PREFACE

The matrilineal clan lineage is considered sacred by the Khasi people till today, even as the extent of sanctity has declined in the urban middle-class society, due to the onslaught of popular and dominated patriarchal culture. Perhaps, the term matriliny needs to be redefined in the Khasi context of clan relationships to achieve a more precise and specific definition. The attachment of the maternal mother and paternal mother to their respective children in the process of the human reproduction system is abided in all respects. The paternal mother is considered as the provider of a father, a male parent responsible for contributing the seeds to the core family, while the distinct identity of the paternal and maternal families is maintained separately through the mother of a particular clan. Mothers have always been held in high regards in society and considered the core in the formation of the cognate family, while the maternal uncles are the defender of the honour and integrity of the core family. All the descending children or siblings trace their ancestry from the mother, and the umbilical cord is a string of life within the clan. The Khasi myth about U Lum Sohpetbneng, literally means the Mount of Heavenly Navel is the foundation on the genesis of mankind. The myth relates that the soul of the human race descended from heaven through Ka Jingkieng Ksiar U Lum Sohpetbneng or the Golden Vine on the Mount of Heavenly Navel. Therefore, the world view of Khasi myth is universal and inclusive of the entire humankind; notably, the soul of the entire human race descended from heaven through the Golden Vine of the Mount of Heavenly Navel.

This Khasi myth on the genesis of humankind is the founding principle of the traditional system of Khasi matrilineal clan lineage. The matriliny in the ancient Khasi society prevailed for eon before the emergence of the essence of faith as a religious system, through which incantation and libation, rituals and ceremonies are being performed in every aspect of social, cultural and political situation in the society. The anthropological theory substantiated that initially, every human society practiced matriliny because of the fact that every mother is the immediate companion of her own children by virtue of birth and natal nourishment. Every infant cling to their mother for emotional and physical support and protection till they are capable of independent movement on their own personal ability. The surviving culture of the matrilineal system has a firm foundation in every communities throughout the world, which they have been able to sustain in spite of the overwhelming dominant patriarchal system that became the social trend for every modern society at most countries in the world. Contrary to the rigid tenets of Islam religion towards female members in the society, the majority Muslim populace among the Minangkabou people of Indonesia, is still the largest community practicing matrilineal culture with absolute commitment. The same is prevalent to many matrilineal societies across the world, even as there are some who had converted to or assimilated with  the patriarchal system, while few others are in the process of change. Nevertheless, many communities are strongly abided by the matrilineal system of clan lineage. Prominent among them are the Musuo in China, Akan, Ashanti and Tuareg in Africa, the Serer of Senegal, Gambia and Mauritania, Minangkabou of Indonesia, Khasi and Garo of India.

Social change takes place in the way that is best suited to a particular community in a given situation in the present context, which the particular generation might not be able to foresee the future prospect of the community in terms of the survival of their respective ethnic identity. Therefore, it is important that the changes in the approximate period of a particular generation be considered for any further changes in the future at such similar period or more. That is to understand through any consequences in the society that is indicated and traced to the root cause of a particular period, will require more or less the same period or more to restore to its original form, or to rejuvenate to a modified form, even as that society is keeping pace with the contemporary situation. If the tolerance of a particular community towards another for refuge and rehabilitation led to the coexistence in a cosmos, and assimilation may take place in harmony or conflict. However, absolute harmony is impossible in human society when one asserts supremacy over the other with the approach of survival of the fittest and endeavour for exclusivity. Gradually, the vulnerable may experience suppression and express dissent with the dominant community. Certain factors may influenced social dominance by the migrants and refugees over the original inhabitants; resistance is bound to take place and will lead to conflict and counter confrontation among the communities. In the course of time when assimilation took place during the period of social harmony, ethnic assertion in any crucial period may lead to probable conflict. Therefore, to sustain the ethnic identity of a particular community, it is important to introspect into the history and even the mythology of such community, in order to preserve and protect the cultural characteristics of the community. The matrilineal custom of the Khasi community has its roots in the creation myth about the genesis of mankind. If the past myth is an immeasurable period of time from the present, then the community may survive for another immeasurable period of time, if only the people accepted that mythology hold relevance to the present. Sometimes serious concern towards the community should be tackled with appropriate methods and approach, lest it might be detrimental to the community. A group of people constructed a home or a house will definitely requires certain time frame. The home could last a life time because it was built by the souls, but a house is vulnerable to weather because it was built by the material resources. However, the reality is that both the home and the house is capable of rupture, because any independent soul will more than often has subjective opinion best suited to their own self, than the common cause; and nature has its usual effect on the house building material, as much as it will affect social change. Just any one or few individuals is enough to dismantle a home or a house, depending upon the undue advantage taken to destroy. Such individuals might realised about their transgression after some time and regret. Therefore, to rebuild or restore or rejuvenate such a home or a house will require more time and resources than the initial time span of construction. It does not take much effort and time to dismantle or destroy anything, but to rebuild or restore might be difficult or rather impossible; hence, if the damage is already done for whatever reason, it should be rejuvenated to the best condition in a given situation. So the same goes with the society and everybody should understand the natural process of time and space in the community.

The universal context of matriliny encountered several complex situation in the course of interface with other cultures. Therefore, it is significant and appropriate to emphasise only in the Khasi matrilineal system of clan lineage. The tradition of matriliny in Khasi society have existed since the genesis of mankind and before the belief in animism is being revered as a religious faith. Man fell into the temptation of a mammon serpent demon 'Thlen' to challenge and defeat the tiger, a spiritual guardian or 'Ryngkew Basa' with mischievous scheme of selfish creatures. Doom descended upon the earth, when the graceful sun concealed in the sacred cavern 'Krem Lamet Latang' due to the outrageous  remarks by certain beings during the dance festival of all creatures. The divine council commanded a decree upon few prominent beings to facilitate the recurrence of the light and warmth of the mother sun. The arrogance and conceited attitude of few creatures was futile, until a humble and insignificant naked rooster succeeded to convince the return of the sun at dawn after he crows for three times as was agreed upon with the instruction of the mother sun. Therefore, the rooster is revered as the harbinger and saviour of mankind, where sacrifice is being performed as ritual to communicate with the divine energy through the entrail of a fowl. This is the emergence of the Khasi faith and belief system that prevailed till today. The matrilineal system is intrinsic to the faith, that the authentic identity of a Khasi race is generally ascribed by majority of the people, even among those who have embraced other religions.

The attempt to write is a tool to awake the Khasi indigenous people and inculcate the profound understanding about the essence of  kinship in matriliny. My sincere appreciation upon the vernacular newspaper 'U Nongsaiñ Hima' for the dissemination of public information and knowledge through the regular articles for a long time. I urged upon every clan association to commit to strengthening the cause of matrilineal social kinship ancestry, and refrain to function like a mere social organisation; whence the structure of the Seng Kur is acknowledged as a traditional institution. There is no denial to the fact that Christianity has created tremendous impact on the society, but faith must be confined to an individual person or a family, while traditional culture must prevail right from the core of the being and the home to the public domain; in order to reinforce the unity of the entire community. For the general welfare of the community, it is always better to consult, discuss and debate among the larger group of people than to conspire, connive and ploy within the small faction of vested interest group. For the wholesome contentment of the soul, it is better to ponder and pray in silence to achieve spiritualism than to preach and evengelise in the congregation to expand the religious denomination. Therefore, every member in a society has the responsibility to preserve, propagate and prosper their own cultural heritage.

This writing is a manifestation of the true essence of the traditional custom and folk practices, particularly the matrilineal system and egalitarian society. It is not a compulsion of ethnic assertion, but a thorough understanding of the value system in the significance of the mother as the core of every family. The universal practice since the emergence of social community system revealed that the mother is the sole custodian of her children since the period of conception till they are capable of self determination and assert personal freedom. While the father and every male member in the family and the community are the protector and defender from external forces that might be detrimental to the wellbeing of the family or the community. I am trying to present the truth about human society, realising the fact that every individual person has subjective opinion about life and relationship in the family, the community and the society at large; hence, I urged upon the readers to accept the reality as it is with sensible reason and reject anything that is not compatible with concrete argument, and with the motive to improve and facilitate towards perfection.

I am grateful to my father and few of his matured and resourceful friends for the inspiration and encouragement, particularly Ma Spiton Kharakor for his consent to share his thought and blessings upon my humble endeavour. I expressed my gratitude for my family, friends and all those who have contributed to the cause of matriliny.

Khublei shihajar nguh.

Bah Raphael Warjri 

 INTRODUCTION

Khasi philosophy has a world view about all creatures on earth from the micro atomic substances to the huge and colossal beings, from the real and tangible matter to supernatural organism; and word is the instrument of virtue, authority and decree, described as the divine entity. It is with word that the world around has evolved in space and the covenant is a pledge of a simple attribute of human ethic, known as 'Akor' in Khasi language. This simple character in a person's behaviour and conduct called 'Akor' is the foundation of the three commandments to earn righteousness, to abide with maternal and paternal kinship and to articulate human and divine conscience. The three commandment is the hearthstones of Khasi realm, where myths, legends and folk tales are being told and retold for generations in the form of narrative stories, that is the word. The word became energy, energy became being and being became human. It is word that created the universe and all its components, and mother earth is the source of all creations in the cosmos. It is significant to emphasised on the earth as the mother of the five elements of organic energy. In Khasi mythology it is lirerally attributed that mother earth has five offsprings - that is the Sun, Moon, Air, Water and fire, where moon is the only male offspring among the siblings. Thereafter, mother earth gave birth to another two male offspring, thunder and earthquake as the energy to rejuvenate the earth. With the activation of the energy from the five elements all the beings germinated from mother earth in different animate and inanimate, motion and still  life form. This is relevant even with the modern scientific technological innovation- the clock, type writer, aeroplane, ship, railway, computer, cement, steel, plastic, oil and so on and so forth are the human resourceful instruments that emerged from the earth- the mother earth.

The moot point that is required to elaborate is the Khasi matrilineal system of clan ancestry. The Khasi myth on the genesis of mankind related that human souls descended from heaven through the golden bridge alongside the mount of heavenly navel. This is the foundation of human reproduction process through matrilineal kinship ancestry, where the clan linage is traced from the umbilical cord that connect the mother with the infant being conceived. The spiritual connection of heaven and earth through the mount of heavenly navel is synonymous with the physical link of the umbilical cord from the body of the mother to the body of the infant that she conceived in her womb. Therefore, simply or random taking or acquiring the surname of any parent or foster parent as a bond in the family does not have any bearing, because the clan lineage in Khasi concept is literally considered from the umbilical cord of the real biological mother to the real child that she conceived and given birth. Even biological sciences substantiated that mitochondrial  genetic inheritance is specifically traced through the DNA cells of the mother, only the mother; whereas nuclear genetic inheritance is traced through the DNA cells of both parents. Therefore, it is essential that the precise identity of the descendants are to be considered from the root of the ancestress, that is the initial mother, which is known as 'Ïawbei' in Khasi language. The majority of the cultures in the world is giving emphasis on the seed from the male parent that the generation of offsprings emerged, while the vital nourishment of the female parent is never given any significance. In  fact, most cultures of the world consider the female human as inferior to the male counterpart; women are being treated as the tools of men for physical pleasure and reproduction purposes. For ages, women were suppressed to the extent that they accept it as a norm in social coexistence, and this is also manifested in every social, cultural, political and economic dispensation including any organised religion; whereas education is the common arena for both male and female to assert excellence, and more than often women are far superior than men in all respects. This male chauvinist perception has enabled the masculine domination over the feminine as the world order and it distinctly indicated that male utilised muscle power to compete with and attain supremacy over the female. Contrary to the so called general rule in modern society, matrilineal cultures affirmed that mother, distinctively biological mother is the core of life and the source of all beings. In Khasi mythology, it begins with the fertile soil as the mother earth, because the barren soil can not produce. Hence, all women might not become mother, even as all mothers are essentially female. It is not proper to claim that kinship is considered from the woman or female, because it must be from the mother, a woman or female being who is capable of conceiving and giving birth to an infant life.

The union of two souls of the opposite sex is essential for reproduction according to the demand of the forces of nature to sustain all the beings in the ecosystem. In Khasi animism all beings have souls, even the plants and celestial bodies also are living beings that requires the natural energy of the five elements and the surrounding resources of the environment for nourishment to survive. The vital beings in the ecology coexists with the parasites for both development and destruction, for blooming and decay, and even for survival and extinction and again facilitated for evolution of fresh organs and emergence of new beings at the direction of nature. This is reflected in the folk tales of "Ka Nam" and the various tales of supernatural beings in the form of mermaids and fairies like "Ka Lidakha", "Ka Pah Syntiew", "Ka Saïa Nongum" and others. However, the myths, legends and folk tales might not be taken as real, but as the symbolic representation and hypothetical theory for motivation of healthy human existence and vibrant society. The interconnection of the male and female elements is instrumental for reproduction and survival of beings including human. The communion of the male and female human is the prime factor for responsible reproduction while the bodily passion is a derivative of sensible emotion. Unfortunately, most of the human mind emphasised on physical pleasure and reckless reproduction is the effect of careless action, which could facilitate the habit of promiscuity. The Khasi divine decree of "Ka Meihukum" is channelised through the ancestral proverbs in the form of moral counselling by the parents to the children to contain the limit of human freedom (laitluid) to that of human liberty (laitlan). It is human nature to want more and ultimately want everything, so much so that ethical intervention of social norms are essential for a sensible society. Therefore the saying goes that charity begins at home.

Nevertheless, liberal thoughts and actions is generally asserted by civilised society. It is appropriately applied to apprehend prejudice and bias opinion on various aspects of social encounters. However, this liberal function of the so called enlightened individuals in the course of time became a lobby of the elite who pretended to be inclusive of the different strata of the society, but in actual practice they tend to ignore the genuine voice of the marginal section of the society. Although, it is necessary to refrain from being judgmental, but at the same time it is not proper to neglect certain intellectual nuisance, which is harmful to society. The middle path is perhaps to create a sense of tolerance to both the interpretation of ancient knowledge and the articulation of contemporary understanding of life and society. Another saying goes that 'never to judge the book by it's cover', and fisrtly begin at 'home is where the heart is'.

The core family constituent is under the care of the mother and the protection of the maternal uncles according to the Khasi matrilineal custom. Every daughter engaged in matrimony will becomes a mother to set up her core family constituent of the clan and every son shall engage himself as the progenitor of the core family constituent of another clan and becomes the father. This would mean that the prime factor is the mother that facilitate and embrace in an inclusive family; whereas the patriachy family of mother, father and their children is an exclusive component that confines with certain limitation in the garb of  privacy. The inclusive family will ensure that any descending member of the family should be absorb with impunity and councelling shall intervened for all legitimate claim. The exclusive family will protect the private entity of the monotonous constituent and abandon any member that do not comply with the usually male dominated family cult.

The matrilineal system of the Khasi people begins since the inception of humankind. The myth on the genesis of humankind relates that in the beginning the sixteen units of souls in the heavenly realm frequented the earth as the spiritual entity, without any physical body. Primordial nature as a celestial energy is embodied as deity or deities, because the Khasi concept of the divine is neither any gender nor any digit, and precisely it is being address as god or goddess or gods and goddesses. When the earth is found to be bare and barren, the divine congregation held a council of all beings to wear and wrap the earth with colourful costumes. All the offsprings of the mother earth, that is the sun, the moon, the air, the water and the fire exerted certain energy into the earth and vegetation germinated in different forms, structures and appearances. When they have grown and seasoned, the canopy of the earth became beautiful and colourful with a wide range of plants and trees, cereals and vegetables, shrubs and herbs, mosses and fungi. Thereafter, there is a need to keep somebody to provide nourishment and care to the growing and living organism. Further intervention of natural energy facilitate the growth of parasites like maggots, worms and termites from the decay in the earth and the vegetation. These creatures have evolved in different environment and grown into crawling and flying insects, reptiles, amphibians, and various other creatures. The survival of all these creatures are considered by the ability of every being to sustain their livelihood on interdependent nourishment based on the individual endurance. When the creatures increased in numbers, there is chaos and commotion because the weak are vulnerable and were dominated by the powerful, while the weaker creatures find their way to overcome and harm the stronger creatures; thereby counter plunder and devastation occurred. In this situation, there is a need for congenial coexistence of every being; and the divine council resolved to send the seven out of the sixteen celestial units of the divine souls to inhabit the earth. Mother earth integrated the seven units of the divine souls into certain advanced animal forms created from the earth, and human being came into existence. The  divine council bestowed upon every other animals certain aptitudes to survive and endure on earth and the human race were given the privileged of being the supreme authority over other creatures on earth. While all the creatures accepted the resolution of the divine council gracefully: however, the tiger and the serpent were not satisfied and assert their status with objection in the divine council, while they challenge the human discretely. Although, the human race have the ultimate power to control other beings, the tiger and the serpent found their way to challenge the human at every situation, even as they are significantly tamed. In contrary, the tiger and the serpent have immense enmity over each other in their effort to assert superiority over the common enemy, the human. The territorial conflict always happened among the trio- man, tiger and serpent, in which each one endeavour to terminate the other to attain supremacy over the rest of the creatures. This is the nature of every being including human. Nevertheless, every creature sustained their species through reproduction and each descendants survived till today. Perhaps, the ideal example is the bee, where the queen is the core that always remained in the hive feeding and nourishing the young drones, bees and budding queens, before each queen will create its own compartment of their respective hives; and the drones is the provider of the seed and protector of the hive, while the worker bees collected the food and maintained the hive. Therefore, the genes of every creature germinated from the womb of the mother as the core of existence, sustenance and survival. This is the foundation of matriliny that persist with every creature including human.

 THE ORIGIN

In the myth of Diengïei, the serpent tempted human to sever the giant tree with the motive to slash away the habitat of tiger, the dense jungle. The tiger is supposed to be the spiritual guardian of the forest for all other animals and to protect human habitat from intruders, which otherwise signifies the conservation of environment and ecological balance. The serpent who inhabited the caves and caverns is least bothered about other creatures on the surface of the earth. He even convinced the birds to support his wicked plan; and the wren was attracted by the paddy field cultivated by the human. The tiger licked the cut marks on the tree and it was restored, while the human was confused. The wren revealed the action of tiger to the human and even suggested the method to trap the tiger in his effort to protect the giant tree, which represented the environment. Ultimately, the trick of the wren works and the giant tree collapsed after the tiger was sliced by the machettes planted by human on the cutting marked portion of the giant tree. Simultaneously, the golden bridge of heavenly navel was detached from the earth. The earth became independent along with its habitats, and the onset of bewilderment began. The human as the superior being succumbed to the whims and fancies of the serpent, weaken the spiritual prowess of the tiger and destroyed the communion with the nine divine souls. The era of righteousness came to an end and the evil epoch begins.

