Quaint subjects of the king Author:John Foster Fraser Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: practice of marriage by capture, which is prevalent amongst most semi-civilised races the world over. Sometimes there is a "religious " ceremony. When all the ha... more »ggling is over, and an agreement is made as to what "presents" shall be exchanged—the parents of the bride usually give the bridegroom a sword, as a suitable thing with which to commence housekeeping—the young lady is conducted to the front of the house of the man's parents. A grass carpet is laid between the friends of the girl and the friends of the lad. A kind of beer is offered to the household nats, but as the nats do not drink beer in the daylight, delay is avoided by the guests —after a limited interval—drinking it themselves. A pig is killed, and the blood sprinkled on the bride. The girl is then taken into the house; she feeds her husband with rice, and he feeds her, and there is much hullaballoo of merrymaking. So the couple are wedded, and expected to live happy ever afterwards. There is no honeymoon. The bride is so shy—quite a young thing of ten or twelve years of age—that she goes back to live with her parents, and there she stays until she is of a really marriageable age, and can go to her husband. As might be expected, the Kachins are soaked in superstition. Singular are the prevalent ideas about death. Mr. E. C. S. George, who was formerly Deputy Commissioner at Bhamo, gives the following account in a Government report: Originally, when all men were immortal, a very aged man named A-pauk-kyit-lok lived at Majaw Shingra Pum. Nine times had he grown old—lost KACHINS MARKETING. KACHIN WOMEN. phongraplU ly Otl. C. H. H. Conchman, D.S.O his teeth, and become grey-headed—and nine times had he become mysteriously rejuvenated, as was the natural state of things in that golden age. He could not die. In ...« less