific (21), I see the history of it. 
 Be it remembered that these are the fruit trees which 
 play so important a part in the economics of these people, 
 that as an intelligent Santal remarked to Sir William 
 Hunter, " good men entered into fruit-bearing trees " (22) 
 that the dead are reborn in the living, that no human 
 marriage can take place till the bones of the dead of the 
 year that is gone have been placed in the tribal ossuary, 
 that man has two souls, one male and one female, and 
 that, in the world hereafter, " All the spirits are employed 
 in grinding the bones of past generations with a pestle 
 made of the wood of the castor oil tree in order to provide 
 the gods with a good supply of material to produce the 
 children yet unborn " (23). The Kurubas erect the milk 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 105 
 
 post at marriages for the definite purpose of " ensuring 
 continuity of the line " (24). The purpose of all marriage 
 rites is to ensure the continuity of the line, that is the 
 constant succession of reincarnated souls, as the purpose 
 of the name-giving rites is to ascertain which of the 
 deceased ancestors has indeed returned. 
 
 SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS. 
 
 Prowess in war entitles the Naga to wear emblems, 
 sometimes very unmistakeable emblems, of his efforts 
 to reduce the enemy population. Performance of social 
 rites, feasts to the village, sacrifices of valuable animals 
 in prescribed and adequate quantity, are signalised by a 
 " regular scale of cloths from which it can be told at a 
 glance precisely to what status in the performance of 
 such ceremonies the wearer has reached " (25). The 
 sole advantage accruing in these days to the wealthy acid 
 ambitious Naga, who duly performs these expensive 
 rites, is the privilege of distinctions in dress and domestic 
 architecture. Among the Lushais the spiritual benefit 
 of escape from the mortal coil of reincarnation can be 
 assured by the due sacrifice of mythan on a series of 
 occasions (26). To this is added the right of special 
 clothes and of making improvements in the house. There 
 is now apparently no mystery about these methods of 
 achieving greatness. Stone monuments are viewed as 
 memorials of the dead. I have reason to know that they 
 are still erected by the living (27) and are associated with 
 the belief in reincarnation. A Naga once complained 
 in great distress of the action of the Public Works De- 
 partment in breaking up his stone memorial as road 
 metal, and on investigation I found that " the luck " of 
 the whole family was associated with the stone whose 
 extinction was thus threatened. 
 
 The attitude of the lower culture towards their dead 
 and death is fully often very clearly displayed by the 
 complexity and duration of the rites performed for the 
 
io6 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 disposal of the human remains in which enter various 
 elements in order to serve the many purposes involved 
 by the relations of the dead to the living, by the nature 
 of the relations of soul and body, by the relations of the 
 individual with the social groups of which in life he was 
 a member. As I see them, there are distinct principles 
 at work. In both of them I see the influence of the belief 
 in reincarnation. The married are distinguished from 
 the unmarried for marriage is a condition precedent for 
 re-incarnation. Hence those cases where the rites of 
 marriage are performed over a dead bachelor or spimter in 
 order that the formal status of married individual shall 
 be theirs (28). I see, too, at work the principle of dis- 
 tinguishing between those whose manner of death indi- 
 cates that they are for ever precluded from rebirth, and 
 those who are liable to return. There are those who are 
 favoured by fortune, who by their strong arm and swift 
 skill, or by their depth of purse, have achieved greatness 
 and freedom from return to this world of woe. Folk of 
 quality are never damned. Besides those who have 
 in these ways achieved greatness are those who are born 
 great in those societies where a permanent social order 
 and precedence have been established. These things 
 count in the lower culture and have a value. For them 
 all death is the occasion of social anxiety, for there is 
 " something contagious about dying, and association with 
 death is liable to cause it. Merely to spread an untrue 
 report of a man's death may cause it in itself." Thus the 
 Semas (29). It is, too, an occasion when there is evident 
 a breach in the social fabric, a sense of communal as well 
 as of personal and individual loss, a recognition of indi- 
 viduality in opposition to the solidarity of society. Thus 
 it is common to find that an unnamed child is buried with 
 scant ceremony, for it has never been, it can never be, 
 admitted to society. From the moment of birth, by 
 reason of the manner of the birth, there are children 
 deemed unfit to live. Among the Pabri Bhuiyas should 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 107 
 
 a child be born with one or more teeth, it is " generally 
 suffocated and thrown into a stream " (30). At 
 Phweelongmai in Manipur female infanticide was once 
 common " caused by a superstition which condemned to 
 death all such as were born in a particular position " (31). 
 
 It is recorded of the Angamis that " Infanticide used 
 to be practised in the case of children born of unmarried 
 girls. In such cases delivery had to take place in the 
 jungle and the child was killed ; the Kezami women used 
 further to pierce its feet all over with thorns to prevent 
 its visiting and haunting the mother in her dreams. It 
 was believed that if it was allowed to grow up the village 
 would have no success in hunting or in war " (32). 
 One of the strangest effects of the belief in reincarnation 
 is that observed among the Khonds, who " believe that 
 souls almost invariably return to animate human forms 
 in the families in which they have been first born and 
 received. But the reception of the soul of an infant 
 into a family is completed only on the performance of 
 the ceremony of naming upon the seventh day after its 
 birth. The death of a female infant, therefore, before 
 that ceremonial of reception, is believed to exclude its 
 soul from the circle of family spirits, diminishing by one 
 the chance of future female births in the family " (33), 
 This belief, reported by an early observer, has been 
 rein vest iga ted, and " Inquiry shows that there is no 
 belief among the Khonds at the present time that the 
 ceremony of receiving a child into the family on the 
 seventh day after birth confers the privilege of re-entering 
 the family at some future time. This power is acquired 
 only when the child has become an adult and been married " 
 and " souls of unmarried persons cannot enter the circle 
 of family spirits " (34), 
 
 The Yerukalas of Nellore, in Madras, accord to the 
 married the privilege of a bier while they carry the un- 
 married to the grave simply wrapped in a mat (35). 
 Amongst the Marias, " who are probably the best 
 
io8 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 type we possess of the primitive Gond, the dead are waked 
 in the Irish fashion. ... If the deceased was an adult 
 male, the body is next secured to a Mahwa tree in an erect 
 posture and then burned. . . . Children and women are 
 always buried" (36). 
 