Life is beyond the understanding of the ultimate wisdom of human. It is divine and sacred to every sensible soul. The umbilical cord of the mother is always connected to the new life form that she has conceived in her womb for a suitable period to process the seminal fluid given by her spouse. The raw sperm of a male is deposited into the female womb through the agitation of genital organs for the noble deed of life reproduction process that is usually and otherwise assume as sexual pleasure. Therefore the divine link between God and man is as much spiritual and significant as much as the divine link between mother and her infant. Father is sowing the seed of life into the womb of the mother and by the law of nature; the mother conceived for certain period until that life form is fully processed and ready for delivery when it is ripe. Further, the mother has to nurture and feed the infant with her own milk until the infant is matured enough to start an independent life of his or her own. The attachment between the infant and the mother indicated his or her identity derived from the sperm of their father. Hence, the mother is the custodian of her offspring's’ identity and the father is the provider of their life.  Therefore, the temporal lineage of a human race is immediately related with the bearer of human life, the mother. The gene of the father cannot determine the lineage of a human race; it is the mother that gives birth to infants, rear and nourishes them within her own body and with the necessities provided by the father. A barren man or woman cannot become a father or a mother. It is the divine sanction of procreation that facilitated the organs of a fertile man to connect with the organ of a fertile woman and enable production of life forms, the human being, which constituted the human race. So is the case for all creatures to abide by the law of nature. However, the civil society has misused and abused the traditional purposes and created male dominated conventions to stake claim over the genetic inheritance of a human race. This human blunder has created rigid concept to confine and define specific species of creatures and human. It was the greatest adventure of man to trace the origin of human race at the cost of defying the sacred law of nature, humanity. This essence of humanity in Khasi philosophy overrides all history of human origin: nations, colour, caste, creed and all forms of political, social and cultural classification. In Khasi domain there are chieftains and councils of noblemen but no palaces and castles. The land and all its properties belong to the people, including the chieftains and noblemen as ordinary citizens. The perception about chieftain or noblemen is the responsibility to care and protect the community and not the power, privilege and position. In the people’s assembly the people bestowed the power, privilege and position upon the respective functionary to work for the welfare of the people. This is the democratic structure with simple representation from every household to the clan council, from every clan group to the territorial council, and from each territorial cluster to the provincial council.

 THE MOTHER EARTH

Like every creature, human is liable for reproduction and in the beginning, all the offsprings are always attached at the bosom of the mother since birth till they are capable of independent movement and face life on their own accord. While the adult male members are engaged in searching of food and shelter. The anthropological sciences also substantiated to this earliest family structure, where the young siblings are in the care of the mother as the custodian of the domestic segment and the father and other adult male members are the providers of necessity and comfort and protectors from harmful external forces. The practice of maternal and paternal kinship in Khasi society have prevailed before human realised about the physical sensation of male and female constituent, before the institution of marriage evolved with elaborated relationship consideration based on the law of nature. Therefore, kinship among various clans have been practiced prior to the inception of faith or belief system that has taken the form of religious congregation in the present context. The faith or belief system is confined to an individual spiritualism that extended to the private welfare of the family, and the mother and maternal uncle are the primary celebrants of any prayer or divine interpretation.

The foundation of faith or belief system in Khasi society is ascertain to the myth of a dance festival of all creatures on earth. The individual entity of each creature has the freedom of personal observation upon each other. Since the dance festival was held during the day, it is imperative for the sun to provide light and warmth in the arena, so that every creature will partake the festivity. Hence, the sun arrived the dance arena at dawn and gracefully performed with elegance; however, few creatures ridiculed the sun for arriving late, without realising her concern. The sun was ashamed and angry that she fled away to hide in the cave, and the entire universe became dark. This is the beginning of prejudice, comparison and distinction among fellow creatures, without realising that each creature has certain faculty essential for individual and collective existence in the ecosystem. The universe was in great predicament and commotion arose among fellow creatures and subsequently a divine council was convened to bring back the sun from hiding. Every creature suggested numerous ideas, and the arrogant elephant volunteered to drag by force and met with unfortunate consequence. He was thrown with a cylinder on the brow and it remained intact till now; the trunk was attached and since then the elephant learned to be gentle. One of the most beautiful birds, the hornbill offered to deal with the sun. He enticed the sun with his handsome appearance and sweet voice, but was thrown with the seating plank on the brow and it remained intact till now; the extended bill was attached and since then the hornbill became ugly and voice became hoarse. Thereafter, nobody dared to venture into the cave, and ultimately the council demanded the service of an insignificant creature, the naked fowl who was reluctant to undertake the task. Nevertheless, the council promised for an imposing costume and a crown, because in Khasi mythology the rooster initially does not have feathers; so he was compelled to perform the task. The rooster went through various formalities, which delayed and obstructed his route; and on the third day he arrived the cave entrance with a humble request to the sun. He literally beg her forgiveness on behalf of the offenders and pleaded her return to provide light and warmth to the universe. The sun was impressed by his courteous approach and touched by his humility that she agreed to rise again after he crows for three times at dawn. The rooster brought the message to the council and everybody kept vigil for the  resurgence of a new day, immediately after the rooster crows thrice. There was great rejoice in the universe and the rooster was rewarded with colourful feathers and a crown on his head. He became the harbinger for the dawn of renaissance for every life in the universe and the onset of sacrifice with ceremony of analysing the symptoms of good and evil furtune on earth through the entrails of a rooster. This is the commencement of the belief system in Khasi society, where moral ethics is the benchmark of the three commandments- to earn righteousness; to abide by maternal and paternal kinship; and, to articulate human and divine conscience.

In Khasi concept, the soil or the earth is the mother of all living organism; from maggots and insects, vegetation, animals, birds and fishes, human and all the celestial and terrestrial being; the sun, the moon, the air, the water, the fire, the stars, the thunder and earthquake. The stone, which is the hardened form of earth is perceived as the provider of seed for reproduction of all life forms on earth, even as it also emerged from the earth through the ages. Initially, the agitation of the earth with the stone in confrontation with the elementary sources of energy resulted in the germination of animated and inanimated beings, static and dynamic forms according to the forces of nature. Therefore the seed germinates, blooms, grows and produces stems, leaves and fruits until they are ripen and matured to create fresh seeds for the next life cycle. The seed is the sperm from the male organ of a stone, plant, animal, insect or any creature and the female organ in the mother earth and other creatures nourish the sperm in the womb for reproduction of the fresh life organs, which all of them emerged or given birth from mother earth and died or rotten before convertion into earth again. In the same manner, human was bore out of the womb of the mother, grown and matured independently until death, where the corpse is cremated or buried, turned into ash or decomposed till it become earth once again. In Khasi parlance, the dead body is cremated until the umbilical cord is incinerated, while the remaining bones are collected and kept in the family ossuary of the original ancestress of the clan.

The role of mother earth in human life is in abundance of material and spiritual utility. The material utility is known about the entire situation of existence of both human and all other creatures including plants. The shelter that human built is on top of the earth, agriculture is implemented on the earth, the costume that human wear is made from the materials derived from the earth; everything that human and every creature needs is derived from the mother earth. The value of mother earth in Khasi concept is further emphasised on the spiritual effect on the life of every human. A pinch of soil from mother earth will strengthen the aura of human when they encountered against any adverse situation. The human essence could be tantalised by any elusive object and it is safe to retain consciousness by consuming a pinch of soil from mother earth to cast away any bad effect. This is the usual practice in every dangerous situation and it is commonly believed in Khasi tradition of sorcery known as 'Thlen' that the hired murderers or 'menshohnoh' are in a trance casted by the witchcraft when they attempt to pounce on the victim, because they will have an illusion of tiny weak object like butterfly or any other insects when they attacked the human. In such situation, if the inner feeling of the victim realised about the dangerous intention, they could nip a portion of the soil from the ground and consume, whence the hired murderer would flee away in fear, because the human essence has been strengthen. Such is the power of mother earth.

The intelligible communication between human and nature have always been there since the beginning. With the onslaught of modernity and the advanced technology human faculty has reached new heights in various fields of scientific inventions and discoveries. However, the simple ability to communicate with all the components of nature and the universe have been ignored and faded away with time. It is essential even in this modern age that human body should touch the earth for the major part of time in life, but this has been dicriminately ignored and deliverately shunned away. Nowadays, majority of the human race have access to technology and sustain and survive with it, without realising the miraculous power of mother earth. Consequently, wherever technology dominated and penetrated human is in bondage and enslaved, except the supposedly underprivileged people living in the remotest territories of the world that still availed the lavish of natural environment and direct contact with the soil. The modern man would not bother to indulge in the luxury of contemporary innovations at the cost of physiological condition, because the advanced medicine and pharmaceutical industry will rescue them from most ailments. It is more important that the sole of human feet must be in contact with mother earth every day just on the surface of the soil or grasses for certain period for remedy of the various ailments in the diverse system of human body, more so the other parts of the body should be in contact with the earth. The Behdeinkhlam festival is one testimony to this tradition. Furthermore, the ancient Khasi warriors do not have protective gears for the weapons because the weapon also is required to have contact with the bare hand and mother earth with the bare feet to instill the spirit of courage and sacrifice. There are folk knowledge that the swords of great chieftain and warriors of the past are being kept in safe custody for the only deserving prince and warrior of the future to unfold it. This could be perceived as a psychological strategy but it also served as the inspiration for courage and perseverance on the cause. The sword of great chieftain and warriors that had killed substantial numbers of enemies is possessed with the vengeful evil cast of violence locally known as 'Tyrut' and the person who shall hold it must be careful, competent and responsible to use it, lest it might cause harm to self. Such important object is always kept near the hearth or at the mantle shelf above the hearth and the base of the hearth is with the earth, the only portion of the hut which is connected to mother earth.

 THE HEARTH

The hearth is the foundation of family structure in Khasi matrilineal system. The base of the hearth is the earth surface where three hearthstones is erected, which represented the mother, the maternal uncle and the father. The father and maternal uncle on either side guarding the mother in the middle, while from the aerial view which is considered divine, the hearthstones appeared the same and equidistant from each other. It signifies that in the temporal world, the females are to be defended by the males, while in the spiritual realm they are all the same, without any distinction of gender. Fire is one source of energy that ignited and burn in a fireplace to generate heat and warm the interior of the house, and facilitated the hearth to create warmth at home. The mother is the core of the family and both father and maternal uncle are the primary factors for building a home, in Khasi they are known as 'Ïawbei' for the mother, 'Thawlang' for the father, and 'Suitnia' for the maternal uncle. For the reproduction purpose it is the sacred duty of the mother as a wife and her husband, the father and for the counselling purpose it is the mother as a sister and her brother, the maternal uncle. For providing the essential needs of the mother and her children, it is the responsibility of the respective father; for providing the material and spiritual resources to the family of his mother and his siblings or his sisters and their children, it is the burden of the eldest maternal uncle and his brothers. To further elaborate on this, every husband is held responsible to provide basic neccessities of provision for food and cloths of his wife and children, while it is customary that the paternal mother would gifted a baby carrying strap as a blessing to the children of her son during infancy. Every maternal uncle along with his brothers are liable to take care of the household affairs of their mother, shelters for their married sisters and the wellbeing of their nephews and nieces within the clan cluster. Every mother is responsible to feed and nourish their children for their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, while counselling and protection is the task of every elder to the younger members in the maternal family, including the father to their respective children. Therefore, the ideal Khasi home comprise of the three heartstones in the care of the mother, the father and the maternal uncle. The usual practice is that the father would visit his wife and children every evening after work and stay the night only to return to his maternal home at dawn. In the maternal family cluster all the married males went to the house of their respective wives and children and stay for the night, while the bachelors remained at their maternal home.

Another practice that is prevalent in the past is that every grand uncle would visit his nephews and nieces for storytelling around the hearth. Usually, they would narrate the tales in accompaniment of music from the stringed instrument or a flute till late night. This is how the oral myths, legends, folk tales and parables are passing through generations. The narration is for imparting knowledge through musical amusement and enchantment. The fireplace is the only place they would gather around after dinner for the melodious folklore. Every married man is engaged in the family occupation for earning livelihood and for contribution to the maternal family resources. In the process, the ancestral properties are in the custody of the mother or on her demise, the last daughter, while the eldest among brothers or any matured brother in lieu of him is usually a supreme head of the family council. It is to be understood that the last daughter is not the least in chronology, but the least available daughter for the care and service to her old parents, uncles and any neglected members of the maternal family. The matrilineal system is inclusive of everybody in the maternal fold and nobody will be deserted or isolated from the family, and in this manner there is no beggars in Khasi society and hardly even today. Every father of a family is the maternal uncle to his maternal family and his clan and hence does not have any role in the family of his wife, except to provide the necessities, affection and occasional guidance and counselling to his children and respect and faithfulness to his wife. Every married man is a visiting husband at his wife's home and an earning father for his children and the rest of the things in the maternal home lies with the mother and her brothers or the grandmother and her sons. For all the domestic necessities, the mother would catered and provided, while all the other needs beyond the boundary of domestic domain, it is the responsibility of the maternal uncles and adult nephews.

The last daughter meaning the least available daughter for the care and service of the maternal family members shall inherit the status of her mother after her demise. She is bound to take custody of the domestic affairs in consultation with her brothers in a family council. The mainstay of the family centres around the hearth of the maternal home. It is around the hearth that infants are nourished; around the hearth the children are listening to the lores of their grand uncle; around the hearth the family council is held; around the hearth the solution to the problems is solved; around the hearth the ailments is healed; around the hearth the rituals and ceremonies are performed; around the hearth the corpse of the departed soul is kept for three days; around the hearth the temporal and the spiritual communicated; around the hearth that love and compassion for mankind is nurtured and provided. In the modern Khasi society there are overwhelming influence of the western patriarchal culture that the role of the maternal uncle is deprived and deliberately ignored, which reduced to the exlusive family of the two parents, which reflected that two heartstones can not make a stable pot to sustain the nourishment and warmth at home.

 THE CLAN KINSHIP

For every human, the male person as a husband ejaculated his sperm into the reproduction organ of his wife and the job is done, whence the subsequent duty is to work and earn provisions for nourishment of the body in the family. The mother has to bear the burden of care and concern for the embryo inside the womb for ten lunar months until it matured and set to give birth to a healthy infant, usually with severe physical and mental suffering. Thereafter, the mother has to breastfeed the infant for months and sometimes few years for proper nourishment until he or she is weaned away and feed with adult foodstuff. Each child is attached to the mother for a minimum of three years for physical and emotional care and nourishment during prenatal and postnatal period. It is in the womb of the mother that the baby grows and matures, and given birth, and further in the bosom of the mother that the infant grows and develops in the various stages of physical and psychological maturity. It is only when the child grows into a young boy or a young girl that they assert for independent movement, even as they rely on both parents for emotional and physical needs until they became adolescents. At this period both the mother and father, besides other elderly relatives are responsible for counselling and shaping the life and character of their young siblings. The stage between adolescence and before they become a young man or woman is very crutial because they would have attained puberty and valid for reproduction. The domestic and social consideration is another aspect that the children needs to be guided in the proper direction of adult life, before they prepare to engage in matrimony. It is justified that the clan lineage should be the legitimate rights of the biological mother taken into consideration the constant attachment with physical and emotional involvement with her children. Even biological sciences substantiated that mitochondrial DNA cells are originated from the lineage of the mother only, while nuclear DNA cells bears the combined identity of both mother and father.

It is to be understood that the biological mother is the only person to acknowledge as the mother of the children that she bore. An infertile man or woman can not assume parentage status in Khasi concept. There is no consideration for foster mother or stepmother in Khasi custom and usages, because the children is essential to retain the lineage from their biological mother. There are fateful instances of orphans, but there is no system of orphanage because the clan kinship structure is held responsible by tradition to take care of the unfortunate persons of the same maternal family or clan. Even adoption should be within the children of sisters in the maternal family or clan kinship. In this respect, beggars are not available in Khasi society, because every clan is mandatory to provide care and custody of the fellow members of their clan that might encountered any adversity.

The clan bondage in Khasi society is firm and facilitated into the emergence of social unit within the particular clan with the formulation of kinship organisation. Almost every clan constituted a kinship group among the maternal clan members. However, most of these kinship organisations are more concern with social welfare activities and obtaining position in traditional institutions, while the essence of folk custom and practices are being neglected. Therefore, most of the kinship organisations conduct like voluntary associations and on certain occasions like a privileged cult of influential people to promote the vested interest. There are instances where the clan members might be expelled if they asserted discent or rebel against the leadership with doubtful credentials. On the other hand, there are instances where the alien persons might be included in the organisation based on frivolous claim of clan affiliation, even if they belong to other community, provided they lobby with lucrative proposition for the group or leadership. In this case, the underprivileged are more vulnerable to exclusion. This is a dangerous trend for the sustainability of the traditional practices and may tantamount to taboo and forbidden marital relationship according to customs.

The original clan kinship structure is in the form of traditional institution with the proper council headed by clan elders and constituted by the representative maternal uncles from every clan in a particular province. Usually the provincial council is constituted by the original inhabitants belonging to certain privileged clans, while the other clans may hold the position of territorial head at their respective region. The maternal uncles from each household are unanimous domestic heads at the clan council. Some segments of certain clans elected one elder as territorial representative at the provincial council and these elders were nominated as nobles headed by the chieftain. The conventional practice at every household is usually represented by the eldest uncle as the domestic elder, otherwise any matured member of the family may be selected from the family and on rare occasion the mother may assume as domestic elder in the absence of eligible male members. If the situation demands, female heads might be elevated into a  noble at the provincial council, but such circumstances rarely occurred. Thus the democratic principle is inclusive of any male or female matured elder to represent the household, the clan or the territory, even as the convention is always considered upon the eldest maternal uncle, because the mother is to take the duty of a custodian of family properties.

