are still annually sacrificed to the Kopili. The _doloi_
reports that this is an ancient custom. None can remember, however,
having heard that human victims were ever sacrificed there. Yet I do
not think it at all unlikely that this is the stone, locally called
_Mynlep_, which is referred to in the folk-tale. At Jaintiapur and
Nartiang, both of which places were the headquarters of the kings of
Jaintia, there are very large table-stones. We know for a fact that
human sacrifices used to take place at Jaintiapur. Is it possible
that human beings were immolated on these table-stones? It would be
unsafe to base any conclusion on the solitary folk-tale about the
_Iew Ksih_ table-stone; but the tale certainly furnishes food for
reflection. The Khasis borrowed their religious customs largely
from the Synteng inhabitants of Jaintia, and it is possible that
they may have obtained the custom of erecting the table-stones from
the Syntengs also, and that the latter were originally used by both
of them for sacrificing human victims. Sometimes, immediately on
either side of the _mawkni_, or large central stone, there are two
much smaller stones called _mawksing_, or the stone of the drum,
and _mawkait_, the stone of the plantain; the drum being used in all
religious ceremonies by the Khasis, and the plantain relating to their
custom of feeding young children on plantains. The _mawnan_ must be
described separately from the _mawbynna_, because they differ from
them in an important particular, i.e. that the former may be erected
to commemorate the father, while the latter are set up to perpetuate
the memory of the ancestors on the female side of the family. _Mawnam_
consist of three upright stones and one flat table-stone in front. The
large central stone is called _u maw thawlang_, or the stone of the
father, and the upright stones on either side are meant to represent
the father's brothers or nephews. The flat table-stone is _ka Iawbei_,
i.e. the grandmother of the father, not the first grandmother of the
clan, as in the case of the _mawbynna_.

(_c_) The _maw umkoi_ have already been described. They use erected
to mark the sites of purificatory tanks, which have been dug so that
the remains of deceased persons may be cleansed from the impurities
attending an unnatural death, and to counteract the adverse influence
upon the clan of _Ka Tyrut_, or the goddess of death. These stones
are sometimes called _mawtyrut_.

(_d_) _Maw-shongt