 But the most widely-spread source of variation in 
 mortuary ritual is that which relates to the mode of 
 death. Of the Old Kuki Clans, Colonel Shakespear 
 states that "All these clans bury their dead in special ceme- 
 teries outside the village, and unnatural deaths or deaths 
 in childbirth are universally considered that the deceased 
 has failed in some way, and the corpses of such unfor- 
 tunates are buried outside the cemetery and with scant 
 ceremony. . . . The Anal makes a distinction between 
 deaths in childbirth and deaths by accident or in war. 
 In the former case the body is buried in the cemetery, 
 the grave being dug by those of her household and food 
 and drink and domestic utensils are deposited therein. 
 The husband has to sacrifice a pig and feast the village 
 before the burial and the village is " sherh " for that day. 
 The first stones and earth are placed in the grave by aged 
 men, and the filling then completed by young men. 
 The thempu having muttered some charms, the young 
 men and women sing and dance for the deliverence of the 
 soul. In cases of ordinary death the grave is dug by men 
 not of the household, but in case of unnatural death 
 only old grey-headed men may perform the task, and 
 the grave is dug in the jungle and no dance or song ter- 
 minates the funeral, but the village is not " sherh/' Of 
 the belief that underlies and shapes these practices he 
 tells us " The Anal Kolhen and Lamgang believe that after 
 hovering around the grave for some time, the spirit is 
 reincarnated in some new-born child, but that an un- 
 natural death prevents this and the spirit passes away 
 skywards and returns no more (37). Similar dis- 
 tinctions are found among the Angamis (38), and 
 of the existence of the belief in reincarnation I can 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 109 
 
 cite the evidence of an early record now some fifty years 
 old (39). Of the Kols we find that " Anders aber verlauft 
 diese Prozedur wenn ein Mensch eines unnaturlichen oder 
 plotzlichen Todes stirbt, wie z.B. wenn einer erschlagen 
 oder von Tiger zerrissenund getotet wird, wen jemand die 
 gerichtliche Todesstrafe zu erleiden hat oder einer Ampu- 
 tation gesterben ist, oder auch wenn eine Frau bei der 
 Geburt eines Kindes oder innerhalb von funfzehn Tagen 
 nach ihrer Entbindung im Wochenbett starb. Alle diese 
 Ungliicklichen konnen nicht verbrannt d-h nicht rite 
 bestattet werden, Weil sie nicht zu den pachbalar = den 
 Vorfahren in der Unterwelt versammellt werden, sondern 
 zu bosen Geistern geworden sind, die ihren Aufenthalt 
 in der Luft, in Waldern, Ruinen, Begrabnisplatzen, an 
 oden Orten usw nehmen und durch blutige Opfer in Ruhe 
 gehalten werden miissen. Ihnen kann nicht geholfen 
 werden, man muss sich nur vor ihnen schiitzen. . . . 
 Ein vom Tiger gefressener Mensch wird sogar selbst zum 
 Tiger und der Ort wo das Ungliick geschehen ist, muss 
 in-gleicher Weise ausgezeichnet werden, damit man nicht 
 vom Tiger angef alien werde " (40). 
 
 The association of this sharp distinction between those 
 who die an ordinary death who after death are joined to 
 those that have gone before them to the underworld and 
 those whose manner of death precludes them from peace 
 among their fellows save at the price of special and bloody 
 rites is as marked among the Dravidian speaking Oraons 
 who knew them as Churil (ghost of women dying in child- 
 birth) Bhula or wanderer (the ghosts of all " that have 
 died an unnatural death ") (41) and Balsadhak a (still- 
 born child's ghost). Perhaps the most remarkable com- 
 bination of funeral rites where both methods of classifying 
 the dead, that is either by their social status or by the 
 manner of the death, are in evident operation, is that 
 afforded by the Killekyatas, as described in Mysore 
 Ethnographic Survey, Bulletin, No. XXII. The dead 
 are generally buried. Persons affected with such 
 
no PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 diseases as leprosy and also pregnant women are 
 cremated, and the bodies of those meeting with un- 
 natural death, such as from wild animals, are sometimes 
 buried under stone heaps. The bodies of married persons 
 are placed in a sitting, and those of others in a lying, 
 posture in the grave, With them as with the Kols, 
 Mundas, Santals, and the Old Kuki tribes, the cycle of 
 belief and practice is complete, birth rites to name the 
 child after a deceased relative, marriage rites to ensure 
 the continuity of the line " classification of the dead 
 by social status and mode of death, belief that " their 
 deceased ancestors, especially the married amongst them, 
 always remain with them. The names of the departed 
 should be given to children in the family." 
 
 It is the purpose of funeral rites to provide for souls 
 of these diverse and difficult natures, to safeguard the 
 living against the infection which is death, to repair the 
 breach which private or individual misfortune or mistake 
 has caused in the solid scheme of society. Thus are 
 combined, now in one, now in a long series of rites, a 
 variety of social purposes, a variety which is still further 
 diversified, as we have seen, by beliefs as to the fate 
 of those who die a blessed death, who are to return, whose 
 rank and public spirit, as these things are judged in the 
 lower culture, entitle them to spiritual benefits as well as 
 to temporal distinction. Among the Nagas, the Old Kuki 
 tribes and the Munda-speaking peoples, both the Khasias 
 and the lowlier folk of the plateau of Chota Nagpur, is 
 found a communal rite by which final rest is assured to 
 the ghosts of those that have died a " good " death 
 during the year 
 
 We have now to examine the beliefs current in the 
 lower culture as to the nature of man, the origin and 
 cause of death and sickness, the origin and nature of the 
 world in which man lives, the nature of the Powers that 
 made and rule that world. Here, as always, we must 
 turn to the prominent features of the mental attitudes 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA in 
 
 of the social consciousness of the lower culture as we have 
 found them to be. There is, first, the special importance 
 assigned to dreams which have not only reality but a 
 degree of value exceeding the impressions of the waking 
 state. It is true, too, as Mr. Russell has shown (42) 
 that " the tendency to make everything concrete is a 
 principal and salient characteristic of . . primitive 
 religion/' Add to that the " tendency to coin a separate 
 word for every individual conception " (43), with its 
 necessary accompaniment of a " difficulty in forming 
 words for abstract ideas," and we know the lines on which 
 we can make real progress in our investigations. 
 
 Definition may be an essential element in dogma, but 
 it is dangerous and misleading to define too rigorously 
 or to dogmatise about the attitudes of the lower culture 
 towards what we call the supernatural as distinguished 
 from the natural as two separate, mutually exclusive 
 categories. The classification is ours, not theirs. Mr. 
 Hutton observes that, " In common with other savage 
 races the Angami regards the supernatural in general 
 from a point of view that is sublimely vague. ... He 
 has a very clear idea of how gods should be served, and 
 that whoso serves them otherwise shall die, if not physi- 
 cally, at least socially. And this, although much of the 
 service which he offers seems to be proffered to no god in 
 particular, to no definite personal beings, but is associated 
 merely with such supernatural forces as may influence 
 his destiny or his daily life. At the same time, while he 
 does not, like the civilised man, naturally classify and 
 departmentalise his notions of the supernatural, he does 
 recognise some sort of distinction between, on the one 
 hand, souls of the dead (and perhaps of the living) and, 
 on the other, deities (" terhoma ") of a more or less definite 
 nature, ranging from deities with certain functions and 
 individual names to vague spirits of the jungle, stone 
 and stream (44)." There are gods, there are souls of the 
 dead, there are forces which influence the ' destiny and 
 
ii2 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 daily life ' of men, there is service to be done in due order 
 by men lest they perish in the flesh or be outcast by their 
 fellows. As Sir James Frazer reminds us (45) " not least 
 in the undeveloped savage religions . . . theory and 
 practice fuse with and interact on each other too closely 
 to be forcibly disjoined and handled apart." Since, 
 however, definitions are necessary, if only because time 
 is precious, we need not look for a definition of a God 
 beyond that given by Sir James Frazer : " By a God I 
 mean a beneficent supernatural spirit, the ruler of the 
 world, or some part of it, who resembles man in nature 
 though he excels him in knowledge and power." In a 
 passage of profound analysis he finds " two sorts of gods 
 whom man discovers or creates for himself by the exercise 
 of his unaided faculties, to wit, natural gods whom he 
 infers from his observation of external nature and human 
 gods or inspired men whom he recognises by virtue of 
 certain extraordinary mental manifestations in himself 
 or in others (46). To these two classes he adds yet a 
 third class, the deified spirits of dead men " (47). Thus 
 if we adopt this classification as a working hypothesis 
 of the origin of the principles of natural theology, as 
 revealed in the acts and beliefs of the lower culture, 
 Theoplasm is within man himself, is the very stuff and 
 substance of his thoughts, is man himself. 
 