The maternal family council comprised of the mother as the chief custodian and her eldest brother, the grand uncle as the supreme authority for every domestic affair, in consultation with all the matured members within the family. In every family, the daughters after marriage are required to set up a separate home and became the chief custodian of their respective household, except for one daughter, preferably or by conventional practice, the last daughter is supposed to continue the legacy of her mother. While the sons are the maternal uncles for every new family and excercise the role of management of the domestic affairs of each household. The mother as the chief custodian would earmarked certain properties for each daughter with the endorsement of the grand uncle or her eldest brother as resolved in the family council. This is the democratic process for management of domestic affairs, and the grand uncle would represent the family at the clan council along with other maternal uncles within the clan. Thereafter, the maternal uncles from the clan council would constitute territorial councils from among the representative of the clan council and conduct the affairs of their respective regions within the territory. Then the representative maternal uncles from various territories belonging to different clans would be nominated at the provincial council as elders and nobles that would be assigned with administrative and religious affairs. The provincial council is headed by the chieftain and the royal ceremony is at the behest of the queen mother as the custodian of the royal domestic council. The queen mother would consult her son, the reigning chieftain for all the affairs of the religious ceremony, which is performed for the general welfare of the entire province and its citizens. The  visitors or strangers that inhabited the province, which migrated from other neighbouring provinces are included as subjects and might be allowed to participate in the ceremony with the endorsement of the provincial council. Even the communities of different ethnic identity from the adjacent areas who desire to merge for political protection might be considered as subjects and granted permission to participate in the ceremony with the approval of the provincial council. This is an inclusive method of political administration with effective implementation of customary law to safeguard the legitimate citizen from incursion by the subjects. Further, the siblings bore out of the intercommunity marriage with the subjects are considered as legitimate citizen through an established traditional customs and rituals.

 THE SOCIAL MODULE

The traditional religious rituals and ceremonies occured out of the social situation and domestic circumstances that demand for congenial and harmonious existence of every human in society. The misfortune that might have taken place at any household or in the society, which may adversely affected an individual or the community would have to be cured or healed through divine intervention. The myth of Diengïei revealed that the human resort to the quest for response of the divine being for repentance because of the fault being committed. The individual expression and the collective participation in the common cause is the result of community involvement in the action irrespective of whether the deed is proper or improper. This is the beginning of social concern and community feeling within the group of people. The Khasi social norm is egalitarian in nature, where human is considered equal among fellow human without any sort of discrimination, deprivation or classification in the society. There are strata of functions of every individual in the society both within the family circle, in the territorial domain and the province at large. Within the family circle there are different responsibilities being held by different individuals but the domestic position remain equal. The only heirarchy is that each individual perform his or her duty as demanded by the social norm and personal ethic.

The mother is the custodian of family properties and the eldest uncle is the supreme authority in the decision making process with the consensus of the family council where every adult member in the family are participating. The eldest uncle would represent the family at the clan council and conduct as the spokesperson in the clan council even as all the adult male and female members of the family are entitled to attend the general council, but would not be allowed to participate in the discussion. The most matured and articulated representative uncle of the clan would be elected to represent the clan council at the territorial council, even as the executive members of the various clan council are entitled to attend the territorial council, but would not be allowed to participate in the discussion. The most matured and articulated member representative of the every territory would be elected to represent the respective territorial council at the provincial council, even as the other member representative of the territorial are entitled to attend the provincial council, but would not be allowed to participate in the discussion. The head uncles of every territorial council who are bestowed with the responsibility to be represented at the provincial council will be assigned with specific function and position of nobles. The executive council of the nobles is headed by the chieftain or Syiem Hima as the neutral chief adjudicator and administrator of the entire province.

The heirarchy is not about the privilege and status but the duty and responsibility to serve the people at the respective segment of administration. The nobles in the executive provincial council will comprise of the Chief Minister or Lyngskor as the next in command to the Chieftain, the ministers or Bakhraw and Basan in various political administrative functions, and the priests in various religious functions. Apart from the nobles, there are other functionaries for certain segments of political, cultural, economics, social and religious affairs like the Duhalia for devotional music, Matabor in the territorial and commercial matters, Sangot for communication and  public announcement, Sohblei for rituals and ceremonies, and few others. There are also different terminology for some designations depending on the region like the Doloi in the Pnar region or the present Jaintia Hills District, the Maji in the Bhoi region and others.

All these functionaries at different levels are to be adhered to the matrilineal system of election or nomination, where the mother or the eldest sister in lieu of the mother that always serves as the priestess in the hearth for invigorating their social responsibility. From the ordinary family to the royal sacred home, the hearth is always the centre for performances of rituals and ceremonies by the mother as the priestess or the queen mother as the high priestess respectively, while the uncles to the nobles, the priest to the chieftain are to execute their specific performances outside the house, whether in the courtyard, in the market, in the field, in the river or the forest. The female are usually forbidden to carry out any acivities outside the domestic front, especially those who are in the state of fecundity, which could be vulnerable to infection of contagious elements. In the festival arena also the damsels always dance in the inner circle protected by the male dancers.

One of the most significant aspect in the delegation of duties is the care and protection of the female members of the society to prevent from any harmful effect of the surrounding environment. Chastity is designed by nature for the children and they are regarded as pure before they attain the age of puberty. When the organ for reproduction system is about to form, the nature would generate the purification course only for the adolescence ladies but not the adolescence gentlemen. The purification course occured regularly every month until the young woman engaged in sexual relationship with a man that it indicated the fertility through conception, and then the course came to a halt. At this period the pregnant body of a woman is fragile and more vulnerable to harmful effect of the surrounding environment. The pregnant woman must be concerned about her health and the wellbeing of the embryo inside her womb, which is in the process of developing the organ into the human form for another ten lunar months according to Khasi calculation. The moon rises and sets alternately for every twentyeight days; it waxes for fourteen days and wanes for another fourteen day to complete the cycle. In the modern Grecorian calendar it is nine months one week, which is approximately a multiple of nine month of alternate thirty days and thirty one days including the additional seven days, which is around two hundred eighty days. It is written for every woman to engage in the reproduction process with caution and in the Khasi perception, the more the children the more the blessing; therefore, the woman must be engaged only in the domestic chores because of the concern for her fragile biological condition, but not a discrimination to explore the outside world as perceived today.

 HUMAN EXPLORE, NATURE DEPLORE

In Khasi belief system the husband also must be equally careful during the pregnancy period of his wife. He must be abdicated from any activities that may cause harm to others because it might occured in the infant that is being conceived by his wife. It is said that the father of the child being conceived should not engage in cutting any live organism or to burn or shoot anything with sharp implements, because natural effect would reciprocate on the life that is being conceived by his wife. The worst sacrilege would be adultery, because it may caused his wife unable to give birth until he confessed of the infidelity, otherwise it may cause deformity on the child and even death to one of them or both due to the filth of the husband. This is usually perceived by the modern science as superstition, but it is the sheer lack of knowledge about folk science on the forces of nature that is link to every life on earth. The system has nothing to do with moral conditioning, but the forces of nature would motivate every individual to abide by its direction, lest they encounter drastic consequences.

These forces of nature have allocated certain spaces for all creatures to exist and prevail; therefore, if any of the creatures behaved against the law of nature, they may survive but they will be transformed into another being that is not compatible with the original creation. Therefore, if women desired to be like men, they will become men in a way that they chose to defy and deprive of their own nature of existence. The ancient knowledge is about understanding the nature of existence and adapt with the congenial conduct of nature; unfortunately, the modern intellect is about complaint, dissent, assertion, confrontation and frustration about the nature of existence, about life. All beings are created with the plan of nature that the human are not suppose to oblige any change, and every character and behaviour of beings could be change for a better world to live in harmony.

Since the fallen of the Diengïei, the forces of nature are liable to conduct in such a way to modify everything that human had already blundered. The fallen of Diengïei was celebrated on the misconception of salvation for the human race, when actually was a disaster that the human being has detached its communication with nature and started to sort out the problem through sacrifice and libation. According to tradition, the egg and the rooster are the two divine mechanism through which the signs and symptom could be revealed in case of any misfortune. The interference and intrusion of human on the function of nature had caused miserable consequences on every creatures, and drastically affected fellow human the most. There have been many incidences of physical and mental deformity in human that could not be remedied or restored. The intelligence of human is more vulnerable to the tragedy than the animals and other creatures that abided by the normal course of nature. The various biological and cerebral disorder occured because human explored the earth and nature beyond their necessity and assumed that they are more competent to handle the situation than the ideal function of nature.

Furthermore, the human race still thinks that they are in possession of the earth and all its contents. Laws, conventions, rules and regulations are being made to suit the interest of human and neglect and ignore all other creatures that existed and prevailed in the harmony of nature. The much talked about topic in the present context is human rights, environmental rights, women rights and later animal rights, which could be wrong. Human rights is being implemented or imposed to the extent that nature and other creatures are being taken for granted as the legitimate properties of human; environmental rights is being implemented or imposed by the supposedly law makers who hardly encounter with the real environment; women rights is being implemented and imposed to glorify the bigmouthed and deprive the recluse; animal rights is being implemented and imposed to the extent that the wild are domesticated and the domesticated are preserved in such a manner that they are being fostered more than the human being who faces the scorching sun. Such are the indulgences of human towards anything and everything on the planet.

In the modern civilisation, the most deplorable lenience is the advocacy for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) species of human being, which is based on the alleged abnormal sexual arrogance. These people are the unfortunate offshoot of human extravagance towards the generosity of nature. There could be the consequences of incestuous or prohibited carnal abuses. They are of the same category with the metally and physically challenged people and people with certain physical and psychological retardation and deformities. Like every fellow human being, they need to be inclusive in the society but to restrain any indecent gestures and indulgences in public, which are against the society. They have every right of privacy provided it does not influence or affect the simple and innocent young people. In the Khasi concept of human relationship, such type of people are engaged in socially productive activities to contain and divert from undesirable and unusual natural urge of their biological organism. There are many LGBT people in Khasi society and they are as normal as any human being and accepted in the community with their ability to contribute and exist in the society without the concern of somebody who perceived that they are being deprived and discriminated. They do not need the care and concern of some legal, moral and social extremists and temporal greedy mammons and they are capable of independent survival in society without causing harm to others. Actually, they are very productive and excelled in their respective occupation of their choice. The only deficiency is that they might not be able to engage in the reproduction process. Therefore, they are free to participate in the rare and limited opportunity of responding to their natural life without force or causing harm to others. If two individuals are mutually compatible and comfortable of their natural behaviour, the society should keeps away from any prejudice remarks.  All the physically and psychologically retarded and deformed persons are very sensitive and needs to be dealt with care and concern but not to the extent of obvious identification of their alleged deficiencies, when actually they could be more efficient in their respective traits and capabilities more than the supposedly normal person. The inclusion should be a blend of care and freedom of individual expression.

The world would have been a better place if any individual and every creature is allowed to mind their own business and let the forces of nature tackle the accidental encounter of fellow beings on the planet. The human species should be contended that everything that the nature facilitated the actions of the animated and inanimated objects are part of the ecology, that human should not think he knows best. Enough is enough- that human had devastated the world in his endeavour to improve the life and condition of the world. The Khasi matrilineal system is an inclusive family composition that allows every individual grows and excels by their own personal genius.

 CLAN CONSECRATION

The Khasi custom would not accept any other ethnic community to be forcefully converted to the Khasi community through marriage or any social circumstances. This is in accordance with the law of natural justice where the ethnic origin is maintain and retain with the source of the racial stock. In case of intercommunity marriage, the children born out of a Khasi mother and father of different community are directly accepted as the legitimate offsprings of Khasi community because of the matrilineal system of clan lineage. However, the children born out of a Khasi father and a mother of another community are required to undergo through the consecration ceremony of a new Khasi clan ('tangjait 'tangkhong), while the mother retain her ethnic identity and the original ancesstress, while the daughters became the first ancestral mothers (ïawbei khynraw) and her sons the first ancestral maternal uncles (suitnia khynraw) of the new Khasi clan (ka jait ka khong). The mother of such children is accorded respect of her ethnic origin and given due honour for her role as the ancestress, and on her demise a special cromlech will be erected to deposit the mortal remains of her bones with proper rituals.

If the past has so much knowledge and wisdom about life, the present is congested with excessive information about material possession. Therefore, the society should ponder in the past and create a journey for the present to envision for the future generation. Likewise, the kinship organisation should invest in intellectual discourse about the essence of the folk knowledge on social and cultural structure of the ethnic clan and the communal kinship relation. The kinship organisations (Seng Kur) must conduct like a responsible traditional institution instead of facilitating social welfare issues. The priority should be emphasised on the foundation of the clan and its function according to genuine custom and tradition, while supplementary activities may be considered on social welfare matters.

The rites de passage is the fundamental ceremony performed by people of every culture all over the world. The Khasis of Meghalaya has a distinct tradition on this aspect and the naming ceremony is one such ancient custom that still prevailed in this contemporary world, and it is still being practiced and relevant today, despite the widespread domination of modernity and Christianity. It is more interesting that the practice is significant and observed with religious fervour even in the cosmopolitan city like Shillong. This kind of ceremony is compulsory among the people abiding the indigenous faith.

The elaborate ceremony comprises of certain significant features that are related with the upbringing of the infant in every household. Moreover, there are different processes for male and female child. The implements used in the ceremony are indicative of cultural belief system. For the male child the bow and arrows are being used to confer a befitting name and for the female child traditional bamboo basket (Khoh) and the carrying strap (Star) are being used. Regarding the selection of appropriate names, usually the maternal or paternal relatives proposed few names to be solemnised during the ceremony. To confirm that a particular name is suitable for the child and is considered divine approval through the final morsel of rice grain gripping the tip of the egg shell for divination and the lingering of the droplet of rice beer at the tip of the gourd. Another significant aspect to endorse the ordained name on the child is by marking of lime on the child and all the maternal and paternal relatives. It is a usual custom to host a feast with the initiation of the grinded rice grain (pujer) to every relatives and well-wishers.

The traditional custom in Khasi society accorded immense reverence to the paternal mother (kmiekha) as the provider of a father, the progenitor (thawlang) that contributes to the prosperity of the children in the clan of his wife. In this regard, the children of a Khasi woman married to a man of another racial origin with different culture is deprived of the deluge of counselling and affection of a paternal mother, which is considered the ultimate affluence. On the otherhand, the children of a Khasi man married to a woman of any community is believed to be have enormous prosperity, because of the great fortune of proper guidance and warmth from the paternal mother.

In the Khasi customary practices, the family with many children are attributed of possessing favourable fortune, even without enough material riches. However, a person without children, even if they have enormous amount of wealth and properties is considered poor. The society and relatives are always worried about the family which does not have any children, and least bothered about material wealth, if they just have sufficient food and shelter. It is perceived that tangible resources will be exhausted with usages, wear and tear, while the intangible resources of sustainable life will persists for generations, as long as nature and the surrounding environment generated sufficient reserve for every being to maintain their body and soul. This folk concept is translated in to a congenial communal bondage in the society.

This custom became a legacy in the community that is being cherished and prevailed through the ages. In the modern social structure, the custom has evolved into a process of charitable contribution by every member in the community to render assistance to any people that encountered adverse tragedy and misfortune. The voluntary subscription in the villages at the rural areas and localities in the urban areas are being supervised and monitored by the voluntary collectors and voluntary council of elders in the villages or localities. This solidarity among the community is also extended to any migrant residents provided that the respective affected family participated and abide by the social convention of the locality. This collective responsibility is being enforced with a great sense of duty by the respective resident in their individual capacity, while the monitoring mechanism is in place under the authority of the headman and the executive council. This practice is neither the custom nor the religious proceedure, but it is based on the founding principle of ethnic culture and became the original local tradition. The tradition of trust with the mechanism of expert management and the credential of the entire oral system has sustained the test of time. In addition, some of the large clans have also introduce such system among the clan to cntribute to the welfare of the deprived members of the clan in certain incidental consequences. This is the dynamics of traditional customs and practices.

This dynamic practice is the outcome of the ethnic concept of inclusion and resulted in the growth of liberal and tolerant society. In the past the Khasi practice is relevant as long as the tenets of folk customs is abided in true spirit. In the past, there are many clans in the Khasi community, which emerged from the marriage with other community, particularly for Khasi men with women of other communities. All the Khasi clan with the prefix 'Khar' are the result of such situation, where the new clan must be consecrated to ensure and affirm that the generation are considered of Khasi descend. As for the women who married the men of other communities, the custom is simple because Khasi matriliny interpreted that all the offsprings born out of a Khasi mother is considered Khasi, irrespective of the ethnic origin of the father. Unfortunately, this concept was devastated by the intrusion of British colonial supremacy and the onslaught of Christianity, which imposed bigoted and prejudice model during the last two hundred years. The paradox is that the consecrated clans of the yore have passionate allegiance and understanding of Khasi milieu ostensibly better than the original clans. This situation is being substantiated even in the modern context, where several people of such family background have been instrumental in the growth and development of Khasi cultural heritage.

Presently, there is a strange social development where the other deprived section of communities manipulated the system with forced conversion to avail the political and social benefits granted by the government machineries within the purview of the national law. To a great extent, the protection mechanism under the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution of India and the traditional institution have been able to apprehended such discrepancies with proper analysis and scrutiny. Moreover, there is an awarenest that alerted the original inhabitants to check and investigate these type of manipulation, especially when it was defended discretely by the certain section of the original Khasi community for selfish benefit.

Therefore, the individual concern should not override the collective interest of the community because the natural course of social change is gradually motivated towards the assimilation of the indigenous community with the dominant migratory communities due to social, political and economic factor. The theory of certain social scientists revealed that the Aryan culture will reached the foothills of the Himalayas within a short span of time. However, the ethnic isolation and social resistance towards the alien communities in the neighbouring States of North Eastern India will enable to safeguard the assimilation process, lest the contemporary social structure of the Khasi people is vulnerable to the rapid changes. There is an established testimony at Tripura in this respect, where Bangla culture had almost overwhelmed the entire ethnic communities like the Deb Barma, the Reang, the Hrangkhawl and others. If the ethnic communities of the North East India including the Khasi people are to sustained and survived, there should have been a long term measure to address the issue with strict vigilant and broadbased strategy.

 THE DOMINANT PATRIARCHAL SYSTEM

The concern and sympathy of certain section of the society towards the public has facilitated the introduction of alternative social changes and one such attempt is the effort to convert from matrilineal system to the patriachial system of family lineage. This movement has prevailed in the grassroots and created tremendous impact in the elite section of the society, especially the Anglo Khasi families. Few of the hard core champions of this cause have set up a social organisation Syngkhong Rympei Thymmai, with the apparent purpose of revolution. The organisation was founded on 14 April, 1990 under the leadership of Darning Stone Lyngdoh and Snenglem A Kurbah, even as the former had ideated since the past few decades. The undercurrent of social upheaval is evident as matrilineal system is ingrained in the mindset of majority of the Khasi people. Moreover, the Syngkhong Rympei Thymmai is confined to the economic issues of inheritance of family properties, without any concrete argument on social, cultural and political consequences. Therefore, the movement does not have convincing substitute to the prevailing traditional system, and submerged into the parochial self defeating endeavour. Furthermore, the movement has instilled diverse and vested opinions to the extent that there is a split among the leadership, and another faction (Skhem Rympei Thymmai) emerged perhaps due to personal ego, rather than ideology. The founding principle of these organisations is allegedly based on the conventional genetic inheritance through the seed of the male species and deride the role of the mother to that of a mere tool of reproduction for the male human. This is the definite socio-cultural trend that prevailed throughout most cultures in the world, especially the Islamic world.

