________________
210
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JULY, 1907.
national custom of taking an oath was to hold a sprig of the Eugenia (thabye) in his hand whilst giving his evidence. It may be noted that the Burmese when victorious in war would crown themselves with chaplets made of the leaves of the same tree. Disputes are not frequent in Chin villages, and even under the British rule, which in practioe unfortunately seems to foster litigation, it is very rare that the Ching ever appear in any case in the courts.
Manner of Life. The Chin manner of life is of the simplest, and before the days of the British occupation they were very chary of leaving their homes. The Chin requires very little, excepting salt and a da (or chopper), which he cannot get for himself; though he frequently nowadays has all kinds of luxuries unknown to his forefathers, c. 9., ngapi (i..., pickled fish, generally more or less putrid), earthenware jars, matches and lamps. The bamboo alone gives him material for the walls, floor, and roof of his house, for his mats, cups, and waterjags, for handles to his tools, for his weaving implements, for his baskets of all sizes, and for his substitute for twine. By rubbing two little pieces of bamboo together he can at once make a fire ; and he can also make musical instruments of sorts from the bamboo. He grows his own oorn (rice), and thresbes and pounds it himself. In his ya he also grows all the vegetables he requires for his curry, beyond what can be found growing wild in the jungle, and cotton too, which his wife spins into yarn and weaves into garments and blankets. The dyes which he requires, and he has a considerable number of them, including indigo, he manufactures himself mainly from plants, either wild or cultivated. He grows his own tobacoo, though, like the Burman, he spoils it in the drying, and he manufactures his pipe from a little bamboo. Formerly the Chins were only able to take up the laborious and wasteful taung-yd method of cultivation, whereby fresh patches of jungle must be cleared each year for that year's crop, as they had no paddy-fields (là) and often neither ballocks nor buffaloes; but of recent years they have slowly been improving their condition. In all bis work, excepting the catting of the jungle for ya, or the cutting down of bamboos and timber generally, and in plonghing, in the few CASES where he has paddy-belds, the wife and daughter of the Chin take their full share.
The Chins are a very simple-minded people, and have not that facility in lying which most Orientals seem to possess; that is to say, the Chins may lie freely, but they cannot ordinarily lie boldly and consistently. I have been told by & magistrate who had lived among the Northern Chine, a savage people whose greatest delight, until the British occupied the country a few years ago, was to go head-hunting along the neighbouring mountains, that a bold liar was considered a great acquisition in any of these village, and that whenever a Government enquiry was to be made on any point "the liar" was brought forward to answer all questions. The Chins have been, and are, perpetually being defrauded by their more wily Burmese neighbours, who keep up the character ascribed to their ancestor in Chin folklore. The Chins have & saying that "the Burman language is the most simple and straightforward of languages, but the Burmese man is the most crooked and deceitful of men."
" Tattooing. Until a few years ago every girl on reaching the age of puberty had her face tattooed. In the Northern Chin Hills this tattooing is done chiefly in rings and dotted lines; but among the Southern Chips, who were hemmed in by the Burmans, the wbole face from the roots of the hair on the forebead, round by the ear to the neek, including even the eye-lids, was tattooed, and that so thickly and darkly that at a distance the whole face looked indigo, and only a close inspection would disclose the patterns worked on the face. It is not the Chin bereditary custom for boys or men to be tattooed ; but now they mostly have their body and thighs tattooed As the Barmcee do, whose manner of dress they also generally follow. The reason geperally given by the Chines themselves, and by others, of this strange custom of tattooing their women's faces is that they wished to make them ugly, so that there would be less danger of their