 The forces, social, environmental, natural, historical, 
 which shape and mould and control and limit the thoughts 
 of man, have operated as surely in this as in other 
 directions of his activity. Yet throughout the lower 
 culture we find not unity of belief not uniformity of 
 attitude, but a general similarity of ideas on many points. 
 Thus the Andamanese believe in a being named Puluga, 
 or Bilika, who made earth and sky and sea, who with an 
 associate named Tarai, produces rain, storms, thunder 
 and lightning, whence arises a special relation in regard 
 to fire. The very sex of this being is a matter on which 
 the evidence seems to be inconclusive, while the nature 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 113 
 
 of the being towards the activities of the Andamanese is 
 shown by the anger displayed at melting or burning 
 beeswax, cutting, digging up, or in any way interfering 
 with a certain number of plants, particularly during a 
 certain period of the year, and killing a cicada or making 
 a noise during the time the cicadae are singing at 
 morning or evening " (48). 
 
 The Naga, like the Lushai, knows a Creator who is 
 called Alhou by the Semas ; Kepenopfu, a mother 
 Goddess, ancestress of the Angamis ; Kamyou by the 
 Tangkhuls ; Pathien by the Lushais and their congeners. 
 It is clear that Kepenopfu the Angami Ancestress, is 
 nowadays being given a male character. Here and 
 there, as with the Quoirengs, is a belief in a Creator 
 deity named Kampinu, or the wife of Kampini, John 
 Company, that distant, mysterious, powerful entity, in 
 whose name strange men, few in number, ruled among 
 them. Some of these High Gods indeed take but little 
 care of the world they have fashioned or of the men that 
 they have set to live therein, while others are as the 
 "supreme dispenser of good and evil " (49). There 
 are spirits of the jungle, of the sea where, as with 
 the Andamanese, the sea is known in their daily life, of 
 the stone and stream, spirits who give good crops, but 
 must be kept in good temper, lest they destroy the labour 
 of man's hands. Some are named, known, feared, pro- 
 pitiated. Many are without a name, somethings 
 that work havoc and ruin. With the Oraons of Central 
 India there has developed a hierarchy of spiritual powers 
 with a correspondingly complicated organisation of human 
 ministers to serve the Deotas, the Sun, the Earth, the 
 clan village and family deities, the spirits of dead women, 
 whose hope was shattered in them ere its dawn could 
 be, of men killed in the jungles by a tiger, of all whose 
 souls are denied rest with the fellowship of the glorious 
 dead, of young bridegrooms snatched by death ere the 
 prime of life, of all whose manner of death was strange, 
 terrifying, memorable. 
 
ii4 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 The social organisation makes due and adequate 
 provision for the maintenance of relations with these 
 powers. There are the official representatives of the 
 community, the Naga Kemovo, the Lushai puithiam or 
 wise man, the Oraon panch or sankatalas (50), the 
 Santal and Munda Pahan. Immigrant communities 
 enlist the services of a local expert as the Baiga who is a 
 Kol in the employ of Oraon villages. The choice of these 
 permanent civil servants is effected by heredity or by 
 selective omens on proper principles, since they are the 
 conservators of the traditions of diplomacy with the 
 sacred powers. Here, again, the element of continuity 
 is implemented by an element through which variations 
 and adjustments to varying conditions are effected ; for 
 the ojha and the thumomi often employ means analogous 
 with those of the official ritual, yet they are among Nagas 
 " arrant frauds, and practise any sort of knavery that a 
 gullible clientele finds attractive " (51). Persons who are 
 subject to hypernormal or abnormal mental activities, 
 women as well as men, old and young, become inter- 
 mediaries between this and the other world. Some are 
 born to this greatness and others acquire it by labour 
 and long austerities and by payment of filthy lucre. 
 Thus the Oraons know that the intensive course of 
 training in these horrid arts lasts for but one year, and 
 if by the end of that time she has filled her record (a hole 
 in which a pebble is placed for each lesson learnt) " she 
 has learnt everything. She has the power to take away 
 life and to restore it. Otherwise, if she has only succeeded 
 in partially filling the hole, she can only take away life " 
 (52). The line which divides the sacred from the profane 
 may be drawn sharply in theory, in the study of the 
 scientist, but in actual life it is uncertain, vague and 
 inconstant. Things and persons that are at one moment 
 highly sacred, endued with strange qualities, with 
 mysterious power to bless and blast, to hurt and to heal, 
 to help and to harm, are at other moments fortunately 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 115 
 
 ordinary creatures of flesh and blood, ordinary things 
 available for common use. Yet all that is useful is sacred, 
 somewhere, some time, because it is useful and ministers 
 to some need, social or other. There come upon them 
 influences which give rise to the beliefs in possession, 
 in second sight, in occult relations with forces capable 
 of yielding what is needed. Society believes in them, in 
 their powers, invests them with authority, uses them and 
 destroys them when it is moved against them. Yet there 
 is always an element in society which is permanently 
 marked off as the official representative of society, pro- 
 tected by tabus, by special rules of food, dress, behaviour 
 and language. There are things, there are events, 
 which are viewed as always charged with divine power, 
 fraught with mystery, dangerous, holy. It is of the 
 essence of religion from a social aspect that the moments 
 or crises of social life birth, marriage, sickness, death 
 when the individual emerges from and stands forth in 
 contrast, in opposition, to his group, that the manifesta- 
 tions of the powers and forces considered sacred are 
 most conspicuous and at the height of their activity. 
 Excite society into activity by the reaction of an indi- 
 vidual, and the real nature of religious forces, as of social 
 origin, is revealed immediately. 
 
 " European philosophers," we are told by competent 
 authority, " are more ready to talk about soul and spirit 
 than to define theories " (53), so that we must not look for 
 exact method in the beliefs recorded among the folk 
 of the lower culture as to the nature of the soul, its rela- 
 tion to the body, to the phenomena of death, sleep, and 
 the like ? Of the Andamanese we read that " they regard 
 their reflections (in any mirror) as their souls. The 
 colour of the soul is said to be red, and that of the spirit 
 black and, though invisible to the human eyes, they 
 partake of the form of the person to whom they belong. 
 Evil emanates from the soul, and all good from the 
 spirit : at the resurrection they will be reunited and live 
 
