chap, xvii THE PEOPLE OF ASSAM 223
whom he buys from his neighbours for working the mines.1 Thus
all the peasants of Assam are at their ease, and there is scarcely
anyone who has not a separate house in his land, a well surrounded by
trees, and the majority even keep elephants for their wives. These
idolaters, unlike those of India, who have but one wife, have four, and
when a man marries one, in order that there may be no dispute among
them, he says to her, ' I take you to serve me in my household for this
purpose ', and to another, ' I destine you for another ', and thus each
of the women knows what she has to do in the house. The men and women
are of fine build, and of very good blood ; but the people dwelling on
the southern frontier are somewhat olive coloured, and are not subject
to goitre like those of the north. The latter are not of so fine
stature, and the majority of their women have somewhat flat noses. The
people of the southern part go about naked, having only a piece of
calico with which they cover that which modesty requires them to
conceal, with a cap like English caps, around which they hang an
abundance of pigs' teeth.2 They have their ears pierced so
that one might easily pass the thumb through the holes, some carry
ornaments of gold in them and others of silver.3 The men
wear their hair down to their shoulders, and the women let it grow as
long as it can. In the Kingdom of Assam, as well as that of Bhutan,
there is a large trade in tortoise-shell bracelets, and sea shells as
large as an egg, which are sawn into small circles, but the rich wear
bracelets of coral and yellow amber.
1 This may have been true of the silver mines, but as above stated, subjects had to wash for gold.
2 Muhammad Kazim says, ' A head-piece of gunny {goni), a cloth round the loins, and a sheet over the shoulders, form all the articles of their dress' (I.e., p. 225). Dalton,op. cit., plate xiii, gives a photograph of an Abor chief whose head is decorated with tusks of the wild boar.
3
On the practice, common among Hindu women, of distending the ears with
heavy rings see P. della Valle, i. 195; Pyrard de Laval, i. 343, 419;
Barbosa, ed. Dames, i. 114; Linschoten, i. 77. In the Central Provinces
' to have the hole torn open is one of the worst social mishaps which
can happen to a woman. She is immediately put out of caste for a long
period, and only readmitted after severe penalties, equivalent to those
inflicted for getting vermin in a wound ' (Russell, Tribes and Castes, iv. 529),
