in LAWS AND CUSTOMS 47

who are unable, to support themselves, and have no relatives
willing to do so, form the bulk of this class of" boi," but it is not
unusual, if a young widow remarries, for her second husband to
insist on his predecessor's children being put into the chiefs
house, unless any of their father's relatives will take them.
The inpuichhung are looked on as part of the chiefs household,
and do all the chiefs work in return for their food and
shelter. The young men cut and cultivate the chiefs jhum
and attend to his fish traps. The women and girls fetch up
wood and water, clean the daily supply of rice, make cloths,
and weed the jhum, and look after the chiefs children. In
return the boi get good food and live in the chiefs house, and
often wear his ornaments and use his guns and weapons. They
have to do very little more work than they would have to do if
they were independent, and, on the other hand, they are free of
all anxiety as to the morrow.

As all the chiefs are of the same family, a boi is at liberty to
move from one chiefs house to another. If a chief or his
wife treats a boi very badly, the injured one goes off and seeks
for a new master, and, as a large number of boi is considered to
increase a chiefs importance, every chief is willing to receive
him, and therefore boi are generally well treated. In former
days powerful chiefs like Sukpuilala and Vutaia only allowed
their boi to go to one of their own relations, but even then a
boi very often would manage to find an asylum with some
equally powerful chief.

When a person has once entered the chiefs house, he or she
can only purchase freedom by paying one mithan or its
equivalent in cash or goods. The fact that a boi can ever do
this shows that he is allowed to acquire property. When a
male boi reaches a marriageable age, the chief generally buys
him a wife, and he lives with her for three years in the chiefs
house: should he marry a female boi, the couple have to live
six years in the chiefs house. After this period, he sets up a
house of his own and is known as "inhrang (in = house, hrang =
separate) boi," and works for himself, but is still in some
respects a boi. If he kills any animal he has to give a hind
leg to the chief, and failure to do so renders him liable to a
fine of one mithan or its equivalent. If the chief is in want of