n6 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 permanently on the new earth for the souls of the wicked 
 will then have been reformed by the punishments in- 
 flicted on them during their residence in jer-eg-lar-mu- 
 gu" (54). This belief in a duality of personal prin- 
 ciple is found among the Lusheis, who hold that " each 
 person is said to have two ' Marao ' or souls, one of which 
 is wise, while the other is foolish, and it is the struggle 
 between these two that make men so unreliable " (55). 
 So too the Bhutias " believe in the presence of the spirits 
 of the dead. They are of two kinds. One is visible 
 and anthropomorphic with a black skin ; the other is 
 invisible, but so fatal that if its shadow falls in a man he 
 is sure to die " (56). The Oraons hold that " every man 
 has two shades. As the shadow of man projected on the 
 wall is double, one very thick in front and the other very 
 light a little behind, so a dead man has two shades, the 
 heavy one that goes to Markka, or the heaven of the 
 Oraons, and the other one that remains among them " 
 (57). The Birhor " has two souls a male and a 
 female. These remain united in death as in life, and when 
 they finally lose their present body by death, are rein- 
 carnated together in a new body. . . . The souls of a 
 deceased Birhor need not always be reborn in his own 
 tribe. Thus, on the very day that the Naya of a certain 
 Birhor settlement died, a son was born to a man of the 
 Kurmi caste in the neighbouring village. And the son 
 of the deceased Birhor and all his tanda people seriously 
 assured me that the Kurmi's son is the reincarnation of 
 their old Naya " (58). On the other hand, the 
 Kols believe that " Da das eigentliche Ich, das geistsee- 
 lische Leben des Menschen mit dem Tode nicht vernichtet 
 wird, sondern fort existiert und auch eine Hiille, eine Art 
 schattenhaften Korper behalt, so muss auch fur seinen 
 Lebensunterhalt im dunklen Jenseits, selbst fur Beschaf- 
 tigung, ja sogar fur Erholung gesorgt werden " (59). 
 By reason of the intimacy of the relation of the soul or 
 souls with the body, Santals are branded with the sika, 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 117 
 
 so that they may be recognised on death ; women are 
 tattooed among the Tangkhuls, Abors, Daflas and 
 the Gonds (60), because " the marks are the only 
 thing that does " go to heaven. The short, dark- 
 skinned Thanda Pulayans, whose womenfolk still wear 
 the leaf aprons from which the tribe gets its name, say 
 that the spirits of deceased ancestors manifest themselves 
 in dreams, especially to near relations who speak in the 
 morning of what they have seen in the night. They 
 build a " little temple about the size of a large rabbit 
 hutch in which, as a plank for the spirits of the deceased 
 ancestors to come and rest upon. The spirits are sup- 
 posed to fish in the backwaters and the phosphorescence, 
 sometimes seen on the surface of the water, is taken as 
 an indication of their presence " (61). The Gonds, 
 too, know that " ghosts cannot squat on the bare 
 ground like human beings, and must be given something 
 to sit on (62). The ghosts of Tangkhul Nagas come 
 and sit on stone slabs during their occasional visits 
 to view the rice fields (63). Dr. Busby would have 
 been at home among ghosts of this description. 
 
 What is it, soul or what, which in Lushai belief, so we 
 are told (64), is " reincarnated in the form of hornets, and 
 sometimes in the form of dew, and if this falls on a person 
 the spirit is re-born in his or her child ? " A similar 
 belief is recorded as held by the Angamis, who seem to 
 have now outgrown the idea (65). Among the Semas 
 we find strange effects produced by the belief in a separ- 
 able soul. There are men whose souls at times prefer 
 some temporary shelter to the real home, so that the 
 owner falls ill because this unstable element in his com- 
 position has deserted his body and must be called back 
 to resume its duty, exactly what happens at times 
 to a Lushai when one of his souls gets lost (66). Here, 
 too, are men and women whose souls enter the living 
 bodies of leopards or tiger cats, or it may be of tigers, 
 whereof proof is certain. Tie up the man and the beast 
 
n8 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 will die. Kill the beast and the man will die. " The 
 son of Yemithi of Lizotomi, whose leopard-cat body was 
 killed at Sagami, heard the news as he was returning to 
 his village, and expired on the spot for no other reason. 
 A curious example of the power of the Sema mind over 
 the Sema body "(67). The Sema soul after death 
 " may sometimes take the form of a particular hawk, 
 probably a Kestrel . . . and the soul of the dead is not 
 permanently embodied in the kestrel form. This much is 
 clear, though otherwise the eschatology of the Semas is a 
 little mixed" (69). 
 
 Here and there are tales which explains how death 
 came to the world, whose meaning has been explained by 
 Sir James Frazer (69a). Thus the Kabui Nagas 
 say "there was once a time when men did not die, 
 for there was a wonderful tree whose bark would 
 cure all ills, would even bring the dead back to life. One 
 day the children brought the bark from the wrapping in 
 which it was kept inside, and put it in the sun while they 
 played. The sun stole it, knowing full well its wondrous 
 power. Their faithful dog rushed after the thief and ate 
 him up. But so powerful was the medicine of the bark 
 that the sun recovered even after this rough treatment. 
 Since then men have died because they no longer know 
 the tree of life. Yet the sun from time to time is chased 
 by the hound and eaten, and is always able to return to life. 
 Thus the Kabuis explain eclipses and the death of man. 
 For the Birhor death came into the world by a dirty 
 trick. Men's souls would leave them and wander forth 
 as they do now, but always returned to their body. One 
 day a soul was returning and met a centipede, who bade 
 him count his legs. Every time the soul tried to get his 
 count right the centipede moved on and so the count 
 was never finished and the soul did not return. So now 
 men die (70). 
 
 The story runs that death came to the Kachins as a 
 result of the man's disobedience towards the Lady Sun, 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 119 
 
 a beneficent spirit who holds the strings of life. Angered 
 by their deceit she ordered that old, white-haired men 
 should suffer this penalty, but her words were marred 
 in transmission by an evil spirit, so that death now 
 visits young and old alike (71). So there are ways 
 and means of ascertaining how, why and whence death 
 has come. Men, too, have learnt subtle ways of bringing 
 death to those they hate. Among the Khasis, three days 
 of tabu are kept by the whole family and three eggs 
 broken to ascertain what was the cause of death. After 
 the funeral " Early next morning the relatives and friends 
 go to the cairn with fresh food and water and look about 
 for new footprints, the idea being that from these foot- 
 prints they can foretell future events. This they do 
 until the third night after the ceremony. During these 
 three nights the front door of the house formerly occupied 
 by the deceased is never closed, it being thought that the 
 spirit may wish to return and visit its earthly abode (72) . 
 Among the Kols a similar rite gives knowledge of 
 the fate of the soul. " Nach Entfernung der Leiche wird 
 da, wo sie lag, Asche gestreut und dann die Haustiir fest 
 verschlossen. 1st die Oberflache der Asche nach der 
 Riickkehr unverandert, dann ist die abgeschiedene Seele 
 sicherlich nicht mehr in Hause. Es konnen aber Falle 
 vorkommen, in denen ein Huhn oder eine Katze iiber 
 die Asche lauft, und dann ist die Sache schlimm, be- 
 sonders wenn Spuren von Katzenpfoten auf der Asche 
 zu sehen sind. In diesem Falle ist namlich der Verstor- 
 bene ohne Zweifel zu einembosen Geist geworden " (73). 
 Among the Gonds, " In Bastar, on some selected day, 
 a short time after the death, they obtain two small baskets 
 and set them out at night, placing a chicken under the 
 one, and some flour of wheat under the other. The 
 householder then says, " I do the work of those old men 
 who died. O spirits, I offer a chicken to you : be true 
 and I will perform your funeral rites to-morrow/' On 
 the next morning the basket placed over the flour is lifted 
 
120 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 up, and if a mark resembling a footprint of a man or any 
 animal be found, they think that the deceased has become 
 incarnate in a human being or that animal " (74). 
 