This is the lucid indication of male chauvinism. In almost all the cultures of the world, men asserted authority at every sphere of social, political and economic enterprises. They even tried to dominate the cultural and educational  areas, but certain elements of occupation and excellence are fairly achieved, retained and justified in favour of women. It all started at home with the father as the head of the family, in any small gathering men always emerge as the person in charge and it created a trend that men asserted leadership in every other activities. Across the globe men dominated in politics, administration of civil society, educational, sports and healthcare  institutions. In religion, human created a system for men to be constantly on top with instances of conviction to divine sanction. The priests, the monks, the pundits, the maulvis, the chaplains, and even God is ascribed as a male entity. In the heirarchy of management and supervision of any of the unit of collective establishment, whether private or public organisations, the customary proceedure is alway that male members should be assigned of such privileged position. Perhaps, one of the most pronounced is the Roman Catholic Church, where there is a Pope at the apex authority, then comes the cardinals, then the bishops, then the priests within the congregations, even small matters is entrusted to the deacons; and in public service, the cathechists and even altar boys at the mass. In the designated segments of various administrative units, there are papal nuncios, provincials, archbishops, vicar generals, and parish priests. In political governance also, men dominated the status of presidents, prime ministers and union cabinet ministers, senates or members of parliaments, governors, chief ministers and state cabinet ministers, even as women are not barred to occupy any such positions. The voluntary and social organisations are all dominated by men and even women welfare organisations used to employ men in certain vital engagements. This situation has driven to an extent that there ia an adage 'It's a man's world', and there is no denial to the fact that generally men are always entrusted with many works outside the domestic sphere.

In the Khasi matrilineal system also, there is an established system of assigning certain task to male and female members separately. It is commonly stated that the domain of women is in the domestic front, while outside the boundary of the household affairs is usually entrusted to men. This segregation between the internal domestic matters and the external public matters have valid and concrete reasons to authenticate. All female being are fragile and susceptible to any harm that might caused by the natural forces and therefore could be detrimental to the reproduction organs of every individual; especially during the stage of conception. The domain of women is around the hearth and within the household, while other matters outside the house is the domain of men; and this is the reason for the superlative perception on men in general. Therefore in Khasi democratic set up, the chieftain and nobles and priests are always men, while the mother and sisters of every social or religious elders are the custodian of family matters and on certain clans they could be the priestess performing rituals and ceremonies. The mother or any matured sister of the reigning chieftain is always taking the role of a priestess and custodian of domestic properties. In the maternal family of the priest clan, the mother or any matured sister in the family shall be assigned with the task of priestess and custodian of domestic properties and held the religious reponsibility around the hearth and within the periphery of the household, while the brothers are resonsible for any other performances outside the house, which could be in the sacred grove, the river, the stone, the tree which are believed to possess spiritual force or embodied particular deities for appeasement through prayers and rituals. The Khasi philosophy perceived the divine nature as neither gender nor digit and is infinite, that is more or less the personification of God, whereas God in most cultures and religions is a male gender and only one in number. On the other hand, the Khasi indigenous faith address god as either 'U Blei' or a he-god, 'Ka Blei' or a she-god and 'Ki Blei' or several gods and goddesses. There is a balanced perception on every person in Khasi society and there is a limitless perception on the divine entity in Khasi faith. In normal circumstances, the individual person is never identified as the particular gender, except in certain specific situation where it is harmful to the fecundity of the female being, particularly pregnant women; or where it is considered socially indecent for the male being. In such cases, regular counselling is being held in the form of narration of folk tales around the hearth and certain moral code of conducts are being impressed upon in the form of taboo. However, with the onslaught of modernity and rapid advancement of technology, these practices are almost extinct, particularly in the urban conglomerate.

 THE SOCIO- ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL MOVEMENT

The British administrative officials have misinterpreted Khasi customary practices, which have demoralised the integrity of Khasi male members in such a manner that the authority in the core family council was usurped by the female members, and vociferously the last daughter in the family. Contrary to the ancient custom, the wrong law is still prevailed today and compelled the community to resort to resistance. The one-man mission of Maitshaphrang Movement is the decades long operation spearheaded by Mr Micheal N Syiem. The British colonial invasion has devastated the interpretation of customary laws to the extent that the matrilineal is almost transformed into the matriachial system. The consistent demand for equitable distribution of ancestral properties and the compulsory registration of marriage as a legal mechanism to safeguard and stabilise the Khasi society is being pursued to enact as a law and only in 2018 that the State government have responded to the communication from the movement. Perhaps, Michael Syiem and his close associates in the movement have realised about the rampant indulgence of Khasi women in casual marriage with opportunists from other communities, the widespread incidence of single mother and the outrageous disparity in the inheritance of ancestral properties that they have vehemently struggled for their cause. However, the aim is primarily on material benefit rather than maintenance of ethnic identity and cultural legacy.

Another legitimate confrontation is the bill for amendment of the Khasi Custom of Lineage Act of the Khasi Hills Autonomous Dstrict Council initiated by the Chief Executive Member, Mr Hispreachering Son Shylla. The amendment sought to deprived the Khasi women of all customary and legal privileges if they marry the men from communities other than Khasi. Perhaps, the intention is in favour of protection of the ethnic community, but the interpretation is in conflict with the law of natural justice and against the cohort of certain vested interest women in the society. Few extrovert and liberal women leaders are up in arms against Mr Hispreachering Son Shylla, Chief Executive Member, Khasi Hills Autonomous Dstrict Council asserting for women's rights. If the KHADC is ignoring certain credible institutions like the village and locality councils (dorbar shnong), few civil society groups, social scientists and academicians, kinship organisations (Seng Kur) and some cultural exponent of Khasi traditions; the pressure groups like Thma U Rangli and Civil Society Women's Organisation are distorting the genuine issue and converted in to women's rights concern. Possibly, the middle path is for Mr Hispreachering Son Shylla to consider a thorough debate and discussion with the credible institutions and civil society groups; and for the pressure groups to restrain their prejudiced opinion on the contaminated customary practices based on colonial version. Nevertheless, the bill was recalled by the KHADC and in all probability majority of the people are anxious that good sense should prevail before enacting a law, even as the situation is already not as good as it should be.

The bare reality in the society is a well known fact to one and all that statistic is not required to assess the magnitude of most Khasi middle class women and poorer strata of the society that are engaging in casual marriage with opportunists from other communities for selfish economic gain and social security. Furthermore, if the motive is not in favour of the men from other communities to take control of the situation, separation is inevitable and majority of the Khasi women became single parent and resorted to rebellious stance. This is another fact that is blantantly visible in society and the primary reason is that the family structure is weak because the male members in any family are depprived of the authority to protect their respective families. The Khasi women always take the upper hand on any vital decision making process, because most of the men neither have the sufficient authority over his wife and children nor earn decent respect at his maternal family. The so called double edge sword of Khasi men in the capacity of simultaneously a father and a maternal uncle is already blunt, as most of the Khasi women played a dual role of challenging both their husbands and their brothers on certain strategies to suit their interest. On the one hand the Khasi woman will not tolerate her husband to interfere in the affairs of the clan according to custom, and on the other hand she will not accept her brother to intervene in the family supposedly headed by the father according to Christian tradition. Most of the Khasi women will utilise both traditions to go well with their agenda. Nevertheless, there are families where the maternal uncle is having the ability of a responsible maternal uncle over his nephews and nieces, as well as the rights of a father over his children. It is human nature to want more than they actually need. Some Khasi men would indulge in immoral deeds of keeping all their earnings, while they alternately blamed on both the mother and wife of sharing their expenditure on the pretext of wives' family or maternal family respectively. Likewise, some Khasi women would accumulated enormous family wealth and seized all ancestral properties overriding their parents and other siblings.

In this manner, extensive resources that have been reserved for generations in the community are being swindled by many legitimate last daughters of different families, either on personal accord or in nexus with their respective husbands, and on certain cases inlaws are also involved with fraudulent means. Furthermore, there are many instances that the Khasi wives are vulnerable to deception by their husbands from other communities in terms of material wealth and personal relationship. The fact that the other communities are exposed to complex socio-economic situations prevalent elsewhere in the commercially advanced regions are liable to tactfully persuade the simple Khasi women in any transaction, including marital bondage. When the family atmosphere is stable the husbands from other communities gained foothold, they would tend to take the upper hand and control over the entire domestic affairs. More often, these people hailing from the dominant community would also try to assert and impose their culture on the children and on many occasions they could estrange their Khasi wives, of whom they might be compelled to tolerate their husbands to remarry among their own community as desired by the inlaws. This is the kind of attitude and hegemony of the majority of the mainland people towards the tribal people of the region. It is part of the natural process of social development that the dominant cultures from the surrounding will tend to overwhelm in the cultures of the neighbouring periphery.

 THE CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE ON MATRILINY

The emergence of Christianity had initially faced stringent resistance from the indigenous people of the region because of the alien nature of western culture and tradition. However, the missionary zeal of the Welsh Calvinistic Presbyterian church have captivated the souls of some Khasi people initially with the social welfare works, then the life story of Jesus Christ have created tremendous impact upon the simple people. Thereafter, education is another prospective human resource that have empowered many souls and ensure social security. Nevertheless, the ultimate goal of the Christian mission is to profess and propagate Christian values to the people and to convert them in to the Christian faith. The foundation of Christianity was laid in Isreal, the church originated in the places related with the life of Jesus Christ through the passion and sacrifice of his disciples. The surrounding Middle East countries and Egypt are the significant region for the emergence and growth of two largest organised religions, Christianity and Islam. Both the religions traced their roots to the mythology of Isreal cultural legacy and both the holy books, the Koran and the Bible contained the chronology of the myth and history of Isreal. However, Christianity flourished in Europe among the civilised society of different countries along with the progress of modernity. The benchmark of Christian tradition was established in Rome and thereafter, dissent and rebellion persisted through the ages, and were instrumental into the fragmentation of various denominations. Therefore, the Christian thoughts have diluted in several factions of the ethnic communities of Europe, and the Welsh missionaries is among one of the factions that has fragmented from a larger denomination. Nevertheless, they are still larger and more advanced in many respects even if they are subjugated under the British imperialist, in comparison with the miniscule Khasi community at one of the remotest parts of the world. The animism concept of the Khasi people gradually declined while the Christian faith progressed because of many social, cultural and economic factors.

The tremendous progress and prospect of Christian religion through the propaganda of evangelism at the backdrop of modernity has created an attractive trend in the society known as civilisation, and thereby ruined the Khasi animism tradition with prejudice and contempt. It is a natural process that human endeavours for political ambition of social harmony, but the social and political leadership is also capable of excessive desire for power, fame and wealth and it was these traits that motivated invasion and domination and thereby imposition of individual and communal ideas upon the subjugated alien community, which are not compatible with their culture. Certain secular elements are adaptable for universal application, while many subjective ingredients are compelled to be consumed with mockery. Perhaps, Christianity is one such tactful imposition of strange idea, which has thoroughly imbibed upon the community, and difficult to eradicate. Today, Christianity is almost synonymous to Khasi ethnic identity, even as several denominations prevailed and emerged every now and then like corporate entities, lest it is difficult to survive without funding. Even established churches have the tendency to indulge in business enterprise or laid emphasis on business rather than religious affairs. There are cases where commercial complexes were constructed by churches even at the cost of ignoring and dismantling the heritage church structure. The Seng Khasi movement to conserve the ethnic cultural and religious tradition since 1897 is either stagnated or declined with the onslaught of modern trends in every respect.

During the early period of Christian missionary activities, the Khasi cultural and religious tradition was ridiculed and regarded as impure or satanic. All local folk festivals, ceremonies ad socio-religious occasions were forbidden and there were instances of intimidation by the British administration. Many of the local people who had embraced Christianity have done away with various intellectual and material properties. One of the most significant but discreet fraudulent act of the unscrupulous British colonial criminals is the manipulation to dispose away all folk dance attires, particularly the gold and silver ornaments. People accepted that it is taboo or a Christian sin to possess ancient precious properties, they just to let go with a meagre compensation and labelled as heretic. They even persuaded through the local superstition that the 'Thlen' demon always possessed in precious articles, and should be thrown away. In these mischievous immoral scheme, the Khasi people who had converted into Christianity were obliged to the British officials as the saviour from evil; when instead they were colonial crooks that might have accumulated enormous amount of wealth from the scam. So the convertion tactics were undertaken with love and compassion by the Welsh missionaries and with coercion and cruel oppression by the British colonial authorities.

Prior to the invasion of British imperialism and after the conquest, the Khasi people live in the clusters of the clan with territorial demarcation for each clan. The women were always within the territory, while the men explored outside the boundaries for occupation and other ventures. In the matrilineal system, the men would discover their own wives at different clusters that are not akin to their clan and return back to their own maternal families. Their role as husband or father is to provide mental and material support to the wife and children, and even the paternal mother might contribute certain resources as a matter of care and concern for the family bondage. The maternal family would always treasured the provisions derived from the paternal family, as blessings from the paternal mother with great honour. The men must remained in the maternal home and held responsible for the social wellbeing of their mother, sisters and brothers, nephews and nieces. With the arrival of the British colonial administrators and the Christian missionaries, the residential structures have change and the ancient family arrangement also were converted into the modern patriarchal system, particularly the Khasi Christian. The rapid colonial urbanisation have changed the cultural landscape of the Khasi community. Most of the men have indulged in cohabitation with their wives at the inlaws residences and facilitated the emergence of another dynamic custom of Khasi culture, which prevailed till today.

In the traditional matrimonial ceremony, the eldest maternal uncle is usually the main celebrant and counsellor. The bride or the groom should be under the custody of the chief maternal uncle, and may assumed the status of a matchmaker in the marriage negotiation. However, in the present context, the father have taken over the role of the maternal uncle to escort the bride or the groom to the church, and handover their daughter or son to the priest for the ceremony; while the people of indigenous faith still abided by the ancient practices till today. The naming ceremony in the traditional system is a household affair. The young infant after few days or months of birth, the boy child will be allocate with a miniature bow and three arrows to signify the defender of self, of the family and of the nation; while for the girl child, a miniature cone basket and carrying strap is allocated to signify the domestic work of  providing meals in the family. During the ceremony, the mother would keep the child on her lap and the maternal family are seated on her right hand side and the paternal family on the left hand side, while the maternal uncle will sit in the middle to perform the ceremony. At dawn on the day of the ceremony rice grain is pounded like powder and soaked in a steam, which will be used for the ceremony and later to distribute to all the family and relatives presence in the occasion. When the name of a child is consecrated, the maternal uncle as the celebrant would mark the rice paste on the left foot of the immediate maternal family and on the right foot of the immediate paternal family as a witness of the ceremony. This elaborate naming ceremony is replaced by baptism at the altar of the church, where the mother would carry the child to the altar.

The  chanting of 'phawar', a folk satire poetry on every occasion of merriment is diminishing, while people are fascinated with western songs in secular occasions and with the hymns in religious functions. Nevertheless, the folk and traditional music prevailed on certain occasions, even as the usual preference is for western pop songs and later with Hindi pop songs. Generally, the people are easily absorbed with popular culture and more frequently with Christian choral music. For every local entertainment events on occasions of community feast, anniversary celebration, social gathering and any sort of formal or informal function like family picnic or excursion with friends and acquaintances, the mode of entertainment is always western music and dance or Hindi Bollywood music and dance, while the traditional entertainment stuff is hardly performed. The trend is primarily the attraction of modern pop culture with mostly a tinge of Christian based entertainment. The flavour of traditional elements in every day life is overwhelmed with western or Christian taste, and matrilineal custom became a superficial practice inherited from the ancestors without proper understanding about the essence of the custom. In the present context, various Christian churches encouraged enthusiatic charismatic musical and dance performances with loud electronic sound to enhance the appeal upon the youth; while Khasi folk and traditional music is in the pathetic state of affair. However, in the recent times there is a trend to adapt folk and traditional music on every secular and religious occasion, even as the western pop and Christian music remain constant.

 THE SOCIAL CYCLE

Mentioned have been made about the attitude of the British imperialists and Christian missionaries towards the traditional way of life after the conquest. At that period of time the Khasi way of life was regarded as primitive. At the instant view of the British and the Welsh people it was weird, it was peculiar, it was strange, it was odd, it was abnormal and it was never perceived as different or unique until after some decades, when social scientists, anthropologists and even few bureaucrats realised about the rich and vibrant folk knowledge and tradition of the Khasi people, and they found that matrilineal system is the most distinctive custom in the world.

The folk music and musical instruments were considered raw and bare without melody and even casted evil aspersion when it was associated with animism; but at present it was appreciated in public and even included in the academic studies and find an honourable place in museums and archieval records. The stringed instrument 'Duitara' and the pipe instrument 'Tangmuri' is considered as one of the rare musical instruments in the world. The range of musical melody of duitara and the pitch of sound intensity of the tangmuri are of certain distinction among the similar musical instruments elsewhere in the world.

The folk costumes and ornaments were categorised as malevolence or rather manipulated to discard away after conversion into Christianity; however, in the process the British officials and traders swindled away with the precious articles, while ironically respected for the shameful act.

The various folk festivals and ceremonies were vehemently forbidden with the motive to promote and propagate Christianity, and few of the festivals were even banned by the British colonial authorities. The Behdeinkhlam festival of the Pnar people was revived after decades of prohibition, but later became one of the most significant festivals, and along with other traditional festivals and ceremonies are being held regularly, studied in various institutions, made documentary films, wrote books; and some of the lesser known festivals and ceremonies were revived and studied in various institutions across the globe.

The only traditional possession that the British authorities or the Welsh missionaries have not been able to take away is the language and the land; if they could they would have imposed and snatched away these also. Nevertheless, the colonial remnants seems to cling unto the majority of the Khasi people today is the fascination with the English language, which is prevalent in every sphere of casual and formal social discourses. To a certain extent the British colonial authorities and Welsh Christian mission at the behest of the former have occupied extensive land for their own administrative convenience, luxurious pastime and for the betterment of the society; and large stretches of land have been handed over to the Indian government after Independence, particularly the Defence land. The British colonial authorities and Welsh Christian missionaries were compelled to learn and prepare literatures and documents in the local Khasi language to further stabilise their administrative governance and expand their missionary works respectively. However, the language had undergone through certain crutial hardships and it is still in difficult situation till today in 2018. Initially, the Christian mission had adopted Bengalee script and War Shella dialect for Khasi religious literatures; later when British administrative establishment was founded at Sohra, the Sohra dialect was adopted in Bengalee script. Subsequently, one Welsh missionary, Thomas Jones introduced the Latin script or Roman alphabet for writing the Khasi language in Sohra dialect and later became the standard language for the entire Khasi and Jaintia Hills district. After Independence, the Khasi and Jaintia Hills district was under the composite State of Assam and within a decade since Independence the Assam government imposed the Assamese language at every official communication and educational institutions. Thereafter, the Khasi people resisted and struggled for autonomous governance, and ultimately the Meghalaya State was carved out of Assam within another decade. The resentment still prevailed when the Khasi language is being demanded for recognition under the Eight Scheduled to the Constitution of India, based on the credential of the language in the broad criteria of the apex authority in literature, the Sahitia Akademi.

