in LAWS AND CUSTOMS 43

appear to have had separate corporate existence for long
periods and in consequence to have been sub-divided into many
families and branches, while others were quickly absorbed by the
Thangur and consequently have few sub-divisions.

I have been accused of deriving " Lushei" from ' lu," head, and
"shei," long. If in the salad days of my sojourn among these
folks I was ever guilty of this folly, I hereby publicly repudiate
it. There is no doubt that Lushei, in common with the other
clan names, is an eponym.

A versatile and imaginative writer has recently derived
" Sailo/' the name of the branch of the Lushai clan to which
the present chiefs belong, from " sai" elephant, and " lo,"
a jhum, alleging that because the elephant is the biggest
animal, therefore " S^ilo " means the biggest jhum and that the
name refers to the excellence of the jhum land between
Burkhal and the source of the Kornaphuli river, where he says
the Sailos formerly lived. There are some objections to this
theory; to begin with, the Lushais never use " sai" as a prefix
meaning greatness, and secondly half the area mentioned was
never inhabited by Sailo chiefs, and thirdly only a small and
little considered branch of the great Sailo family ever entered
this land of fatness and not till long after the family name had
been generally accepted; further the name of the common
ancestor of all the Sailo chiefs is known to have been Sailova,
which is a common name still in the family.

Among the Lushais, each village is a separate State, ruled 2. Tribal
over by its own " lal" or chief. Each son of a chief, as he attained
a marriageable age, was provided with a wife at his father's the
expense, and given a certain number of households from his
father's village and sent forth to a village of his own. Hence-
forth he ruled as an independent chief, and his success or failure
depended on his own talents for ruling. 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.

Our rule has tended to increase the independence of the