 The Birhors spread ashes over the spot where the 
 dead man breathed his last, and if there are footprints 
 found on them know that footprints like those of a person 
 entering the hut mean that death was caused by a spirit 
 of the house, while " if footprints like those of a person 
 going out of the hut, it is concluded that it is some outside 
 spirit, perhaps one of a different tanda, which is respon- 
 sible for the death " (75). Thus indications of the 
 future, proofs of the state and whereabouts of the soul, 
 evidence of the cause of death, can be ascertained. The 
 ghost or spirit helps in these delicate matters, and even 
 more directly forces upoh his late fellows the knowledge 
 which they seek. 
 
 And among the Gonds (76) " the bearers with the body 
 on their shoulders face round to the west and about 10 
 yards in front of them are placed three saj leaves in a 
 line with a space of a yard between each, the first repre- 
 senting the supreme being, the second disembodied spirits 
 and the third witchcraft. Sometimes a little rice is put 
 on the leaves. An axe is struck three times on the ground, 
 and a villager now cries to the deceased to disclose the 
 cause of his death, and immediately the bearers, impelled 
 as they believe by the dead man, carry the body to one of 
 the leaves. If they halt before the first, then the death was 
 in the course of nature ; if before the second, it arose from 
 the anger of offended spirits ; if before the third witchcraft 
 was the cause. The ordeal may be thrice repeated, the 
 arrangement of the leaves being changed each time. If 
 witchcraft is indicated as the cause of death and con- 
 firmed by the repeated tests, the corpse is asked to point 
 out the sorcerer or witch, and the body is carried along 
 until it halts before some one in the crowd who is at once 
 seized and disposed of as a witch. Sometimes the corpse 
 may be carried to the house of a witch in another village 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 121 
 
 to a distance of 8 or 10 miles. In Mandla in such cases 
 a Gunia or exerciser formerly called on the corpse to go 
 forward and point out the witch. The bearers then, 
 impelled by the corpse, made one step forward and 
 stopped. The exerciser then again adjured the corpse, 
 and the bearers made a step and this was repeated again 
 and again until they halted in front of the supposed 
 witch. All the beholders and the bearers themselves 
 thus thought they were impelled by the corpse and the 
 episode is a good illustration of the power of suggestion. 
 Frequently the detected witch was one of the deceased's 
 wives. In Mandla the cause of the man's death was 
 determined by the digging of his grave. When piling 
 in the earth removed for the grave after burial, if it 
 reached exactly to the surface of the ground, they thought 
 that the dead man had died after living the proper span 
 of his life. If the earth made a mound over the hole, 
 they thought he had lived beyond his allotted time and 
 called him Sigpur, that is a term for a measure of grain 
 heaped as high as it will stand over the brim. But if the 
 earth was insufficient and did not reach to the level of 
 the ground, they held that he had been prematurely 
 cut off and had been killed by an enemy or by a witch 
 through magic. 1 ' 
 
 Let us then follow the soul in its destination as beliefs 
 in the lower culture depict that place for us. For the 
 Andamanese " the whole area under the earth is a gloomy 
 place, Cha-it-an whither the spirits of the departed 
 are sent by Puluga to await the resurrection. ' ' No change 
 takes place in cha-it-an in respect to growth or age ; 
 all remain as they were at the time of their departure 
 from the earth, and the adults are represented as engaged 
 in hunting after a manner peculiar to disembodied 
 spirits. . . , Between the earth and the eastern sky 
 there stretches an invisible cane bridge which steadies 
 the former and connects it with jer-eg or paradise ; over 
 this bridge the souls (ot-yo-lo) of the departed pass into 
 
122 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 paradise or to jev-eglar-mu-gu, which is situated below it ; 
 this latter place might be described as Purgatory for it is 
 a place of punishment for those who have been guilty 
 of heinous sins such as murder. Like Dante they depict 
 it as very cold and therefore a most undesirable region 
 for mortals to inhabit. , . . The future life will be 
 but a repetition of the present, but all will then remain 
 in the prime of life, and sickness and death will be un- 
 known ; and there will be no more marrying or giving 
 in marriage (77). 
 
 For the Garo there is a " kind of purgatory through 
 which all must pass, the good and the bad alike. As the 
 mortal worked on earth, so the spirit must work at Chik- 
 mang. On arrival there he inquires the whereabouts of 
 the relations who have gone before him, builds his house 
 where they built, or lives with them if they have not 
 yet returned to earthly life. Spirit-land is not in any 
 sense a place of joy and a speedy release with a happy 
 reincarnation is hoped for " (78). 
 
 The Lushais "believe in a spirit world beyond the 
 grave which is known as Mithikua i.e., dead man's 
 village but on the far side of Mi-thi-kua runs the Pial 
 River, beyond which lies Pielral ; an abode of bliss. 
 Access to this is not obtained by a life of virtue while 
 on earth, but by the due performance of sacrifices and the 
 killing of men and certain animals and success in the 
 courts of Venus. . . ." (79). 
 
 Garo, Lushai and Naga believe that the path to the 
 abode of the spirits is guarded by a demon who may be 
 tricked, who may be overcome in fair fight, who is bound 
 to let pass the fortunate whose duty had been duly done 
 as warrior, hunter, giver of feasts or as lover. ' Women 
 whoever they may be, he always shoots at ' J (80). 
 For the Lushai religion is essentially man-made. The 
 wily Garo ministers to the greed of the demon and hurls 
 a pile of brass ear-rings at its feet and gets to safety (81). 
 The Mao Naga is armed with spears to meet this enemy 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 123 
 
 (82), while the Sema adds to his spear a peg-top and 
 secures a passage for his women-folk who " delude 
 Lolave when she comes to the narrow where he lies in 
 wait for passing souls seeking whom he may devour. 
 He sits in the path with a truculent air. ' My head is full 
 of lice/ says he. ' Oh/ says she, ' let me kill them for 
 you/ Then she goes up and as he sits there searches 
 his head and starts to click the bamboo slip from time to 
 time as though it were the popping of squashed lice, 
 monsters in size. Suddenly she flicks the bean to a dis- 
 tance. ' I will go and catch it/ she says, and so slips by 
 and escapes. In the same way a man or boy gets by when 
 pretending to go to fetch his errant peg-top " (83). For 
 the Santal, as for the Garo, heaven offers but a repeti- 
 tion of toil and trouble, since " All the spirits are em- 
 ployed in grinding the bones of past generations with a 
 pestle made of the wood of the castor oil tree in order to 
 provide the gods with a good supply of material to pro- 
 duce the children yet unborn " (84). 
 
 Thus death may come " in the course of nature " by 
 the action of powerful disembodied spirits, by the power 
 of evil man. It may come automatically as the result 
 of the infraction of a social tabu, for with the Semas a 
 breach of the etiquette between maternal uncle and 
 nephew " is believed to entail its own penalty of serious 
 misfortune or death " (85). " Sickness, sin and 
 death/' as I wrote some time ago, " are not for them 
 isolated unconnected phenomena. Sin, in their view, 
 consists primarily of breaches, both by accident and 
 intent, of the unwritten law of society. What gives 
 validity to these unwritten laws is the vague fear that 
 something may happen if they are broken " (86). 
 
