A History of Assam c17.7

c17.7

As in the case of other rude tribes, the tendency of the Khāsis and Syntengs was to split up into numerous petty communities each under its own head. From time to time some ambitious chief would conquer and absorb some of the adjoining communities, and the kingdom thus formed would continue to exist until the weakness of his successors gave an opportunity for the prevailing disintegrating tendency to assert itself, when it would again dissolve into a number of small independent communities. The people seem at one time to have been polyandrists of the matriarchal type, and, in the hills, property still descends through the female. The chief of a Khāsi State is succeeded, not by his own, but by his sister's, son.