Khasi

The Khasi, a people of the Assam region in northeastern India, have attracted sustained scholarly attention in the Straits and Malayan branches of the Royal Asiatic Society’s literature, primarily through the work of R. O. Winstedt, who investigated their linguistic and social institutions in relation to those of the Malay peoples. The Khasi are classified within the Austroasiatic language family, a grouping established by Father Schmidt in the 1890s, and their material culture and social organisation exhibit features that Winstedt argued pointed to a remote common ancestry with the Austronesian-speaking peoples of the Malay Peninsula [1, p. 9]. The comparative interest in the Khasi within this body of literature is not driven by any direct colonial or administrative connection between the two peoples, but by the striking convergences in kinship, inheritance, and material culture that Winstedt documented across a separation of over a thousand miles [1, p. 9].

Linguistic Parallels and the Austroasiatic–Austronesian Question

The earliest contribution to the Society’s literature on the Khasi is a short lexicographical note by Winstedt published in 1917, in which he presented a list of parallels between Khasi and Malay vocabulary to support the genetic connection between the Austroasiatic and Austronesian language families as proposed by Father Schmidt [2, p. 251]. Winstedt was candid about the limitations of his method, acknowledging that strictly scientific comparative work would require first establishing the primitive forms of each family before cross-comparing modern languages [2, p. 252]. He justified his approach on two grounds: that European scholars with only book knowledge of Malay might miss semantic nuances revealing genuine affinities, and that many of the parallels he listed were so close as to be unrejectable even by rigorous philological standards [2, p. 252].

The correspondences he documented include Khasi Rynkhiang (dry, parched) with Malay Rengkiang (granary), Shynkup (enclosed porch) with Sengkuap (lean-to), and Mangkalai (long-legged, of fowls) with Mengkalai (unfinished, having long trailing ends) [2, p. 252]. He also noted possible connections between Khasi and unexplained Malay place-names, such as Sungai Teriang (river) with Khasi Teriang (eel) [2, p. 252]. The article closes with a brief section on instances of metathesis and a reference to Schmidt’s 1904 phonological study of Khasi in relation to Mon-Khmer [2, p. 257].

Matrilineal Kinship and Inheritance

Winstedt’s 1932 article, “Mother-right among Khasis and Malays,” constitutes the most substantial treatment of Khasi social organisation in the Society’s literature. Writing from a position of deep familiarity with the matrilineal Malays of Negri Sembilan and the secondary literature on the Khasis of Assam, Winstedt set out to demonstrate that the near-identical systems of mother-right operating among these two peoples constituted one of the most remarkable convergences in comparative social organisation [1, p. 9]. All Khasi data in this article are drawn second-hand from Lieutenant-Colonel P. R. T. Gurdon’s The Khasis (1914) and a 1917 article in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal; Winstedt did not conduct fieldwork among the Khasis himself.

The article opens by establishing the linguistic and archaeological preconditions for comparison. Winstedt notes that despite the vast time since the separation of the two language families, the Khasi and Malay languages retain striking phonetic, morphological, and lexical resemblances [1, p. 9]. Archaeologically, the Khasi adze is a high-shouldered neolith of Mon-Khmer type, differentiated from the pointed Indonesian (Malay) type by 2000 B.C. at the latest, and both peoples use menhirs for their dead, though the Khasi examples are more elaborate [1, p. 9].

The body of the article proceeds as a point-by-point comparison of kinship, inheritance, and political institutions. Winstedt demonstrates that the Khasi and Malay systems share an identical three-tier structure—clan, sub-clan, family—with the sub-clan bearing the same name in both languages: kpoh (Khasi) and perut (Malay), both meaning “womb” [1, p. 9]. Both systems enforce strict clan exogamy, permit marriage with a deceased wife’s sister, prohibit marriage between children of sisters while forbidding (on different grounds) marriage between children of brothers, and vest custody of children in the mother upon divorce [1, pp. 10–12].