 Nor in the face of some such breach is the community 
 forced to sit down and meekly await the day of destiny, for 
 it may, in self-protection, act so as to secure that the 
 guilty person suffers in his own person. Among the 
 Angamis " The observation of penna or kenna by the 
 
124 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 village may cause the death of a person named as its 
 subject. ... In the other case mentioned, that of the 
 Nerhema man who sacrificed a black cat, the village 
 actually observed a day's penna with the hope and 
 intention of making his illness worse. There is, however, 
 a procedure more effective than the mere holding of a 
 penna alone. On the day of penna a sort of Commina- 
 tion Service may be held to curse some unfortunate who 
 has given offence. The Kemovo gets up before the 
 assembled clan, all the children being present, and 
 announces that So-and-so has done such and such a deed, 
 whereon the people answer, ' Sa, sa,' ' Let him die, let 
 him die.' This curse is believed to be a powerful one and 
 to strengthen it still further a branch of green leaves is 
 put up to represent the person cursed, and everyone hurls 
 spears of wood or bamboo at the bough with expressions 
 as ' Let him die/ 'Kill So-and-so,' and every sort of abuse. 
 The spears are left where they lie, the bough withers and 
 the subject of the curse dies likewise. This performance 
 is also held to be effective even when the name of the 
 culprit is unknown " (87). 
 
 The theory of the causation of death where the course 
 of nature is excluded, rests in part at least on the vul- 
 nerability of the soul to attacks by spirits or by evil men. 
 In like manner sickness is explained now as due to the 
 temporary desertion of the body by the soul (here viewed 
 as the principle of life and normal conditions), again as 
 due to the activity of spirits of sickness, shading into a 
 material theory of causation, since folk like " The Angamis 
 conceive of the spirit of smallpox as sowing the disease, 
 as it were seeds, over all entering in at the village gate " 
 (88). And it is caused by malevolent maleficent human 
 agencies. Treatment and theory are not to be separated. 
 Diagnosis with so difficult a theory to handle is a matter 
 for the expert, and it is for this reason that we have the 
 strange combination of witch-finder and healer, diviner 
 and doctor, as in the Naga Themuma, whose " powers 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 125 
 
 vary from merely dreaming dreams to the practice of 
 genuine black magic " (89), since he who can cure disease 
 can also cause disease, or, as in the Oraon Ojha, whose 
 " office " consists in finding out the bhuts that cause 
 sickness and in tracing the witches at whose behest the 
 evil spirits have set to work. Just as there are dreams 
 whose meaning and interpretation are matters of common 
 form, so there are sicknesses which all know how to 
 treat, certain ailments with specific remedies, some of 
 real use and others literally ordered on the principle of 
 using a " hair of the dog that bit you " (90). Nor are 
 prophylactic measures unknown to the lower culture, 
 since " Disease may also be averted by offering a sub- 
 stitute in the form of old cloths, live chickens, eggs, etc. 
 .... Chickens freed and driven away in the jungle 
 to serve as a substitute for the person turning them 
 away (or perhaps merely as an offering for the spirits of 
 the jungle or, it may be, to carry away the element of 
 sickness or misfortune that attaches to the persons who 
 devote them to this purpose) are called chesu and regarded 
 as accursed" (91). I have seen a maiba extract, 
 or claim to extract, by sleight of hand, a fragment of 
 stone from a Naga suffering from fever and the patient 
 is markedly relieved by the operation. " Sufficeth it 
 that the thumomi believes in himself, and is believed in 
 by his patients, and in very truth often cures them by 
 faith alone " (92). 
 
 As there are Gods whose business it is to give the rain, 
 so are there rites to be performed by man to secure the 
 rain if it be withheld and in a land where man depends on 
 a regular, equably distributed rainfall at the due season, 
 many are the devices by which the powers that be are 
 reminded of or constrained to their duty. Sacrifices are 
 offered, solemn communal rites have to be celebrated, as 
 among the Semas, who charge the village sexton with the 
 task, which consists in getting a huluks head, filling it 
 with pounded seed in place of the brains, and then sticks 
 
126 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 it in a deep pool on a stake. " When enough rain has 
 fallen they remove the head and pull out the stake, other- 
 wise the rain would fall continuously' 1 (93). Again 
 " Others drown a pig in the nearest pool, having first 
 tied its feet together. I once noticed some bits of fish 
 lying about on the village dam, and asked why they 
 were put there. I learnt that there had been a water 
 or rain ceremony. ... In one village I was told that 
 when rain was wanted the headman takes a burning 
 brand from the fire and places it on the grave of a man 
 who has died of burns and then quenches it with water 
 and calls for rain " (94), a clear case of utilising the ghost 
 of the man for social purposes. The women, too, have 
 their rites whereby they may help in need. 
 
 Nor are things without powers akin to those of animate 
 beings for there are stones " male and female that breed 
 produce offspring yearly " (95). 
 
 In his exhaustive survey of totemism in India, Sir 
 James Frazer found that " this remarkable institution, 
 combined as usual with exogamy, is widespread among 
 the swarthy, almost black race called Dravidian, with 
 their squat figures, dark eyes, and broad negro-like noses, 
 who represent the most primitive type of man in India, 
 and occupy the oldest geological formation in the country, 
 to wit, the medley of forest-clad ranges, terraced plateaux, 
 and undulating plains which stretches from the Vindhya 
 mountains on the north to Cape Comorin on the south. 
 Indeed the evidence seems to justify us in inferring that 
 at one time or another totemism and exogamy have been 
 practised by all the branches of this numerous and ancient 
 
 people It appears doubtful whether totemism 
 
 proper is practised by any race of India except the 
 Dravidian. We have indeed found some resemblances 
 to it in combination with exogamy among the Mongoloid 
 peoples of Assam, but it is not certain that these 
 resemblances are proof of the actual existence of the 
 institution " (96). But this remarkable institution, 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 127 
 
 widespread through the world, is the outcome of an 
 attitude which "regards the animals or plants or 
 whatever the totem may be, as his friends or relations, his 
 fathers, his brothers, and so forth. He puts them as 
 far as he can on a footing of equality with himself and with 
 his fellows, the members of the same totemic clan " (97). 
 In the belief in the weretiger, whose dewlaps prove 
 his humanity, in the lycanthropist who dies when his 
 tiger self is killed, in the group tabus which in the lower 
 culture bind the human groups so intimately that what 
 happens to one affects all that belong, or may in time 
 belong, to that group, I find evidence of the attitude of 
 mind which goes with and underlies totemism, in those 
 areas in India where totemism is not. 
 
 All over India many cases of group tabus can be found 
 among peoples who are not commonly deemed totemic. 
 Thus the Banyok of Upper Burma do not use gold or silver 
 or precious stones, while on the other side of India, in 
 Baluchistan, certain Umrani Baloch deliberately refrain 
 from plastering their roofs because they say one of their 
 forefathers died under a plastered roof. The sanction 
 of these tabus is the belief that if violated death, sickness 
 or some calamity will happen either to the violator, or 
 to some one of his group. Wherever group consciousness 
 is strong, and belief in the power of " things to affect 
 human beings is flourishing, these group tabus readily 
 originate and persists " (98). The border line between 
 the natural and supernatural, between man and the rest 
 of the world, is hard to trace. Frail is the constitution of 
 man, delicately poised and balanced ; fearfully and 
 wonderfully made is he, truly the sport of circumstance, 
 in body and in mind, so that whatever is strange is apt 
 to be viewed by him as dangerous. The partnership of 
 body and soul is fatal to both, for they are so intertwined 
 in life that violence to the one will hurt and may even 
 destroy the other. A little knowledge is indeed a danger- 
 ous thing. So we come back to the point we marked as 
 
128 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 our start that the lower culture is what it is by reason 
 of its psychology, of its strong faith in the value of dreams 
 and abnormal impressions, its traditionalist attitude and 
 therefore its timidity towards the new and unfamiliar. 
 Its mode of thought is concrete, but it enlarges the domain 
 of the concrete, for it sees reality and revelation where 
 we see but the baseless fabric of a dream. They are 
 human as we are, know pain and grief as we know them, 
 and their minds are active even as ours on the problems 
 which are problems still for us. They fashion their 
 replies in their own manner. 
 