People may wonder about the connection of folk music, costume, fetivals, ceremonies, land and language with matrilineal system. The matrilineal custom is the core to all the aspects of Khasi ordinary way of life to the most complex and formal task in the society. The phawar and folk music is essential in every occasion of maternal and paternal matters in the Khasi matrilineal society, and the most significant is the 'Phawar Nguh Meikha' or 'Shad Nguh Meikha'. This is the ceremony of paying obeisance to the ancestral paternal mothers including the immediate paternal grandmother for all the blessings that the descendants have derived through generations. The ceremony is also part of the festivity to celebrate in honour of the paternal grandmother with mourning music and chanting of phawar, specific folk dance for the occasion and certain rituals. Every dance festival and ceremony is always commenced with prayer by the maternal grandmother of the territory or the royal maternal grandmother or queen mother or eldest sister in the case of a province to propitiate the sylvan deities and the market deities for social and economical well being of the citizens. She initiated the rituals at the hearth, before the priest, the nobles and the chieftain performed other rituals at the courtyard. Even the dance festival is initiated by the eldest daughter or princess at dawn in accompaniment of other elders in the territory or the province, before the formal festivity is participated by other folk dancers. Ther eldest daughter or princess should be decked with the most gorgeous attire and ornaments before she set foot on the dance arena. The land and other properties in the maternal family is alway in the custody of the grandmother or mother and the designate  custodianship is inherited by the last daughter of the maternal family. The land is the soil where vegetation grows, the habitat of all creatures, the source of every resources for sustenance and survival of every being until they decay and became soil once again; primarily it is the earth that most cultures throughout call it the 'mother earth'. When modern civilisation functions and geographical location is demarcated for political composition of a nation- it is universally called the 'motherland' and hardly term as fatherland. The surrounding environment of plants and vegetation is called 'mother nature'. The ethnic language of any community is a universal phenomenon that it is always termed the mother tongue. Anything to do with every primary source is mother- mother earth, mother nature, motherland, mother tongue; and even advance technological devices used the word motherboard. Perhaps, the rest of the world and those who practice patriarchal system should learn and ponder upon the Khasi matrilineal system of clan lineage.

 THE UNIVERSAL DIVINE ENTITY

The human being is an animated creature capable of motion, and each basic human action and movement became a practice; every repeated practice inculcated experience; the consecutive and constant experience turns in to a habit, the frequency of regular habit, whether pleasant or coarse actions might influence others and they could imitate and in the course of time it might becomes a custom that spread to the neighbourhood and around the periphery. The regular custom for certain generations is ascribed as a tradition and meticulous tradition became a faith that the people believed on something that is proven effective to human relationship in the society and in the Khasi concept of indigenous faith it ends there and forbidden to impose upon others. The belief system is confined to an individual and the conventional practice of an individual became a collective custom within the family, while the family members rely on the elders or heads of the family. If any individual is apprehensive of the practice, he or she may discover a different practice that needs to be refined and enable to convince the other members in the family, before it can percolate to the society. This is the quest for the divine that stayed and awaited for the word. The word is believed to be the covenant between human and the divine, which is represented through the forces of nature. In this regard, one distinct comparison may be drawn to clarify on the matter; the Hindu tradition of the subordinate or devotee of certain individual express their respect by touching at the feet of that person of certain esteemed position or status in society, whereas in Khasi tradition it is not considered proper because of the egalitarian tradition. On the other hand, the Khasi tradition of respect and decency in society is that any individual irrespective of status or position should not walk across between any two person or more in a public gathering, whether formal or informal congregation particularly during conversation or interaction. It is customary that the nobles or royal persons would bowed down with verbal utterance of excuse while walking across the section of people gathering, even if they are ordinary citizens or subjects. The purpose is the same but the action is different and it reflected the thought process of the respective community. In Khasi tradition it may be considered derogatory to touch somebody's feet, lest the purpose is for lending a hand to rescue from any mishap or to massage the pain and any such similar purposes. Whereas, other culture of the world would not hesitate or care to walk across people during conversation or interaction, even in a formal assemblage; and such behaviour would be bad manners or indecent in Khasi culture.

The Khasi concept of faith is universal and does not abide by any rigid traditional practice, while the practitioners of certain religious performances would prefer their own tradition, as they may think fit and proper with the surrounding environment. There are no specific names for the divine entity and they are abstract character for specific function. The word 'Blei' denotes omnipotence and omniscience of the ultimate divine being without digit or gender, and the other deities are associated with specific matters like land, home, nature, mountain, river, forest, cave, wealth, purity, trade, administration, journey, welfare, hunting, pastime and a wide range of issues. There are certain nomenclature which could be a derivation or influence from other tradition from the neighbourhood. For example the domestic deity or home deity is known as 'lei ïing' is also commonly called 'Lukhimai', which could be the equivalent of the Hindu goddess Laxmi; the deity of aesthetic and structural design is known as 'Biskorom', which could be equivalent of the Hindu god Viswakarma. The deity 'Lukhimai' or 'Lukhmi' as being called in the Bhoi region, is the deity associated with paddy or rice, the vital staple ingredient for basic nourishment of human being. It is interesting to note that Biskorom is always address in consonance with the twelve masons or 'Khatar kamar' and nine carpenters 'Khyndai kamar' who are the stone and wood artisans for structural construction, while 'Biskorom' is the architect or artist for aesthetic design and engineering; otherwise deities are generally termed as 'Ryngkew Basa' and symbolises with objects like stone, water, tree or any specific natural formation, which is believe to possess the spirit of a particular deity.  The term 'Ryngkew' also means the earth surface and 'Basa' means the makeshift hut, which signify the aura of the divine that persists on the surface of the planet and in the celestial enclosure.

A Khasi diviner or a priest and priestess is praying to the universal divine entity without specific identity in terms of form or gender or digit and the only visible image is the symbols of natural objects. It is trancendental in nature and embraced all the other divine entities of the entire world, and this is evident from the general devotional involvement that is inclusive of the diverse races on the planet. The Khasi diviner or priest or priestess would not refrained to mention God, Bhagwan, Allah, Yahweh, Buddha or terms like 'om', 'amen', 'mashallah' in the prayer. The offering articles are also being used with any material that has a purpose for the divine intervention. Usually, rice grains, egg, cowries are used in prayers, but there is no restriction to use fruit, banana, incense sticks, or anything that serves the purpose of sacred ceremonies. In the Khasi sacrificial rituals cows, pigs and goats are used besides the rooster, which is mandatory; however if any community is forbidden with any of the animal sacrifice, it could be avoided and provide with alternative materials, as long as it serve the purpose of the performance in their favour. Within the Khasi community also, there are certain clan that abstained from certain articles and considered taboo, such articles could be avoided in the performance of rituals in their respective favour. During the 'Rongkhli' festival and ceremony at Nongtalang, a leopard was sacrificed after the traditional hunting expedition and every participant is compulsory to partake with its meat, but I did not consume it because our clan 'War Nongjri' is forbidden to take anything from the body of any feline because of the sacred communion with the tiger. Similarly, there are Khasi clans that are forbidden to use pumpkin, fish, pork, cucumber and other types of materials because of certain sacred communion with the origin of the clan. There is no apprehension, speculation or suspicion on the matter and the festival and ceremony has to carry on with or without such situations, because faith, tradition, custom has to prevail all the time at all places.

 FAITH AND RELIGION

Faith is a matter of personal conviction that people believe about things which they trust about its actual existence and effect on their life, lest they will search and quest for the truth. Therefore, it takes a lot of courage and dedication to experience the true spiritual ambience. It is sacrilege to believe in any faith as a matter of convention or inherited tradition and every individual must accept and believe to be true with authentic evidence that they are convinced. Every human being was borne out of a mother with essential sensory organs and the mind to think that it needs a proper sensibility to understand about life. The infants will not understand about death as much as their elders and adults, who had encountered and experience the mystery about it. When they grow up, they will realised the fact about the supernatural forces that control life on earth. The immensity of the universe is immeasureable as compared to the extent of human intelligence, and an entity in the form of god is created. This is how faith has been handed over by the ancestors, but human prefers to believe in the tradition without proper understanding about the customs and practices being performed. In the community, the consensus of the majority is always accepted and the wisdom of the few is ignored, unless it can be articulated in a universally intelligible manner. It is better to rely on the distant past than to accept the recent fact that could not be true because people might be doubtful about certain things and speculate with their limited intelligence and stated to hand over their subjective opinion through generations in the form of faith, a blind faith. The knowledge of the distant past could be in the form of myths, legends, parable and folk tales, which may not be taken as true but to ponder upon the vision, mystery and the interpretation of the stories about life that is relevant with the present and has a clarity of foresight for the future.

Taking a reference from the myth about the dance festival of all creatures, the entire divine congregation were not aware about the endeavour of the rooster to convince the sun to rise again after he crows for three times, which is the coincidence that prevailed till today. It could be me more surprising for the arrogant elephant and for the conceited hornbill to think of the success of the rooster; but all the creature had accept the simple fact that the sun has risen again, with the truth of humility. The elephant carry the trunk through generations and became gentle, and the hornbill carry the protruded bill through generations and realised his mistake, another coincidence that prevailed till today. There is no modern knowledge system that can deny this fact and the rooster shall crows before the sun rises at dawn till the end of time. This is the inception and foundation of the Khasi faith. However, the religious performances that the subsequent generations indulged is the gesture of appeasement and the onset of the quest for the divine that have been lost after the fallen of the Diengïei representing the demolition of the tree of life, and the detachment of the Jingkiengksiar Sohpetbneng representing the lost of connection between human and the divine being. This is the prophetic mystery about the destruction of the environment and the lack of proper communication with nature. The irony is that human and all other creatures have certain tenure of physical existence on earth and will ultimately perish and turn back to the earth, while they exploited, mutilated and devastated mother earth for the sustenance and survival of their temporal life. It is plain truth that all beings including human are borne, grown up, matured, gradually bacame infirm, senile and ultimately expired, but mother earth remained intact since the beginning of time.

The sophisticated advanced technology emerged out of human intelligence has surpassed the ancient simple knowledge about life and the surrounding environment. The consensus of the mass dominated the genuine faculty of few traditional expert in the relationship with nature and the supervision of certain affairs in the society. The mockery of democracy over the merit of folk wisdom is reigning, prevailing and became more popular to the extent that the majority of mediocres became the participant and champion of the application skill, while the few geniuses are marginalised and demoralised to propound their inherent expertise. The mediocre quacks will endeavour to learn a bit about the plant and its application on the ailment and some of them with versatile oral articulation will get better attention and benefit than a genuine person who is proficient in herbal cure in consonance with the spiritual intervention and the profound knowledge of a particular plant from its origin to the function and effect, and the outcome of medication. It is human nature to desire or want anything faster than its normal course and this is happening every now and then with the attitude of the general public to appreciate the temporary and incomplete consequence rather than a permanent and absolute corollary. Significantly, the quick fix method works in every aspect of human endeavour, because in the race for accumulation of unlimited resources, time is more important than the wellbeing of the body and the mind. The popular trend of attaining excellence through the idea of survival of the fittest, unmindful people is prone to resort to discreet fraud and trickery, instead of genuine expression of actual aptitude and competency. At the same time it is difficult to differentiate between an individual with the quality of knowledge and quantity of information, because  the ability of each person is at par with the other in terms of their capacity to articulate their discourse on the topic of their expertise. In the same manner, religion will provide information about the divine, about god, about the traditional practice and custom within the congregation, and faith will be experienced through the inherent spiritual process in person or within a group of sincere community, which could be a family or a clan. Religion will demand participation in the divine performances and faith requires involvement in the divine intervention. The patriarchal system is like the religion professed by the male occult and the matrilineal system is the faith inherited from the mother of all beings.

THE DYNAMICS OF SOCIAL CHANGE

The cultural shock and the major social changes that had taken place after the British colonial supremacy have laid indelible impression in the society through legislative and judicial constitution of legal documents and law proceedings that was inherited thereafter in the modern democratic set up within the jurisdiction of the union government of India. Prior to the British invasion, there are influences and counter influences of customs and usages with the neighbouring communities around the periphery of the Khasi territory, which were dynamic and congenially acceptable till they became the local customary law. However, the approach and attitude of erstwhile British government officials is to interpret customary law according to their own subjective understanding and intention to be implemented by imposition without any further scrutiny and analysis on the grassroots. There are many social changes at the behest of the British colonial supremacy and the most significant is the composition of family structure and the institution of the maternal uncle at every strata of the domestic and territorial administration. Earlier the family structure of the Khasi people is the maternal family inherited from the first mother living together in a cluster of the clan members and expanded according to the prosperity of the clan through the daughters who became young mothers and constitute their separate family entity. With the advent of British supremacy and the Welsh Christian mission, the family structure change from the maternal to the patriarchal structure of family, because Khasi men must have felt more inclined and preferred to prolonged the stay to remain with his wife. Since the maternal family composition is still valid and the women were to remain in the hearth of the mother, the husband is compelled to live with his wife at her mother's house, and this is the emergence of a new custom that men should pack his belongings from the house of the mother and shifted to the house of his wife. Gradually, the Khasi men became more closer to his children than to his nephews and nieces. However, a married man still went to his mother's house regularly to look after the welfare of his sisters and her children, even as the fathers or husbands of his sisters were the provider of the family of their wives. This is the burden upon the Khasi men to care for both the family of his mother and the family of his wife, while the Khasi women are receiving favours from both their maternal uncles or brothers and from their husbands. In the course of time Khasi men became unstable in their occupation. The personal income that they have earned, they are not sure whether to invest in the house of their mother or their wives, and this situation compelled them to keep on hold major portion of the resources that they have earned until it liquidated without proper savings. This imbalance have demoralised the spirit of the Khasi men and optimised the capacity of the Khasi women particularly the last daughter or sister. In the course of time, the custodian became the sole owner, overriding all the other siblings.

The present trend is usually occured that the last daughters more than often resorted to swindling all the ancestral properties and family possessions, even at the cost of deserting their parents and elder sisters and brothers. Furthermore, the most terrible situation is when the last daughter marry a person of another community, who is unscrupulous and follows patriarchal system, where these young women are capable of absolute conversion to the patriarchal culture of their husband, in terms of personal conduct, dress, cultural behavioural pattern and even religion. Therefore, the cultural strength of the elder sisters and brothers bacame futile, when the soft target is aimed at the last daughter, who is holding the economic bastion and susceptible to factional opinion of the popular patriarchal culture. There are certain instances of the glamourous Khasi women married to the elderly rich Khasi men and would lured him of all the personal wealth they have earned in their life time to be written on the woman's name as per tradition. Later, they would resorted to betrayal of trust and abandoned the old man, consequently eloped with young men of another community even against the protest of their children, and usually it happen with the subordinate business staff of their own husband only. Sometimes, the situation could lead to mysterious murder of the legitimate husband to avoid resistance and ensure a stable life with the young man of another community or fled away to the farther territory. Ironically, these type of women would enjoy life during the heydays with their promiscuous lifestyle and remorseful when the clientele demand has declined due to age factor; but still they would returned back home and stake claimed of ancestral properties, chased away their siblings who have been taken care of the properties all the while and started a new life of repentance from the sins they had committed and became enthusiastically religious. These are the random selection from specific factual incidents that are prevalent in the society. The matrilineal and the Christian traditions could tolerate such disgraceful indulgences, and the authority of the maternal uncle has vanished in to the careless interpretation of Khasi customary laws by the British colonial trespassers. Therefore, it is pertinent to rejuvenate and revitalise the institution of the maternal uncle as the supreme authority in consultation with the family council to keep at bay such deteriorated traditional laws.

Nevertheless, there is an emerging trend that the old parents have realised the lacuna in the matrilineal system as interpreted by the British colonial rulers. As long as the defected law prevailed, few of the new generation of parents have relied the responsibility of their properties with the sons and the trend is proven to be favourable, prospective and sympathetic to the aged parents. This is not a general statement, but a careful study and analysis on certain well to do elite families, which could impacted in the entire Khasi community, particularly in the progressive economic sphere. However, this trend facilitated the improvement in the economic condition of the community, but the cultural identity needs another approach to strengthen the matrilineal system with the dynamics of the prevailing situation.

 THE SOCIO-POLITICAL CHANGES

The predominance of the patriarchal culture throughout the world has a neglegible remnants of matrilineal cultures in certain portions of the world. If there is any indicator, it can be presumably concluded that the natural forces of being through the ages facilitated that human inhabited certain specific space under the custody of the mother, while other male members of the clan are the protector of the domestic sphere under the supervision of the eldest uncle. It is compulsory that every mother is constantly in the care of her own offsprings and members of the clan, while the father may or may not engage himself in the task for the wellbeing of his spouse and children. Generally, all other creatures apart from human responded to the natural sexual urge with any opposite sex within easy reach, which signifes that it could happened among the flock, even if it was with their own offsrings. Among all beings, perhaps human is the only creatures that have the potential of conscience towards their fellow human in the moral conduct and behaviour, even as other creatures are also capable of expressing emotions. It is the human instinct that facilitated every mother to take care and custody of her offsprings and ensure that the domestic area is safe for each one of them, and inculcated a sense of responsibility upon the male members to assume possession of their clan and asserts protection from external forces. It is a natural process that the maternal impulse would prevent any sexual relationship within the clan, and thereafter ascribed as taboo or strictly incest. Therefore the core of the family is the mother as the custodian of the family and along with other female members of the family including her daughters are always in the habit of settling in the domestic sphere, away from the wild  due to certain natural forces of cosmic energy that might be detrimental to the female reproduction system, while the male are usually assigned with the task of collection of essential stuff for survival of the family from the surrounding environment or father domain. Gradually, the habit became the conventional practice in every household and a custom in the community. The growth of female human from infancy to the age of puberty is considered a pure biological being. From thereon, the female human is under the care of the cosmic energy of lunar menstruation cycle for regular cleansing of the womb until she engaged in sexual relationship with the male human. The male human has a constant physical growth until he became an adult and legible for reproduction. Usually, male members would return back home after their daily task of wandering in the wilderness; and on frequent occasions they would meet the female counterpart of another clan for engaging in the mating process. This is the community social reproduction system that prevailed in the ancient past, and gradually the interrelationship among the community evolved in the form of kinship. The male members of one community would always be encouraged for mutual relationship with the female members of another clan and they were allowed to stay overnight with their mating partner. The constitution of family structure within the maternal clan has emerged into a norm of ethical regulation in human society, thus the emergence of matrilineal culture. In Khasi parlance the core of family is the hearth with three hearthstones that signify the ancesstress (ïawbei), ancestor (thawlang) and the maternal seer (suitnia), which literally means the mother, father and maternal uncle. This hearth provides the warmth where myths legends and folklore are woven in the strains of cultural narrative about the traditional values that lay the foundation of a Khasi family.

