The History of Khasis

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About the Book According to Khasi tradition, there were originally seven Khasi tribes, referred to as the Seven Huts, on Earth and another Nine Huts, or tribes, in Heaven. There was once a golden ladder that connected the two groups. However, the bridge was destroyed when the Khasi tribes sinned by cutting down a sacred tree and, in the process, severed the connection. The Seven Huts became the seven clans of the Khasi.

According to scholars, it is speculated that the Khasi, considered a Khmer people, originated in Southeast Asia, perhaps Cambodia, and migrated to India circa 4,000 years ago. The Khasi people lived in chiefdoms that were divided into hill chiefdoms and lowland chiefdoms. The Khasi chiefdoms often warred and raided each other's villages. They also had to defend themselves from foreign invaders, including Burmese and British imperialism.

Preface THIS book is an attempt to give a systematic account of the Khasi people, their manners and customs, their ethnological affinities, their laws and institutions, their religious beliefs, their folk-lore, their theories as to their origin, and their language.

Introduction IN 1903 Sir Bampfylde Fuller, then Chief Commissioner of Assam, proposed, and the Government of India sanctioned, the preparation of a series of monographs on the more important tribes and castes of the Province, of which this volume is the first. They were to be undertaken by writers who had had special and intimate experience of the races to be described, the accounts of earlier observers being at the same time studied and incorporated; a uniform scheme of treatment was laid down which was to be adhered to in each monograph, and certain limits of size were prescribed.