head, and while in that posture utters the same
invocation. _U klong_ is then made over to the judge (the Siem or
the Sirdar as the case may be, &c.).

The person who undergoes the above ordeal wins the case, the production
of evidence being unnecessary.

War.

Although the Khasis, unlike the Nagas, the Garos, the wild Was of
Burma, the Dayaks of Borneo, and other head-hunting tribes, cannot be
said to have indulged in head-hunting in ancient times, as far as we
know, merely for the sake of collecting heads as trophies, there seems
to be some reference to a custom of head-hunting in a description of
the worship of the god _u Syngkai Bamon_, one of the principal gods of
war amongst the Khasis. This god is described in one of the folk tales
(I have obtained it through the kindness of Dr. Roberts, the Welsh
missionary at Cherrapunji) as being the deity who gives the heads of
the enemy to the successful warriors. To this god, as well as to _Ka
Ram Shandi_, they offer a cock. Before sacrifice the warriors dance
round an altar, upon which are placed a plume of cock's feathers (_u
thuia_), a sword, a shield, a bow, an arrow, a quiver, _pan_ leaves,
and flowers. After the cock has been sacrificed, they fix its head on
the point of a sword and shout three times. The fixing of the cock's
head on the point of a sword is said to have been symbolical of the
fixing of the human head of an enemy killed in battle, on the top
of the _soh-lang_ tree. Mr. Shadwell, of Cherrapunji, whose memory
carries him back to the time when the British first occupied the Khasi
Hills, has a recollection of a Khasi dance at Cherra, round an altar,
upon which the heads of some _Dykhars_, or plains people, killed in a
frontier raid had been placed. The Khasis used to sacrifice to a number
of other gods also for success in battle. An interesting feature of
the ancient combats between the people of different Siemships was
the challenge. When the respective armies had arrived at a little
distance from one another, they used to stop to hear each other shout
the _'tien-Blei_, or challenge, to the other side. This custom was
called _pyrta 'tien-Blei_, or shouting out the challenge. From the
records available of the military operations of the Khasis against
the British, the former appear to have relied principally on bows
and arrows, ambushes and surprises, when they fought against us at
the time of our first occupation of the hills. During the Jaintia
reb