Generally, the male members are accessible to a vast expanses and wider segments beyond their terriotories, while the female are confined in the vicinity of the surrounding environment within the territory. The situation has facilitated that men encountered diverse circumstances in their daily life and explore new vistas in the adventure around the world. Most of them would return to their flock with a sense of responsibility, while others could be fascinated with innovative search for alternative lifestyle. In the process, men has the advantage for more empowerment and authority over the women, to an extent that they think the earth is the world of man. This notion has given rise to misogynism and men dominated the entire world for centuries and ignored the spiritual and emotional strength of women in family bonding. The men take control of the entire family structure and management and utilise the women as mere tool of domestic custodial guardians and for reproduction purposes. However, in Khasi society human beings are never identified with gender in the material world, unless there is certain reservation for the biological productivity of the female beings. Conversely, if the woman chooses to venture outside the domestic sphere she is free to decide for her own destiny at will. There are instances in the past that women displayed their intellectual prowess and took the mantle of steering the council of nobles in the affairs of the dominion. The legends of Ka Pahsyntiew, Ka Li Dakha, Ka Syiem Latympang, Ka Ïang Langdoh and others are the testimonies to the traditional practices of social equality in every aspect of community issues. In view of various social and cultural considerations, there is a convention that female prefers to remain in the domestic domain while the male venture at every external activity of the society. Therefore, the mother performs the role of the priestess in the initiation process of the family religious affairs and the uncle takes the role of the priest for all the matters outside the domestic domain.

 THE SOCIO-CULTURAL CHANGES

In the course of time, a formal constitution of the family council came in to being and relevant social and cultural norms were formulated and instituted in the Khasi society. Among the most significant are the rites of passage, the compulsory adherence to ethical code of conduct (akor) and the land tenure system, beside other customs and practices. In this regard, there will be specific emphasis on the aspects that concerns the matrilineal system.

During the birth of an infant there are separate formalities for the boy and the girl child and the involvement of the maternal and paternal families in the initiation and naming ceremony. The specific occupational accoutrements are being assigned respectively for the boy and girl child for the ceremony; and the boy is usually assigned with a bow and three arrows and the girl with a bamboo cone basket and a strap along with the machette. The bow and arrows signifies the protector with the first arrow to protect the self, the second for the family and the third for the nation; while the bamboo cone basket and the carrying strap along with the machette signifies the domestic and farming activity. The most important aspect of the ceremony is the endorsement by the paternal mother as the bearer of the seed for the clan and the blessings thereon from her and all the paternal aunts and uncles.

The formalities for the matrimonial custom started with the match making  negotiation and engagement ceremony, followed with the marriage ceremony in any of the three methods depending on the choice of the couple and their respective families. The uncles of the bride and the groom served as the matchmaker to negotiate with each other on the feasibility of the nuptial knot and each one will enquire about the origin of the clan from the primary ancestral mother and within the specific family lineage. The first and foremost purpose of the enquiries is to ensure that the clans and the specific family lineages is devoid of any maternal relations that could tantamount to taboo or sacrilege. When the negotiations are over, the actual marriage ceremony is prepared at the residence of the bride where the uncles would declared the pronouncement of the legitimate bond between the couple, which will be followed by the rituals and symbolic exchange of rings to confirm the wedding. The ceremony are of three different types in terms of commitment and economic status. The first is the elaborated and stringent formality that involves oaths and dedication of the nuptial ceremony to the deities (synjat lator) followed by the feast and celebrations; the second one is the ordinary pronouncement with symbolic presentation of a pig and other provisions from the groom to the maternal house of the bride (lamdoh) along with the community feast and celebrations; and the third is the simple exchange of rings with the pronouncement by the maternal uncles without any feast and celebration.  

On the occasion of death in the family the maternal family and relatives of the deceased must be informed because the necessary rituals are to be performed by the maternal clan and the charred bones after the cremation will be deposited in the maternal ossuary. The female relatives are engaged in the mourning chants with necessary rituals by the mother or aunts or sisters of the deceased, while the male relatives should prepare the hearse for the funeral with rituals to be performed by the uncle or brothers of the deceased. The cleansing of the body of the deceased is being carried out and the placement of the fowl's egg on the navel (lengkpoh) after bath is compulsory for significant purposes of life after death and the safe passage to the eternal abode of the souls. At the cremation site, the maternal male relatives are required to lit the fire one after another supervised by the main celebrant of the cremation ceremony, while  the maternal female relatives would give betel nut at the cremation pyre. Subsequently, neighbours, friends and acquaintances would also share betel nuts with the departed soul at the pyre as a mark of sending off to eternal rest; and in Khasi it is termed as sharing betelnut at the divine threshold (bam kwai ha dwar blei), a similar phrase for "rest in peace". After the cremation, the charred bone remnants would be collected in the earthen pot and kept in the stone cist (mawshyieng) of the deceased before the final ceremony of cleansing and depositing at the maternal ancestral ossuary (mawbah). The founding principle is that the living and the dead souls should be in the custody of the ancestral mother.

The ethical code of conduct is a vast subject in every aspect of ordinary daily life and formal occasions in the society. It is the foundation of the primary commandments to earn righteousness, to abide with maternal and paternal kinship and to articulate human and divine conscience. It extends from the simple conduct of respect for elders to the elaborated administrative and ceremonial protocol at the national council. The chieftain and nobles of the province is considered of equal position with the ordinary citizen in the society and the democratic principles is strictly adhered in the community. The status is considered with the responsibility of performing the duties assigned by designated council of the people through the democratic process. The democratic functions are excercised at every segment of social structure starting from the family. The family council comprised of every male and female adult members in the family headed by the eldest uncle and held the duty of representing the family at the clan council within the territory. The clan council comprised of all the maternal clan representative from various segments of the territory headed by any elected member from among the representatives and held the duty of representing the clan at the territorial council (raij). The territorial council comprised of elected representatives from different clans within the territory headed by any elected member and held the duty of representing at the provincial council (dorbar hima). All the functionaries in the civil and religious administration are elected from among the representatives of the territories with the chieftain as the neutral entity endorsed by the council of nobles.

The traditional practice is a dynamic custom and cope up with the expansion of territorial boundaries and increase of population in the modern situation. The family and clan councils remained intact, while the territories are subdivided in to different localities and formulated respective local council (dorbar shnong) led by the resective headmen within each territory. In all these councils every designated and legitimate representative could participate in the deliberation. In the provincial council every functionary could assert autonomy for every civil and religious dispensation, where neither the chieftain nor the nobles could dispute. It is essential to further elaborate on this aspect in order to understand thoroughly about the essence of Khasi democracy. In the traditional state festival at Khyrim province (pomblang hima) popularly known as Nongkrem Dance Festival, each functionary unit has its own duties that no other person or unit could interfere. The mother queen, the chieftain, the unit of divine folk musicians (duhalia), the priests, the announcer (sangot), the nobles and few other functionaries have their own duties and resonsibilities in the ceremonies and performances, which each individual or unit are not entitled to take over the function assigned to the other. However, each individual or unit must complete the respective function within the stipulated time frame to enable a smooth celebration. In case of any unforseen circumstances the entire council is responsible to sort out the consequences under the initiative of the chieftain as the supreme head of the occasion and the province.

The land belongs to the people and every citizen has the right for acquiring certain portion of the land for basic economic wellbeing and even the chieftain and nobles are being alloted by the particular clan or territorial council for their official utilities and privileges in the service of the community. If any of the family including the families of the royalty or nobility refrained to utilise the alloted land, the same would be reclaimed by the clan council and the respective clan representative is entitled to monitor and supervise the process with the endorsement of the clan council. The official custody of every landed property rests with the priestess under the supervision of the noble or priest for the clan land; while the alloted family land is under the custudy of the mother and the supervision of her eldest brother or uncle of the family. This is the reverence that Khasi society is giving to mother earth, because land is being treated like a mother and should be provided to the people for their essential requirements for shelter and farming, and even for setting up of stalls for exchange marketing of goods through barter system; strictly not for any commercial transaction or trading between parties. Prior to British invasion and occupation the legitimate land of the Khasi people was given to the subjects as compensation for the service rendered for the province with amenities for self sustenance. It is to be properly understood the idea of legitimacy and allegiance of the people to the province according to Khasi concept of communism. The entire people of the community is  considered the children of the Khasi nation (ki khun ki hajar) inhabiting the land that belongs to the citizens with full entitlement of privileges from the ordinary farmer to the nobles and chieftain, while the migrants are included as the subjects (raïot) with limited concession. The royal head or chieftain in Khasi communism is the neutral entity in every matter of public administration where resolutions are passed by the apex council of nobles. The chieftain (syiem)is not the supreme authority but a stamp of authority according to the unanimous decision of the apex council. The royal house is the sacred dwelling of the queen mother and her children with any of her son or brother as the nominated chieftain to rule the province along with the council of nobles. The royal house is the community shelter of the citizens in times of neccessity and not the exclusive palace of the royal family. However, decency is being regulated on both sides with mutual understanding, where the royal family will never ignore the citizens and the people will abide by the family instructions to conduct and behave with courtesy. The queen is the chief priestess and mother of the people and they are under her auspices for everything that concerns their wellbeing. The chieftain is the political and judicial authority that conducts like the uncle of the people and provide councelling instead of pronouncing the verdict for resolution of every social dispute and misunderstanding among the citizens.

Unfortunately, all the above mentioned values and customary laws are being misinterpreted by the British imperialists during colonial rule. Therefore, disputes, disorder  and confusion prevailed upon the present generations and the state judicial authority is compelled to execute according to the present legal system in resolving every issue. The present generation are not aware about the actual values of Khasi traditional democracy and communist system that could be relevant and ideal for other societies and political administration elsewhere in the world. The democratic system is devoid of any political parties with varied ideologies for the citizens in one nation.

 THE FORCES OF SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION

The universal logic about the germination of life on earth is based on the seed of the male being that develops in different stages of growth until it became an infant to be given birth through the womb of the mother. But the Khasi reasoning for life has the foundation on the womb of the mother that the umbilical cord provide the energy of life from the mother to the child irrespective of any seed that is being planted. Moreover, the womb is the oven that generate life and created forms from an ovule until it moulded the proper shape of an infant human being for a period of ten lunar months before it became ripe for giving birth. The process of sowing seed is a momentary activity as compared to the care, creation and refinement of the biological form of human being inside the womb of the mother. The womb is not a factory made by human intelligence and expertise but the core of existence through the agitation of natural energies that the ovules germinated and gradually evolved in to different forms of beings depending upon the surrounding environment. The earth encountered with different forces of natural energies and produces the seeds for reproduction through generations, and hence the seed without the earth is a futile component. The patriarchal system laid emphasis on the seed of a man for life creation, while matrilineal system accentuated on the earth as the core of all lifeforms on the planet. The planet earth is being exploited by human for generations and the natural composition of the various components are being improvised to suit human needs; and by the basic human nature the essential needs became unlimited and turned in to extravagant greed, and that is the reality. The degeneration of environment and climate change are the result of excessive misuse and abuse of the earth by human through scientific discoveries and inventions. The excellent products of science and tecnology in all walks of life is an marvellous endeavour to serve fellow human and provide convenience, comfort and luxuries to different strata in the society. However, the consequences of that outstanding progress of civilisation generated mammoth parasites that are beyond the control of human ability, and widespread disaster is the future outcome of that circumstances. In Khasi myth there is a metaphor for such situation, where the earthquake and thunder are the forces of natural energy for restructuring and rejuvenation of mother earth in the event of violation of the law of nature, which the folk saying narrated that rigorous tremors will occur for the abuse of mother earth and severe thundering strike on the delinquent for wicked indulgences like incest, murder, corruption or any criminal offence against the people and society. This folk narrative is a manifestation of the powerful and violent calamity that may devastate the planet at the expense of human lives and material possessions. Therefore, the essence of matrilineal system is the conciousness and conscience for the care and compassion towards mother earth as the source of life on the planet.

Human habits and attitudes are the individual expression that has facilitated a subjective opinion and action to suit personal interest. The exclusivity of patriarchal system where the man asserts his authority over the subordinate members in the family or society is the cause of division and confrontation within the society. On the other hand, the matrilineal system is an inclusive effort of the mother to embrace everybody in the family and the clan, even as the other members are lending a hand for the same. It has become a convention that the privileged tend to sway an advantage against the lay and ordinary people in society. This attitude could leads to arrogance and aggression over the younger or junior member in the family or the society and these types of hostile situation may arouse prejudice and hatred. The irony is that such kind of atmoshere was tolerated to prevail in society and had created a trend that the privileged formed an exclusive circle of elites and segregate themselves from the downtrodden. For all these reasons that genuine authority is abused and the powerful trampled on the rights of the people for personal gain. For all these reasons that the powerful took undue advantage and accumulated enormous wealth, while the oppressed were demoralised and subjugated. For all these reasons that the barrier between the rich and the poor is toughened. For all these reasons that traditional folk values is neglected and defied, while the society is drowned in a sham.

The Khasi adage "a king a slave, a king a mother" (u Syiem u mraw, u Syiem u Kmie), "the king could be a stone, the burden is upon the nobles" (U Syiem kam pher la dei u maw, ka khia ka shon yn kit ki bakhraw), and "the nation is the responsibility of the people, the workload is the duty of the nobles" (ka hima u tip u khun u hajar bad ka khia ka shon yn kit ki bakhraw) are the manifestations of true democracy. Perhaps, the probable interpretations are- "It does not matter if the chieftain is a slave but he should possess the compassion of a mother"; "the chieftain might not speak a word, the affairs of the state are deliberated by the council of nobles"; "the people is liable to run the nation with consciencious choice of their rulers". How everybody wishes that these virtues are translated to reality in the turmoil of the contemporary situation. The influence of patriarchal ideas has seeped in the mindset of the people practising matrilineal system. The chieftains and priests are either held in high regard or ridiculed depending upon the gravity of authority and affluence. The majority of the privileged public figures like the chieftains, the priests, the politicians, the celebrities are prone to charisma and extravagance, and most of the time they resented against criticism and usually reacted with arrogance and conceit.  

The desire for audacity, austerity and ampltude of the community in the ancient civilisation have been transformed in to greed for power, position and prosperity as the compulsory attribute of every individual in modern society. Presently, the poeple in power does not care for the community in their own territory, while the migrants are given more opportunity and encouraged in the system of administration. The genuine local experts were easily ignored for favour of the fake unscrupulous professionals, as long as the purpose of personal benefit is being lobbied and materialised. The aspiration of the local citizens could be deliberately neglected in favour of the ambitious aggression of the vagrants that are capable of devious obligation. The corrupted practices is blatantly implied in the various consequences of dishonest transactions over lucrative resources like land, forests and commercial enterprises.

 THE LAND ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM

The traditional land holding system is within the jurisdiction of the clan council and every clan are entitled to certain portion of the land for the wellbeing of their kinfolks. Every portion of the land is earmarked for a particular clan with spacious demarcation of boundaries that separate the border pillars of one clan with another. The segment within the lateral stretched along the border of land of a particular clan is known as 'Ka Bri' and the border pillars is called 'Mawbri', while the boundary is known as 'U Pud U Sam' and the lateral portion of the land like the trench that segregate one boundary with another is called 'Samraij', which is similar to the concept of no man's land in the present civil and political system of land management. The land is broadly subdivided in to settlement, farming and forest land, with secific system of utility and management. The land of a particular clan and territory in its entirety is called 'Bri Kur' or 'Bri Raij'. The conglomeration of all the clans' land in one provincial estate or the state is called 'Hima' and the union of provincial estates or states is known as 'Ri' or the nation of one Khasi race. The segment of land acquired by the particular maternal family for settlement is called 'Rikynti', the land acquired for farming is 'Riraij', which the family has the jurisdiction as long as they utilise for farming occupation; while the forest land remained the community land for social utility. The forest areas are considered protective land that are never granted to the clan because it is revered as the abode of the spirits and habitat of the wild animals. The tradition prevailed that some forest areas could be consecrated as the sacred grove or 'Law Kyntang' in view of the potential ecological biodiversity, or the prohibited forest or 'Law Adong' for certain significant resources for conservation of drinking water, rare species of plants of herbal cure and healing properties, orchids and aromatic plants and special tree species for religious purposes. All these lands are under the custody of the mother or the priestess nominated from the particular clan while the supervision is held under the maternal uncle or the priest nominated from the particular clan. Usually, the priestess and the priest are sibling of the same clan where the territorial ritual and ceremonies are being performed by the priestess at the sacred home and the priest at the sacred sites outside the house. One of the ceremonies that the council of the chieftain and the nobles are required to witness and authorised is the ceremony of 'Saiñbri' where the adjacent clans are appraised of the actual boundary between the land of one clan with another. Therefore, every domestic matter is being handled by the mother or priestess of the particular maternal clan and the external matter rests with the maternal uncle or the priest.

With the onset of the post British era on civil administration, large stretch of land have been acquired by the government particularly in the State capital Shillong and its surrounding areas. The large portion of private land is also regulated by the government and declared the European Ward and Cantonment land, where sale of land is permissible to people other than the local inhabitants. Taking a cue from this system, the urban conglomerate adopted the system of land sale and private ownership. Initially, the system of private ownership is prevalent only in Shillong and its adjoining areas, later it was operative all over the State and there is hardly any community land of the clan, because gradually it was converted into private land with the devious attempt of the clan elders to abuse their power. With the expansion of the urban areas in various towns and district head quarters, the value of land has increased and became a lucrative estate mercantile transaction. The prime land of Khyndailad popularly known as Police Bazar and Ïewduh known as Bara Bazar are the most lucrative  commercial areas that have been acquired by the migrants through undue influence and deception on the simple inhabitants of that period. Fortunately, the Land Tenure system of the State government prohibited any sale of land to people other than the local indigenous inhabitants that the local people are safeguarded from rampant estate trading procedure. Nevertheless, majority of prime land in the city and few strategic areas were already acquired by Defence Ministry, Government of India in the vicinity of the State capital, Shillong and in the interior of the city by the State Government. In general, the community land ownership of the various Khasi clans has drastically affected and instead most of the clan land became the sole ownership of women, particularly the youngest daughter of the family according to the faulty interpretation on the customary law of the matrilineal system by the British officials, which prevailed till today.

