ii DOMESTIC LIFE 19

spring, and bringing up one or two bamboos of water, while the
lads help their fathers in cutting the jhum. No one, however,
takes any care of children, and they are allowed to run
about the village as they like, in all weathers, which no doubt
accounts largely for the heavy mortality among them, as their
clothing is of the scantiest.

Teknonymy is very common. The parents of a child called
Thanga will generally be known as Thanga-Pa and Thanga~Nu,
and I have come across old widows whose real names were
unknown. There is a strong and general dislike among all
Lushais to saying their own names. When we first occupied
the hills, a man would not tell you his name; if asked he would
refer to someone else and say, " You tell him." The following
explanation, given me by a Lushai, seems to me scarcely
satisfactory:—" Lushais are shy of saying the name of their
father and mother and their own names. Because it is their
own name they are shy of saying it. Some people are
shy because their names are bad. Their parents' names—
because they are their parents they never call them by
their names, therefore they are shy of saying them. Their own
names also they never say; just for that reason they are shy of
saying them. The names of their brothers and friends they
are always saying, therefore they are not shy of saying them."
Long ago another explanation was given me. When a man
kills another, he calls out his own name: " I, Lalmanga, have
killed you!" so that the spirit of the dying man may know
whose slave he will be in Mithi-Khua, the dead man's village;
it was suggested that it was unlucky to say one's name on less
important occasions.

In every village there is a small flat basket, the size of whfe
M fixed by the chief, which is used for all retail dealings in rice
and subh goods, but large quantities are measured by the Measures,
number of loads, a load being about 50 Ibs. After the harvest
the unhusked rice is piled in a conical heap. A Lushai will
tell you that his crop is " chhip-zawn," that is, the heap is
level with the top of his head ; " silai-zawn," that is, level with
the end of his gun held up perpendicularly over hi& head, This
is about a record crop; lesser quantities are denoted by the
height of bis hand or hoe or axe held up. Time he measures

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