I GENERAL 9

fact, accidents of that sort seldom occur. In cold weather, one
or more cloths are worn, one over the other, and also a white
coat, reaching well down the thigh but only fastened at the
throat. These coats are ornamented on the sleeves with bands
of red and white of various patterns. When at work, in hot
weather, the Lushai wraps his cloth round his waist, letting the
ends hang down in front, and should he find the sun warm and
if he is wearing two cloths, he will wear one as a puggri.
Puggris are sometimes worn when out in the sun for long, and
some affect rather a quaint style, twisting the cloth round the
head so as to make an end stand up straight over each ear.

All these garments are of cotton, grown locally and manu-
factured by the women of the household. The cloths in general
use are white, but every man likes to have two or three blue
cloths ornamented with stripes of various colours.

The Lushais have a very strong objection to getting their
heads wet, and therefore in the rain wear hats made of strips
of bamboo or cane plaited and lined with smoked leaves. The
original hats were almost flat and circular, but nowadays these
have been discarded in favour of very clever imitations of
helmets and solar topis. In the southern portion of the district
the people use, as a protection from the wet, a large shallow
basket-work tray, shaped like an oyster shell, and made water-
proof by being lined with smoked leaves; the narrow end rests
on the wearer's head, while the broad end reaches down well
below the waist, so that, while bending down weeding in the
jhum, the head and body are kept dry. This form of water-
proof is not much used in the northern portion of the Lushai
Hills, but is common among the Chiru and other allied clans in
Manipur. As the Lushai has no pockets, he carries, wherever
he goes, a haversack made of some pretty coloured cotton cloth
slung over his shoulder by a strap of the same material. In
this he carries his flint and steel and his tobacco, in neatly
made boxes carved out of solid pieces of wood and fitted with
lids of the same material, or of leather moulded into shape by
being stretched over a block. His pipe is generally in his
mouth; it consists of a bowl made out of a particularly hard
kind of bamboo which is only found in the Chin hills—whence
the Lushais claim to have sprung—with a long stem made of a