The vigorous resentment and turmoil in the Khasi society is the abolision of the authority of the maternal uncle as the main supervisor of family properties, which was seized by the youngest daughter as the legitimate owner. The British officials during colonial rule have miserably interpreted the Khasi customary laws that have devastated the social condition in the region. Over the years, there were several unscrupulous migrants that have attempted and gained control of local properties through marriage with the youngest daughters of Khasi families and transformed the cultural atmosphere in the society. Some of the men from another community succumbed to the dictat of their Khasi wives because of security and potential avenues; whereas majority of them duped the simple women and asserted their patriarchal customs and subjugated the entire family, even as majority of them assimilated with the dominant patriarchal culture. In these type of situation, most Khasi men were demoralised irrespective of whether their youngest sister married within or outside the Khasi clan. However, there are still other women that abide by the traditional values of listening to their mother and rendered due respect to the responsible uncles regardless of their economic status and led a harmonious coexistence of whichever husband they marry. The universal nature, the popular and the socially, culturally and economically dominant patriarchal system from all over the world is yet to ascertain its roots in the deeply entrenched matrilineal society of the Khasi community. If economy is the yard stick of suvival then Khasi race is doomed, but if the social and cultural integrity is the factor for endurance then Khasi race will never assimilate and matrilineal culture will grow.

THE FOREST AND MARKET MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The forest areas are always considered the abode of spirits and women especially young women are always advised to be careful with any encounter in the jungle and prevention is being suggested for those under menstruation period and pregnant women because the cosmic radiation might affect the reproduction ability of the virgins and harm the infant in the womb of the pregnant woman. This is one of the reasons that women in such situation are not permitted to participate in any outdoor activities, and generally they are confined in the vicinity of the house and the men could explore anywhere in the periphery and beyond. The men are vulnerable only to any physical encounter with nature and other mortal creatures, except for the lightning strike of thunder in the case of any severe criminal offences. The forest spirits are considered as the guardian of the wild habitats and the people that settled in the vicinity. Therefore the inhabitants of the villages surrounding the forest would communicate with the spirits and pay regular obeisance in the form of chanting prayers, rituals and ceremonies to appease in times of trouble or probable mistake that could be taken as infringement or desecration of the sanctity of the forest. Like human being the spirits have different individual traits that might not be compatible with some human behaviour; there are mischievous and pious imps that could be injurious and harmless to people. It is usually accepted that every spirit has certain supernatural power that favours certain human in contravention to the gifted aptitude. The people believed that certain human beings are possessed with the power bestowed upon by the spirit or the essence of the spirit is possessed in the human body to performed certain extraordinary feats, while that human could be physically or mentally disabled due to the intervention of the spirit. The folk belief related that if the spirit touched the right shoulder, the person will be affected on the right hand side of the body; and if it embraced in the bosom, the person could be mentally deranged, but every affected person will also be possessed with special aptitude gifted by the spirit. This relationship with the spiritual world is perceived as real and hence the reverence is obliged with rituals and ceremonies.  

The traditional system of market is to cater to the requirement of the original inhabitants for sustenance of livelihood. In the ancient period, transaction operated through barter with the merchants from other neighbouring territories or from across the border including retail trade. Later cowries were introduced for buying and selling of goods and the system could cope up even after the onset of monetary units. The council of chieftain and his nobles is bound to grant permission to its citizens within the province in acquiring the spaces for commercial activities, while the merchants from across the territory may be considered for trading on temporary basis. For example, the traders from Khyrim province would have to operate their business only on market days in the makeshift arrangement for convenient trading at any market elsewhere in other provinces, like the Nongpoh market which falls under Mylliem province or the Sohra market which falls under Sohra province or Mairang market which falls under Nongkhlaw province; and likewise the traders from Mylliem, Sohra or Nongkhlaw provinces will have to abide by the same conditions at the Smit market of Khyrim province. Some of the traditional market are still adhered to this system, while most of them are driven by volume of economic transaction and given priority to the potential benefits from the merchants rather their own genuine local traders. This is extremely being dishonoured at the main market of Ïewduh, where even the local inhabitants of Mylliem province are deprived of spaces for trading, because maximum of the prospective spaces were eithered leased out or acquired by the migrant merchants from across the border in nexus with the provincial insharge of market in the Mylliem province. At the present juncture almost all the stalls at Ïewduh were owned and controlled by the Marwari and Bengali merchants.

The deity of prosperity is usually connected between the jungle and market and the link is typically the monoliths. The ancient practice is that farmers from across the surrounding segments of their respective cultivation fields would locate an ideal site through divine intervention. Strategically, any vantage point in the vast meadow preferably adjacent to the grove as the abode of the deities would be ideal for piling up their products. Moreover, the grove is refreshing after working the whole day. After the harvest, the men are engaged in heavy carriage and women in sorting out and packing up of the agricultural products. Every farmer has his own stuff of various quantity with certain quality and others will have diverse amount and worth; and in the same manner different section of farmers have varied requirement where exchange is taking place. The gathering of farmers every harvest season of the year in the same place is the momentous occasion where joyful amusement also emerged. Therefore, in commemoration of the wonderful experience of prosperity, the people would felt the need to pay obeisance to the deities with ceremonies and erection of monoliths. Essentially, one or few stones could be ceremonial stones, while others would be commemorative megaliths, and hence the emergence of the market with barter system. Therefore traders from far and wide would converged for trade in the market and the community will flourished. Generally, men would carry the heavy load of commodities from across the field and entrusted the women for the trade and this is the reason that women are usually engage in mechandise in the Khasi society. Another advantage of the location is the convenient accessibility to forest resources in the trade and construction of stalls for marketing. The selection of the market site is the consultation process between the deities and human for their mutual purpose. The legend of Mar Phalyngki at Nartiang is that he carried a slab of stone as the rain shelter and on reaching near the grove at Nartiang, he had a divine encounter that he should erect the monoliths where the market would be set up and the community abided by his narrative and the megalithic complex came into existence beside the market. The Pomblang Ïewduh ceremony of Hima Mylliem or the erstwhile Hima Shyllong at the market is being held simultaneously with the 'Nguh Lei Shyllong' ceremony of paying obeisance to the Shyllong deity at the sacred grove atop the Shyllong peak. This is part of the series of post harvest annual ceremonies which started from the ancient capital of Mawnarian. The festivals and ceremonies of Pam Ïawmusiang at Nangbah; the Behdeinkhlam at Jowai, Tuber, Ïalong and Mukhla; the Pastieh at Raliang; the Sajer at the Bhoi regions are part of the post harvest occasions connected with the agrarian culture and matrilineal system is strictly observed in every formalities. Hence, the occupation of farming with forest resources and market prospect are interconnected in the effort for prosperous livelihood of the entire community through rituals and ceremonies. In all these ceremonies, the priestess will performed at the sacred house at home, while the priest will performed at the exterior locations of the market or the forest or the cultivation fields.

THE IMPACT OF EXTERNAL FORCES OF CHANGE

The maternal kinship component is binding in every Khasi household, even after the influence of patriarchal customs derived out of Christian traditions and popular global mandate; but it still needs to strengthen on various other aspects of ancient customs and traditions. The tradition of community land allocation system has declined and replace by the convenient system of outright acquirement with sale deeds, which later required to be registered wth the Government as per the law. The tradition of allocation of commercial stalls at the market places to the original local inhabitants was abandoned and operated with the lucrative estate assessment and leased out to potential contenders and ultimately sold out to wealthy merchants at the major markets. The traditional forest management through belief system in the sacred groves and prohibited forests is stagnated, while majority of the forests and few sacred groves were already deforested by timber merchants in connivance with the clan elders or the territorial and provincial councils. In spite of the scarcity of valuable herbs with curative properties due to deforestation, the traditional herbal healing system is emerging as the viable alternative cure of various ailments, even as the allopathy is fervently prevalent as the most sought after medical care, especially with the advancement of corporate healtcare enterprises. The modern trendy garment outfits are the compatible modern lifestyle that the rural folks are enchanted with at the cost of neglecting the traditional costumes and affected the local handloom tradition. The entertainment industry with modern inventions of digital technology captivated the global market, influenced the youth and marginalised the traditional music, dance and folk performances. The literary prospect is more inclined towards scientific technology with meager scholastic and academic intervention on the ancient folk knowledge system. The subjective and sensitive issue of belief sytem and religion also dictated the social fabric of the community, especially Christianity. All these factors contributed to the fragmentation of the community and affected the traditional customs and practices, including the matrilineal system.

The rampant prevalent of various Christian religious denominations and the advancement of modern scientific and digital technology became the divisive forces that devastated the folk culture of the community. The sustenance of sacred forests with folk rituals and ceremonies have been converted to the modern forest conservation methods and tourism potential for exotic global marketing strategy. The agricultural technology of fertilisers and tissue culture, the information technology, the communication technology and several other conveniences, comforts and luxuries of the modern digital technology have drastically affected the environment and humanity in every aspects of life. The social and cultural assimilation with the dominant communities, the economic and educational prospects at the austere commercial and institutional platforms and the modern trends of progress and development have tremendously contributed to the destruction of ethnic folk culture and ancient knowledge. In the process, the matrilineal system is also facing a great challenge to survive in the widespread universal identity of the rigorous patriarchal system in the entire world.

In the phases of several vulnerable situations, there are arguments and opinions on the validity of the matrilineal system in human society, and the general perspective is the run of the mill attitude like everybody else in the world. The irony is that majority of the influential and elite section of the society are still in the slumber of colonial hangover, having access to modern education with lucrative career opportunities  and flourishing in economic wellbeing, whereas ethical knowledge of the roots is in sheer poverty. On the other hand, there are certain ethno centric elements with shallow understanding of the ancient knowledge and cultural heritage, survive on menial jobs, depressed with narrow mindset and consistently resorted to aggressive and arrogant assertion of cultural identity. The people in the society is sandwiched between these scrounging elements, with hardly any scope for enlightenment about life. Nevertheless, there is a light at the end of the tunnel that ignite the minds of few individuals that should overwhelm the society and enable to see the light of day.

The matrilineal system was ideal, is vibrant and will continue to be relevant for all the time to come, even as it shall sails in the undercurrent of colossal social changes through the ages. The agility of emotional, perseverance, compassionate and spiritual motherhood will constantly thrive over the powerful assault  of male  chauvinism. The considerable progress of scientific technology was instrumental for human comforts and luxuries through centuries; it is also the root cause of the massive destruction of the environment that nature is tolerant to the extent that it will reacts in time when disaster and human miseries will be devastated. Then mother earth will terminate everything and restore in the form of pristine atmosphere for the new life to germinate, emerge, blossom and realised their existence because of the relentless effort of the mother earth. Similarly, mother of humankind will survived, sustained and prevailed until the end of time.

The matrilineal identity in Khasi milieu shall survive and sustain on the foundation of maternal kinship, mother tongue and mother earth. Therefore, every individual shall endeavour to keep abreast their kinship, language and land for all the time of their livelihood. The other apparatus of social and cultural identity are the folk costume, the folk performing arts and the folklore, which will further strengthen the distinct characteristics of the Khasi community. Therefore the primary criteria is the maternal kinship, the mother tongue and the mother land; while the secondary conditions are the traditional dress, the folk songs and folk dances performances, the thought process, the behaviour, the rituals and ceremonies and several other distinctive traits of the Khasi community. It is surprising to note that the feature is not included in the criterion because in matrilineal system the dynamics and diversity of the culture is also reflected through the physical appearance. Unlike the genetic inheritance of the patriarchal lineage which retain the distinct feature of the people, the matrilineal lineage is traced through the root of life, the umbilical cord. In the patriarchal system the descendants maintain the species of the seed from the father, whereas in the matrilineal system the descendants emerged from the source when the navel of the infant is attached to the womb of the mother.

 THE STRENGTH OF LAND AND LANGUAGE IN CULTURE

The reality check on the prevailing social situation in the North Eastern region of India revealed that every ethnic tribal people asserted to impose their respective culture on any person that marries within their community. If a Khasi man or woman marries a Naga in Nagaland, a Mizo in Mizoram, an Assamese in Assam, a Meitei in Manipur or any of the tribe in Arunachal Pradesh or Tripura, they are more than often assimilated in the culture of the land. The primary factors of the assimilation are the language and the land, where any husband or wife of any particular community is prevented or even restricted to move away from the respective land. However, the Khasi people is different due to historical issues, they tend to become more liberal than any of the other community. The cosmopolitan nature of Shillong being the erstwhile capital of the composite state of Assam has transformed the behaviour of the local Khasi people. The emergence of the Anglo Khasi family and the generation of descendants that are intense in their tolerance to the extent of neglecting their mother tongue and motherland. This is the danger that Khasi society is facing and the progress of liberal ignorance to the vernacular language is alarming. At present, majority of the Khasi youth in the State capital, Shillong are speaking the English language among themselves in casual conversation and even on formal occasions. On the other hand in many villages they communicate with their respective dialects and hardly speak the standard Khasi language on every occasion. The medium of communication between the Khasi people and other migrant tribal communities is the English language and to a certain extent the casual Hindi language, more so with another communities. Therefore the descendants of families of inter-tribal marriage or with other communities, which is usually an urban scenario tend to comminicate in both the English and Hindi languages, while English is preferred on formal occasions and the mother tongue is hardly spoken at all. Moreover, the primary education system encourages English speaking habits and most Khasi parents subscribed to the idea, which has drastically affected the future generations from proper knowledge of the vernacular language. The irony is that majority of them are acquainted with casual conversation of English language, but lack indepth vocabulary. Essentially, they are neither perfect in their own mother tongue nor in the foreign language fascinated by almost the entire community.

In the light of all these developments, the Riti Academy initiated the self supporting venture called 'The Khasi Expansive Dictionary project', which aims to enlarge the standard language through inclusion of various ethnic dialects from all over the territories. Simultaneously, articles of rare and important words from different regions, including the coinage of new words for contemporary terminology from the original local dialect are being formulated and published in vernacular newspaper. For example, the word for 'Art' in the modern interpretation is being invented through the etymology of Khasi words 'Matti' literally means 'indelible mark' or 'hallmark', 'mat' is shortened form of 'khmat' meaning front or facade and 'ti' is the shortened form of 'kti' meaning hand or arm;  and 'Thaw' literally means 'create'; hence, 'mattithaw' means art in modern Khasi usages. The word for aeroplane is derived from 'Lieng' literally means a 'sailing boat or ship' and 'Suiñ' literally means 'the sky' or 'liengsuiñ' meaning aeroplane in modern Khasi usages. There are many words in Khasi language that are apt and precise in the alternate meaning of English contemporary words, particularly the modern scientific and technological terminology. The original Khasi word 'kalai' literally means to mix or dilute and stir together two or more elements to derive a new substance, which is chemistry; the coined word 'korputar' is derived from 'kor' meaning engine or motor, 'pu' is extract from 'pule' meaning read, and 'tar' literally means to tear but it also means to obtain with great effort; hence 'korputar' means computer; the Khasi word 'durim' is derived from 'dur' meaning picture and 'im' meaning alive or living, which means film or cinema. Some of the rare words are 'mawmynnu' meaning the folk healer that specialises in prenatal and postnatal care of young mothers and her infant- in the Lyngngam dialect, which denotes the midwife; the word 'umpachu' in pnar dialect it means the water from any source boiled in the direct sunlight until it became very hot to sterilise the germs from the environment and allows to warm for bathing of new born infants; which essentially indicate that it is not to be boiled in fire and could be termed as sterilised water in English language. The project has taken new dimension in the linguistic arena, which ascertain that some words in Persian and Sanskrit languages could have been derived from the Khasi language. This may seems farfetched in the mind of language experts, but let's examine and verify certain facts on some words- The Khasi word 'ju' means repeat or reiterate, the word 'bor' means power or strength, 'ban' means pressure or stress, 'tang' is the shortened form of 'kyntang' which means sacred or consecrate; hence 'jubor' means by force, 'juban' means stress repeatedly and is related with another word 'jutang' which means sacred statement or testament. The Khasi word 'Ka meikha' means the paternal mother whose in Khasi culture is held in reverence for providing the father for the maternal family. There is a hillock at Kamrup district of Assam that bore a Khasi name 'Lum Ka Meikha' meaning the hillock ('lum' in Khasi) of the paternal mother in whose ceremony of fecundity had been performed in the ancient times. Perhaps, after the Ahom invasion it has been converted to 'Kamakhya' which does not bear any literal meaning in Sanskrit, but the tradition is being continued. The etymology of each syllable has specific meaning in Khasi language- 'ka' is the gender article for female, 'mei' is the mother, 'kha' is to give birth, and 'meikha' is the term for the paternal mother; hence, Ka Meikha in Khasi is being transformed to Kamakhya in Sanskrit. There are more such words that can be analysed and authenticate the origin in Khasi etymology, which needs endorsement by lisnguists and language experts.

The land and language of a community are the advantages that could bind together or assimilate the strange elements in the composite structure. The Kamakhya story is one example that indicate the lost of language and land from the Khasi to the other community, especially when it was enshrined in the legacy of the mighty Hindustani tradition. Actually, there are many Hindu traditional and cultural terms that have its roots in the Khasi heritage. There is an ancient tradition of metallurgy in Khasi myths and legends and one such folklore is on the remnants of the iron smelting foundries at Rangjyrteh village, which related with the Khasi deity of aesthetic and engineering 'Biskorom' and the 'khyndai kamar' or nine masons and 'khatar kamar' or twelve carpenters; which signify that Biskorom is the Hindu deity Viswakarma and the chief architect and artist, while the nine masons and twelve carpenters are the artisans in stonecrafts and woodcrafts. In the Indian subcontinent the Hindu tradition have never identified any temple or sacred landmark associated with Viswakarma, which could be the metal foundries at Rangjyrteh village. During the British regime, the colonial rulers have plundered the excellent indigenous metallurgy industries in the Khasi territory and replaced with the cheap metal scraps factories imported from England, while the relics are still visible in the unique iron implements made today. Fortunately, the British have never been able to disrupt the Khasi folk technology of living root bridges that are available in plenty in the perilous terrains of Khasi territory.