 The lower culture lives, is active, is the perennial 
 source whence new inspiration, new vigour, are derived ; 
 it is the basis of human societies, for it holds together in 
 virtue of the strength of the social consciousness, and 
 its group unity. 
 
 1. Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, vol. i., p. 109. 
 
 2. The Garos, p. 100. 
 
 3. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 143. 
 
 4. Colonel McCulloch, Account of Munnipore, p. 01. 
 
 5. The Khasis, p. 125. 
 
 6. Gebiet der Kols Mission, p. 72. 
 
 7. Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. i., No. 9, p. 154. 
 
 8. Census Report, 1911, vol. v., p. 331. 
 
 9. Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, December ,1919, p. 621. 
 
 10. The Sema Nagas, p. 237. 
 
 11. The Story of an Indian Upland, p. 285. 
 
 12. Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 39 ; Things Indian, p. 462. 
 
 13. Ethnographic Notes in Southern India, p. 366 sq. 
 
 14. Castes and Tribes of S. India, vol. ii., p. 39, vol. vii., p. 423. 
 
 15. Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, vol. iii., p. 72. 
 
 16. Census Report, 1901, vol. iii., p. 65. 
 
 17. The Andaman Islanders, p. 77. 
 
 18. Gebiet der Kols Mission, p. 81. 
 
 19. Tribes and Castes of Bengal, vol. i., pp. 531, 532. 
 
 20. The Mystic Rose, p. 341. 
 
 21. Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. viii., p. 431. 
 
 22. Annals of Rural Bengal, p. 210. 
 
 23. Story of an Indian Upland, p. 86. 
 
 24. Ethnographic Survey of Mysore, Bulletin 1, p. 10. 
 
 25. The Angami Nagas, pp. 26, 365. Sema Nagas, pp. 14, 227. 
 
 26. Census Report, 1911, vol. iii., p. 141. 
 
 27. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 188. 
 
PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 129 
 
 28. The Todas, p. 366. 
 
 29. The Sema Nagas, p. 242. 
 
 30. Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, December, 1919, p. 620. 
 
 31. Brown, Account of Munnipore, p. 115. 
 
 32. The Angami Nagas, p. 217. 
 
 33. Census Report, 1911, vol. v., p. 330. 
 
 34. Ibid., 
 
 35. Castes and Tribes of Southern India, vol. iii., p. 500. 
 
 36. Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 283. 
 
 37. The Lushei Kuki Clans, pp. 158, 164. 
 
 38. The Angami Nagas, p. 229. 
 
 39. Brown, Account of Munnipore, p. 116. 
 
 40. Gebiet der Kols Mission, p. 87. 
 
 41. Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. i., No. 9, p. 140. 
 
 42. Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, vol. i., p. 106. 
 
 43. Linguistic Survey of India, vol. iii., part 1, p. 5. 
 
 44. The Angamis, p. 177 sq. 
 
 45. The Belief in Immortality, vol. 1., p. 9. 
 
 46. Ibid. 
 
 47. Ibid., p. 23. 
 
 48. The Andaman Islanders, p. 44 ; Folklore, xx., part 3, p. 257 sqq. 
 
 49. The Sema Nagas, p. 194. 
 
 50. The Angamis, p. 187 ; The Lushei Clans, p. 80; J.A.S.B., Memoirs vol. i., 
 No. 9, p. 124. 
 
 51. The Sema Nagas, p. 231. 
 
 52. Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. i., No. 9, p. 144. 
 
 53. Hinduism and Buddhism, vol. i., p. Ixiv. 
 
 54. The Andaman Islanders, p. 94. 
 
 55. The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 61. 
 
 56. Census Report, 1901, vol. vi., p. 404. 
 
 57. Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. i., No. 9, p. 135. 
 
 58. Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, September, 1918, p. 309. 
 
 59. Gebiet der Kols Mission, p. 83. 
 
 60. Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Provinces (Rev. S. Hislop), p. 11. 
 
 61. Castes and Tribes of S. India, vol. vii., p. 27. 
 
 62. Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, vol. iii., p. 93. 
 
 63. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 191. 
 
 64. The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 65. 
 
 65. Brown's Account of Munnipore, p. 116; The Angamis, p. 184. 
 
 66. The Semas, p. 200: 
 
 67. The Semas, p. 199 to 206. 
 
 68. Census Report, 1911, vol. iii., p. 77. 
 
 69. The Semas, p. 208, 209. 
 
 69a. The Belief in Immortality, p. 59 sq. 
 
 70. Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, September, 1918, p. 307. 
 
 71. Handbook of Kachin Language, p. 143. 
 
 72. The Khasis, p. 135. 
 
 73. Gebiet der Kols Mission, p. 85. 
 
 74. Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, vol. iii., p. 94. 
 
 75. Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, September, 1918, p. 317 
 
 76. Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, vol. iii., p. 90. 
 
130 PRIMITIVE CULTURE OF INDIA 
 
 77. The Andaman Islanders, pp. 93, 94. 
 
 78. The Garos, p. 102 sq. 
 
 79. The Lushei Kuki Clans, pp. 61 sq. 
 
 80. Ibid., p. 62. 
 
 81. The Garos, pp. 103, 104. 
 
 82- The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 161. 
 
 83. The Semas, p. 244. 
 
 84. Story of an Indian Upland, p. 286. 
 
 85. The Semas, p. 137. 
 
 86. Archiv fiir Religions wissenschaft xii. p. 451. 
 
 87. The Angamis, p. 241. 
 
 88. Ibid., p. 178. 
 
 89. The Angamis, p. 242. 
 
 90. The Angamis, p. 100. 
 
 91. The Angamis, p. 179. 
 
 92. The Semas, p. 232. 
 
 93. Ibid., p. 215. 
 
 94. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 169 sq. 
 
 95. The Angamis, p. 180. 
 
 96. Totemism and Exogamy, vol. ii., pp. 329 sq. 
 
 97. Ibid., vol. iv., p. 4. 
 
 98. Oxford Survey of the British Empire, vol. ii., p. 224. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Agriculture, 27 sq. 
 
 A kirn, 88. 
 
 Andamanese, 2, 25, 26, 33, 36, 39, 
 
 56, 58, 84, 103, 112, 113, 115, 
 
 121. 
 Angami Nagas, 9, 35, 49, 61, 66, 
 
 74, 75, 89, 108, 111, 113. 117, 
 
 123. 
 
 Assam, 16, 21, 32, 33. 
 Assimilation, 12, 13. 
 Australian group, 4. 
 Austric languages, 51. 
 
 B. 
 
 Bachelor's Hall, 33, 57, 103. 
 
 Badagas, 21, 36. 
 