Inheritance of ancestral property passes exclusively through the female line in both societies, with the youngest daughter receiving the principal share including the family house and jewellery [1, pp. 11–12]. In Khasi districts the house cannot be sold without unanimous consent of all sisters, and in Rembau the youngest daughter undertakes to care for her mother in old age in return [1, pp. 11–12]. Property acquired by a man before marriage belongs to his mother, that is, his clan, in both societies; property acquired after marriage goes to his wife and children, with kampong (village), rice-land, and orchards in Negri Sembilan going exclusively to girls while rubber land, money, and movables are shared equally, the sons’ shares reverting to the sisters [1, p. 12].

Chieftainships in both societies go to men who qualify through their mothers, and in both cases the wife’s eldest brother heads the married household [1, pp. 10–12]. Khasi Siem (chiefs) derive revenue from state lands, voluntary contributions for public ceremonies, and market tolls; the Ruler of Negri Sembilan was similarly supported by court lands, festival offerings, and a toll on cock-fights [1, p. 12]. In three Khasi states the Siem family divides into Black and White branches from either of which a chief may be elected, a structure Winstedt links to the Malay system of rotation of offices and possible “black” and “white” Malay families [1, p. 12].

Material Culture and Ritual Customs

Winstedt extended his comparison beyond kinship to a catalogue of shared material and ritual customs between the Khasi and the Malays. These include the bamboo knife for cutting the umbilical cord, preservation of the placenta in an earthen vessel, egg divination, leaf-omens, cock sacrifice, tuba (a fermented intoxicating drink) fishing, identical hunting traps and snares, the absence of the potter’s wheel, and the taboo against using the sickle for reaping [1, pp. 12–13].

The hunting technology in particular is described in considerable detail. Both peoples use spring-guns impelling arrows, pit-falls with bamboo caltrops, nooses for deer, concealed platforms releasing stone-weighted roofs, and bird-snares limed with jack-tree gum [1, p. 13]. Winstedt is careful to caveat that mother-right occurs independently among American Indians, the Nayars of Malabar, and in Melanesia, and that borrowed customs are not irrefragable evidence of racial connection [1, p. 13]. Nevertheless, he argues that the cumulative weight of linguistic, archaeological, and social evidence makes the Khasi–Malay resemblance “startling” and worthy of remark [1, p. 13].

Research and Documentation

The Society’s literature on the Khasi is confined to two articles by a single author, R. O. Winstedt, separated by fifteen years. The 1917 note in the JSBRAS is a brief lexicographical exercise, explicitly self-aware of its methodological limitations, and serves primarily as a contribution to the broader question of Austroasiatic–Austronesian genetic relationship [2]. The 1932 article in the JMBRAS represents a significant expansion in scope and ambition, moving from isolated lexical parallels to a systematic comparison of social institutions, material culture, and political organisation [1].

The shift between the two articles reflects both a maturation of Winstedt’s own expertise in Malay customary law—his command of Negri Sembilan institutions was well established by 1932, drawing heavily on his own prior publications and those of his administrative colleagues Parr and Mackray, Taylor, and de Moubray—and a broader intellectual context in which comparative social organisation had become a more established field of inquiry. The 1932 article is more cautious in its conclusions than its 1917 predecessor, explicitly acknowledging the independent emergence of matrilineal systems in other parts of the world and the possibility of cultural borrowing [1, p. 13].

A notable limitation of the entire body of literature is that all Khasi data are drawn second-hand from Gurdon’s The Khasis (1914) and a 1917 JRASSB article; no contributor to the Society’s journals conducted fieldwork among the Khasis themselves. The comparative enterprise is thus entirely dependent on the accuracy and completeness of Gurdon’s account, and Winstedt’s conclusions rest on the assumption that the secondary literature faithfully represents Khasi social institutions as they existed in the early twentieth century.

MBRAS Sources

• R.O. Winstedt (1917). Lexicographical coincidences in Khasi and Malay. JSBRAS 77: 251–257
• R.O. Winstedt (1932). Mother-right among Khasis and Malays. JMBRAS 10: 9–13

References

1. R.O. Winstedt (1932). Mother-right among Khasis and Malays JMBRAS 10(1): 9–13.
2. R.O. Winstedt (1917). Lexicographical coincidences in Khasi and Malay JSBRAS 77: 251–257. Read on JSTOR