i GENERAL 15

and guns bearing the marks of the French Customs Department
are not at all rare. These guns came into the country in the
first instance chiefly through Burmah, though no doubt some
came through Chittagong, and much money must have been
made, for the demand was large. When the weapons first began
to appear, the Lushais and other western tribes used to obtain
them from the tribes on the Burmah border, giving slaves in
exchange, a strong male slave being equivalent to two guns.
The other weapons in use are spears and dahs. The former are
inferior weapons with iron laurel-leaf shaped blades about a foot
or fifteen inches long, very insecurely attached to the shaft, which
is of hard wood, often a piece of sago palm; at the other end of
the shaft is a long iron spike which is stuck into the ground
when the user halts. A special spear is used for sacrificial
purposes, the blade of which is much longer and diamond-
shaped. The spike at the other end is also much elongated, so
that sometimes the wooden shaft is only six or seven inches
long. The dah is a more serviceable weapon, being copied, as
its name "kawlnam" denotes, from the Burmese weapon, but the
blade is shorter, the handle is of wood lacquered black and red,
and ornamented with brass bands and a brass knob at the end.
In former days oblong shields of bison-hide eighteen inches wide
and about two feet long, adorned at the two upper corners with
tassels of goat's hair dyed red, were carried. The upper half of
the shield was sometimes covered with discs of brass, while
from a string crossing the centre of the shield hung a row of
brass cones about two inches long, from each of which depended
a tassel of red goat's hair, reaching to the base of the shield.
Bows and arrows have entirely gone out of use, but were
formerly used, especially in the chase, when the arrows ^ere
poisoned. The bows were small and made of bamboo; the
string being of bark. The arrows were furnished with barbed
iron points, and were carried in a bamboo quiver with a leather
cap to it. Among weapons we must class the bamboo spikes
with which a retreating foe or villagers expecting an ^attack
rendered the ground almost impassable to a bare-footed enemy.
These spikes were of two kinds, one used round the village or
block house, and the other, carried in a neat little cane-work
quiver, and stuck in the path when returning from a raid to delay