 Baigas, 31, 114. 
 
 Balfour, Mr. H., 37. 
 
 Bhuiyas, 101. 
 
 Birhors, 24, 32, 47, 116, 118, 120. 
 
 Blacksmiths, 40. 
 
 Borough English, 23. 
 
 C. 
 
 Chawte, 93. 
 
 Chenchus, 31. 
 
 Chota Nagpur, 21. 
 
 Classificatory system, 46, 47, 48, 
 
 51, 86, 91. 
 Contact, 15. 
 Convergence, 14, 15. 
 Copper, use of, 39. 
 Cousin Marriage, 47, 91. 
 Crooke, Dr. Wm., 73. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dalton, Colonel, 24, 33, 40. 
 Dances, 65 sq., 78. 
 Death and disease, 124 sq. 
 Density, 20. 
 Devikulam Taluk, 21. 
 Diffusion, 15. 
 Dravidians, 47, 48, 56. 
 Dreams, 2, 3, 100. 
 Dress, 33 sq., 81. 
 Dual organisation, 86 sq. 
 
 Education, 57 sq. 
 Environment, 5, 15, 70. 
 Ernadans, 95. 
 Exogamy, 47, 60, 85. 
 
 F. 
 
 Female Infanticide, 107. 
 
 Fire-making, 35 sq. 
 
 Flints and steel, 36. 
 
 Frazer, Sir J. G., 46, 91, 94, 112, 
 
 118, 126. 
 Funeral rites, 105 sq. 
 
 G. 
 
 Garos, 47, 48, 66, 83, 88, 92, 95, 
 
 100, 122. 
 Genna, 123. 
 Ghyghasi Miris, 35. 
 Gomme, Sir Lawrence, 14. 
 Gonds, 33, 57, 67, 78, 87, 92, 95, 
 
 108, 117, 119, 120. 
 Grierson, Sir George, 10, 53, 56. 
 Group solidarity, 8, 18, 19, 127 sq. 
 
132 
 
 INDEX 
 
 H. 
 
 Habitations, 31 sq. 
 Hertz, Mr. H. F., 93. 
 Hindu polity, 19, 40. 
 Hutton, Mr. J. H., 9, 40, 45, 49, 
 60, 65, 94, 111. 
 
 I. 
 
 Imitation, 30. 
 Independent invention, 15. 
 Iron, 36, 40, 42. 
 Irulas, 21, 22, 26. 
 
 J. 
 
 Jhum cultivation, 27. 
 Juangs, 34, 40. 
 
 K. 
 
 Kacharis, 82. 
 
 Kachins, 93, 118. 
 
 Kadirs, 22, 26, 36. 
 
 Khasis, 28, 40, 47, 58, 60, 74, 79, 
 
 83, 90, 100, 119. 
 Khereyas, 22, 24. 
 Khonds, 21, 27, 101, 107. 
 Killekyatas, 109. 
 Kols, 3, 73, 77, 100, 109, 114, 116, 
 
 119. 
 
 Kotas, 21. 
 
 Kuki, see Old Kuki and Lushai. 
 Kuruba, 95, 104. 
 Kurumbas, 21. 
 
 L. 
 
 Languages, 10, 11, Lecture III. 
 
 passim. 
 
 Legends, 62 sq. 
 Levy Bruhl, M., 45. 
 Linguistics, 45 sq. 
 Loan-words, 48, 49, 50. 
 Lont6, 89. 
 
 Lowie, Dr. R. H., 85, 96. 
 Lushais, 6, 22, 23, 32, 33, 49, 50, 
 
 72, 74, 79, 81, 105, 117, 122. 
 Lycanthropy, 117. 
 
 M. 
 
 Maghaya Doms, 31. 
 Magic, 114 sq. 
 Manipur, 27, 29. 
 Marriage rules, 85 sq., 103. 
 Matrilineal descent, 83. 
 Maturity, 71. 
 Meillet, Dr. A., 59. 
 Migrations, 45. 
 
 Munda Languages, 47, 48, 49, 61, 
 52, 58. 
 
 N. 
 
 Names, name-giving, 100. 
 Nomadism, 32, 33. 
 
 0. 
 
 Old Kukis, 74, 75, 77, 89, 108. 
 Omens, 100. 
 
 Oraons, 73, 101, 109, 113, 114, 116, 
 125. 
 
 P. 
 
 Pahiras, 25. 
 Perry, Mr. W. J., 29. 
 Piston (fire), 37. 
 Pottery, 41. 
 Pre-Dravidians, 25. 
 Priests, 114. 
 
 R. 
 
 Rainfall, 20. 
 Rain rites, 125. 
 Rees, Sir J. D., 26. 
 Reincarnation, 7, 30, 68, 97, 102, 
 
 105, 106, 107, 108, 116, 117. 
 Relationship terms, 83, 94, 95. 
 Religious ideas, 111 sq. 
 Rice Culture, 20. 
 Richards, Mr. F. J., 36. 
 Ridgeway, Sir Wm., 65. 
 Risley, Sir H. H., 63. 
 Rivers, Dr. W. H. R., 2, 51, 55. 
 Roy, Rai Bahadur S.C., 24, 47, 
 
 102. 
 Russell, H. V., 67, 111. 
 
INDEX 
 
 133 
 
 S. 
 
 Santals (also Sonthals), 8, 50, 56, 
 58, 52, 63, 83, 101, 102, 104, 
 110, 116. 
 
 Savaras, 62. 
 
 Secret Languages, 60. 
 
 Sema Nagas, 3, 6, 7, 9, 23, 29, 39, 
 45, 46, 48, 49, 58, 60, 75, 76, 79, 
 94, 95, 102, 106, 117, 122, 123, 
 125. 
 
 Sex groupings, 15, 71 sq., 82, 96. 
 
 Shakespear, Colonel J., 6, 22, 92, 
 108. 
 
 Sib., 85. 
 
 Sign language, 61. 
 
 Slang, 60. 
 
 Social distinctions, 35, 105 sq. . 
 
 Social divisions, 71 sq. 
 
 Soil-effect, 20. 
 
 Soul, 115 sq. 
 
 Specialisation (economic) 42. 
 
 Status, 96. 
 
 Stone monuments, 105. 
 
 Survivals, 12. 
 
 T. 
 
 Tang khuls, 2, 29, 74, 75, 76. 
 
 Tarau, 92. 
 
 Tattooing, 102, 117. 
 
 Teknonymy, 74. 
 
 Temple, Sir Richard, 56. 
 
 Terraced fields, 28, 29. 
 
 Thado Kukis, 49. 
 
 Thangchhuah, 81. 
 
 Thanda Pulayans, 34, 117. 
 
 Theoplasm, 112. 
 
 Thurston, Dr. E., 34, 102. 
 
 Tibeto-Burman languages, 48. 
 
 Todas, 21, 60. 
 
 Totemism, 126 sq. 
 
 Tree-marriage, 104. 
 
 Tradition, 4, 5, 8, 11, 18, 19, 127, 
 
 also legends. 
 Tribe, 84. 
 Tylor, Sir E. B., 37. 
 
 V. 
 
 Van Gennep, M.A., 71. 
 Veda Malars, 26. 
 
 W. 
 
 Women, 42, 59, 60, 72 sq., 75, 103, 
 
 114, 117. 
 Wood, use of, 42. 
 
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