THE ADDRESS SYSTEM OF KHASI FAMILY RELATIVES

The Khasi matrilineal system has it's distinct cognate term of address among the kinfolks in the maternal and paternal relationship. The initial part are universal like the children customary address to their parents; in the Khasi terms, the children of a biological parents would call the mother 'Mei' and father 'Pa'. The children to the brothers of their mother or maternal uncle would call 'Kñi' and later it might have derived from other culture by calling 'Mama'; and to all the elder sisters of the mother as 'Meisan' or simply 'San' meaning elder, while certain differentiation in order of their seniority as 'Meisan Heh' meaning the eldest mother; and to younger sisters of the mother as 'Meikhynnah' or simply 'Nah' or 'Nahnah', while certain differentiation in order of their seniority as 'Meideng' meaning the middle aunt, 'Meirit' meaning the little or younger aunt, 'Meiduh' meaning the youngest aunt, whereas 'Meinah' is the step mother. The children to all the brothers of their father are call 'Pa' with the suffix according to the seniority, the elder brothers of the father are call 'Pasan' and younger brothers of the father as 'Pakhynnah'; while all the sisters of the father or paternal aunt as 'Kha' with the order of seniority as 'Khaheh' meaning the eldest paternal aunt, 'Khadeng' the middle paternal aunt, 'Kharit' the little or younger paternal aunt, 'Khaduh' the youngest paternal aunt. The grandparents are addressed as 'Meirad' or 'Meiieit' to the maternal grandmother and 'Parad' or 'Paieit' to the maternal grandfather; to the paternal grandmother is called 'Meikha' and paternal grandfather is called 'parad' or 'pakha'. The cousins relationship between the maternal and paternal sibling are term as 'shibakha' and would addressed each other as 'bakha'; whereas among maternal cousins are considered as brothers and sisters and among paternal cousins are termed as 'shiparakha'. This is to understand that the affinity of relationship is closer in the maternal side than the paternal side. The children of all the sisters out of the same parents are not considered as cousins but brothers and sisters of the direct ancestral mother and are termed as 'shipara arkmie' meaning sibling of all maternal mothers. In the matrilineal system the children of all the cognate relationship are strictly prohibited for marriage whatsoever and considered as taboo or incest. However, the cousin brother of the paternal side could marry his cousin sister from the maternal side, subjected to the situation after the demise of his maternal uncle or father of his cousin sister. Contrary, the cousin brother of the maternal side could never marry the cousin sister from the paternal side at all and is considered the highest degree of incest. All the descendants of the ancestral mother are brothers and sisters generations after generations and are strictly prohibited from any sexual relationship, which is considered with the utmost extent of incentuous violation.

In the Khasi matrilineal system, if there is any violation of the traditional regulation of cognate relationship, there is bound to be an adverse genetic reactions like deformity or infertility, or any defects in the physical and mental being of the descendants. This is enshrine in the belief system that human disobeyed the law of nature that embodied the divine. The biological sciences also substantiated the situation about the adverse reaction of the cells that are not compatible for reproduction. The consequence is fatal and in the traditional system such taboo is a sacrilege to the divine order and demands sanction for termination. Therefore, in Khasi custom the people indulged in such acts are either excommunicated from the community or leave it at the disposal of natural forces. It is said that if anybody that happened to commit such prohibitive deeds by intent or out of ignorance, they might be devoured by the tiger and wild animals or struck by the lightening thunder. In Khasi myth tiger embodied the character of a spiritual guardian and thunder and earthquake are deities and the offsprings of mother earth that came in to being after the birth or creation of the five elements of natural energy, that is the sun, moon, air, water and fire. In the present context also the social norm will prevail and the offender of social customs will be ostracised from the community. There are instances in modern society that traditional customs could be interpreted and imposed with ulterior motive of the vested interest elements. In such situation the constitutional law will take effect and shall not tolerate any traditional authority to expel the persons involving in relationship without social sanction as long as it did not disrupt social order, and in fact they are entitled to legitimate protection under human rights provisions. Although, constitutional law are subjected to amendment and modification through legislation, the legal provision being enforced are implemented to contain social order and deliver justice to the deserving persons. This is the reason that constitutional law override every customary law for justice delivery system to the citizens within the country. Whereas the spirit of most traditional customary laws are enacted and enshrined for the wellbeing of the entire creatures and the environment across the globe.

The traditional customary law entrusted the justice delivery system upon the legal entity of the democratic council of the chieftain and the nobles. Usually, the chieftain and nobles will undertake to counsel both the alleged culprit and innocent citizens for reconciliation and in case of any further complication, the chieftain and the council of nobles shall put both the accused to trial through natural justice and provide an amicable solution to the dispute, which may not be acceptable according to constiutional law. However, the modern constitutional law will proceed through a system of mediation and argument by professional advocates in favour of the contending parties and the judge or panel of jury shall assess and study the case before pronouncing the verdict; and this process will create enmity between the opposite parties. Even the out of court settlement is more of compromise from both sides than a cordial resolution.

THE DYNAMICS OF KHASI CUSTOMARY PRACTICES

The wisdom of the ancestors in the constitution of kinship relations is something that the modern society will find it difficult to absorb. There is a peculiar Khasi custom of cognate family relation that was designed to prevent any probable indulgence in taboo. A man of certain clan is strictly prohibited to marry his cousin sister, that is the niece of his father, and her children are considered as the paternal parents of that man. This is to understand that the grandnieces and grandnephews of his father are the paternal parents as good as his father and father's sisters. Alternately, the children of the grandnieces and grandnephews became his cousins again that even his children are prohibited of any relationship. This relationship should carry on for three generations and after that they became distant relatives where marriage is not restricted any longer. During that tenure of relationship, any infringement is considered taboo and may tantamount to stringent action or there could be fatal consequences by natural forces. This is the extent of reverence regarded to the paternal parents and cousins for three generations as the provider of life being on a particular clan. To further elaborate and simplify on this particular custom, there is a defination that the father from clan A have children from clan B where the descendants of clan B for three generations are not permitted to marry any of the descendants from clan A, because they are considered as the forebear of their father. But this is not legible for the maternal cousins of clan B to be obliged to the clan A where their father would be of a different clan.

The human psychology functions in the personal aspirations of an individual in every aspect of life, while it is bound to respond to social norm irrespective of whether it is for or against the desire of the individual person with the collective demand for social decency. In the similar manner it occurs with the relationship of persons of the opposite sex in the context of personal and collective requirement in the society. Through generations society have taken shape with the character, attitude, conduct and behaviour of people and the common objective is for civility, which improved and deteriorated at diverse situations. The ancient practice is that human behaviour is being nurtured and imbibed with counselling and advice by the elders through stories of myths, legends and folktales; the modern practice is perceived and deviced by individuals in terms of rational and legitimate rights. The elders of the past endeavour to earn respect from the younger persons through responsibilty and affinity; the elders of the present make great efforts to demand respect from the young through status and material obligations. However, the human nature remained constant for generations that the personal will and desire is availed when there is the opportunity.

In the olden days the men are engaged in exploration across the length and breadth of the surrounding environment, while the women, children and old persons remained in the domestic sphere due to various situations that could be vulnerable to their life. In normal circumstances, men and women are attracted to each other and it depends on their will and desire to get closer to each other and to initiate for relationship and further their deeds as the couple. It always happened that a man from farther distance will meet a woman around the periphery of her settlement and develop the relationship with mutual consent or with consistent persuation from any side. Generally, the man makes the proposal and the woman will consider according to her taste; and rarely will the woman approach a man for such purposes. The man may persuade in whatever circumstances if the woman refuses or delays in her response, while the woman may persuade only when they are properly familiar with each other. This is the common practice that have always prevailed till today based on the fundamental nature of both sexes. Further, there are situations that some men will make an effort to advance the woman they were attracted to and if it goes against their favour, they may assert their physical strength to overpower the woman and resorted to forceful violation of her modesty, and this is also the reality of life that occurred in society through generations. Therefore, women are usually susceptible to such delicate situation and men particularly strange men are always on the watch for any probable indecent indulgence. These situation led to the formulation of social norms to contain every offensive action and became the customary law. In this regard, men have more advantage and freedom to endeavour for relationship with any woman and every woman they like; but women are restrained and protected from any deliberate action in this regard due to various factors. Some men are decent in their behaviour, while others are not and culpable to criminal acts and will be subjected to penalty imposed upon as per the norms or customary laws.

Nevertheless, majority of the men indulged themselves in to harbouring more than one spouses at a time, while women does not have the liberty of such lenience out of family honour and social decorum. Whatever the case both men and women responded to the biological forces of nature, even as they are under compulsion of domestic and social consideration. Therefore, in Khasi society most men are phrased as 'man of twelve flags' or 'man of twelve strengths' and women as 'lady of one voice' or 'lady of single strength'. These phrases signifiy that man may harbour many spouses with substantial power, and the woman does not have any voice or power because the mother and her uncles will decide on her destiny. This is the matrilineal system that prevailed in spite of certain adverse situation that are under consideration of analysis and scrutiny to maintain the original essence of the customary practices. The Khasi customary practices are not the rigid tradition but a dynamic method that can cope with contemporary situation, and that is why it has survived the test of time.

 THE TURBULENCE OF MATRILINEAL SYSTEM

The social transformation of family structure from the core family of the mother to the Christianised concept of the father as the head of the family was easily adopted in Khasi society even as matrilineal system is still in force. The modern family structure is compatible with matrilineal system because the maternal uncle is still having his authority as long as he bear the responsibility and concern in the maternal family and his sisters would respect and rely on him for all the domestic affairs. However, the blunder committed by the British colonial rulers in the interpretation of Khasi customary laws, has enable certain vested interest to intrude in to the Khasi family affairs, especially when the youngest sister marries a person of other communities. The conventional role of custodianship to family properties was construed as sole inheritance by the youngest sister, and the role of the eldest uncle was conveniently ignored by the customary law enacted by the British regime. Therefore, when the youngest sister in the traditional Khasi family asserts her rights over ancestral property, none of her elder brothers and sisters could challenged in the court of law, and this is the reason that the external elements would intrude for their selfish motive. Gradually, the role of the maternal uncle was marginalised and the youngest sister is being empowered with absolute control over the ancestral properties. The situation escalated to the extent that almost every Khasi maternal uncle is demoralised, while every youngest sister is commanding with economic influence over the entire members in the family. There are instances that the integrity of maternal uncles is being sacrificed at the demand of his youngest sister for performing petty jobs; and likewise there are other instances that the youngest sister would relied everything on her intimate confidant like her own husband until certain vital resources were swindled out of the core family.

In the course of time most of the maternal uncles invested their material and intellectual resources in their personal domain and assert their authority in the family of their spouses and children while others became depressed and frustrated and resorted to antisocial activities. The fact of the matter is that the matrilineal system is still in place and the men have limited role in the clan affairs of their wives and children, neither does the maternal uncles are involved in the decision making process of their maternal family. Hence, generally the family and clan matters almost became the domain of women with hardly any involvement of the men, because the men are compelled to remain in the family atmosphere of their wives and children. Nevertheless, some men have enormous moral and intellectual strength and articulation that earned sufficient respect and reliability from both the family segments. There is no denial to the fact that most women have enormous emotional strength to nurture affection to the children and service to the men in spite of earning a living for the family; as much as some men have enough responsibility for protection and providing support system to the entire family. Perhaps, certain Khasi men should refrain to behave like the weak and dependent person, and certain Khasi women must abstain to behave like the tough and liberal person; although both should be strong and independent. Possibly, the men and women may work in tandem to improve the family and society when they assert freedom and will deteriorate relation and communal bondage when they indulge in liberty, because freedom comes with conscience and responsibility and liberty is the unrestrained sense of freedom that will destroy the society.

The rampant propaganda of media particularly social media in formulation of public opinion in the society by opportunist elements in the barge of  social concern is another social menace that projected distorted image of the society, particularly the Khasi community. There are pressure groups and social activists that indulged in moral policing and conservation of ethnic community through prejudiced methods of furthering self imposed agenda in the entire community. There are female centric organisations with sympathetic arguments in favour of  women through allegation and accusation on the system; and there are male centric organisation with considerate viewpoint inclined towards men through diverse allegation and accusation on the system. However, both the groups generated mass sentiments and public support without introspection on the ground realities of the social problems. The ground reality in Khasi society is that there is an imbalance in the ratio of male and female marriage with other communities, which is blatant and does not require any statistical data. This is because of vital factors of economic advantage and social security invested by most of the men of other communities through seductive advantage on the liberal families of Khasi women, which goes beyond mutual affection and personal choice of the couple. Contrary to the rampant indulgence of the liberal Khasi women, the other communities are extremely conservative and rigorously protective of their women. Leaving aside the Khasi community, the other communities that have been born and brought up in Meghalaya are not at all liberal in matrimony; the Marwaris, Sindhis, Bengalis, Biharis and other dominant communities from the mainland will strictly engaged among their respective communities for matrimony irrespective of social and economic status. This is particularly so with the other original inhabitants of the region; the Assamese, Manipuri, Naga, Mizo and other communities of North East India will be stringent about intercommunity marriage. The disparity is that all the other communities in the adjacent surrounding and farflung areas follow the patriarchal system of family lineage and the Khasi community along wih the Garo community follow the matrilineal system of clan lieage.

This is one of the primary reason that the other communities from the adjacent surrounding, the farflung areas of the country and from elsewhere in the world endeavoured to impose the patriarchal system. Within the Khasi community also there are social groups and influencial elite section of the community that advocated and practiced the patriarchal system in lieu of the matrilineal system, without considering the consequences in the society. Yet, the matrilineal system sustained like a perpetual spring of an oasis in the vast horizon of the dry desert, even as it was assumed as the island that will swamp in the turbulence of the strong waves of the patriarchal system.

 THE NATURAL COURSE OF HUMAN CONDUCT

The ancient values handed over by the ancestors in the form of regular counselling at home by the mother about the need to understand about life as a common duty of awareness, alertness, adeptness in history and humanity is of vital importance. The care and concern about the past and respect of old age should be part of the knowledge system for the present generation that must pass down to the next generation and after. The nourishment for the young should be fed with the sources derived from the old. The learning process about the present is as important as the knowledge about the past to enable the projection about the future. The more indepth knowledge of the past, the more clarity of the present, the farther  vision for the future, the better prospect for hope and happiness for society and mankind. Therefore, it is the duty of the older people to nurture the young minds in the right direction with the profound knowledge of the past that will convince and enable them to carry forward to the future generation. The myths, legends and parable must remain a metaphor for inspiration of ideas for practical application in the contemporary situation; the history must linger as a reminder to understand the past for sensible purpose of the present; arts, sciences and literature must prevail to perceived for better prospect as the young marches towards the future. Unfortunately, the current situation is alarming that the old is frail and the young is fragile because there are no maturity and rationality that could link the chain of life. The fascination for the allurement of superficial lifestyle is the mockery of the real life that may lead to misery and agony in the end. The tendency towards momentary pleasure and addiction to material possession, alcoholism, promiscuity, gambling and several other abuses of human life have degenerate the essence of sacrifice, tolerance and conscience of real life. The idea of survival of the fittiest is a misnomer when the privileged discriminate the poor, the corrupt accumulated wealth with unfair means, most women leave the warmth of the hearth to face the world, most men are scared to face reality and became insecure, most of the older is in dearth of morality and lacking selfrespect, most of the children and the youth are not conscious and ignore the virtue and maturity of the elderly people, most people cope with the pace of progress and lack the tolerance and preserverance of steady growth, most people want instant intoxication and disregard the older wine- fast money, fast information, fast food, fast life and ultimately fast death.

In the race for everything fast in the modern world, the technology is providing the best of information on everything that human craved for and there is not enough time to ponder in the past, not enough time to think of the present and not enough time to imagine for the future. Time is actually required to nurture relationship, time is required to earn trust and respect among fellow human being, time is required to grow from an infant to the young, from the young to the adult and age will take its own time to grow old and be wise. In the olden days young men visited different villages searching for an ideal match in a young woman, the woman will endeavour to familiarise with the man of her choice. The relationship is nurtured, the trust is cultivated, the faithfulness is imbibed, and love takes its natural course; the bond is strong and everlasting. On the otherhand nowadays people do not have time to nurture relationship or cultivate trust, because economic wellbeing overrides other aspects of human life where trust and faithfulness is absolutely nonexistent and replaced with doubt and suspicion. The relationship is just a pastime for furthering individual interest, safety and security. This kind of situation is also relevant with children and old people, where the adult will enjoy with them in happy times and abandoned them on the occasion of sickness and suffering; and such attitude will reciprocate in due course. Whereas, earlier the parents are giving sufficient time to their children and their grandparents for care and affection in whatever situation. Earlier, the children are the joy of the family, but now they are the tools for contribution in the household needs. The old people are bedtime storyteller for the children and a warmth in the family pin the past, but today they are an absolute burden to be abandoned or inmates of the old age homes.

Another family turmoil is the individual indulgence of the adult in extramarital affairs. It is a universal phenomena that the people could be attracted to each other and resorted to mutual and consensual romantic involvement irrespective of their marital status. It is also a social norm that prohibited and restrained such activities, which compelled them to carry on in a discreet manner. Generally, there are effort of self restrained by some people because of personal conscience and to prevent from social stigma. These type of natural behaviours that are conditioned by social norms are known facts in every society, and they might be imposed and regulated with the law to resolve dispute and conflict situation. These natural behaviours of people could be ascribed as the normal course of occurences like every animals and there is no stigma attached as long as the mind of people is not aware about such natural human behaviour. Everything became dreadful because the human mind thinks so, and the human mind that created the law to contain could not succeed however stringent it could be. The law will not be able to impose sanction on the natural stimulus; whatever is supposed to happen will happen regardless of human barriers or social obstruction. The most dreadful consequences of social interference in the simple course of human behaviour is the indiscriminate and excessive indulgence to what is generally term as promiscuity or even shameless prostitution and the crime of rape. It is in the human instinct that the more the prevention the more the occurence, the more the protection the more the intrusion, the more the stringent penalty the more the violation of extramarital affairs, rape,  prostitution and all sorts of social prohibitive offences.

The Khasi matrilineal system of clan habitation in demarcated settlement is a social convenience that was practiced since time immemorial. The personal and social conciousness in every human being about the attachment, affection and affinity of family composition within the clan will naturally deters any offences of indecent action among the clan members and actually there will be a communal mechanism of defence to safeguard the clan from undesireable intrusion of external forces. Without mentioning about taboo or stigma, the transgression is shunned and even if it could hardly occured out of exceptional circumstances like incest, there is already a condition of social excommunication to allow the natural forces of necessary and justified action. In the contemporary situation also, there are more cases of criminal offences in the cosmopolitan society than the communal settlement, even as the socalled civilisation is progressive. The Khasi culture of familiarity among the inhabitants within a cluster of settlement is a tradition that is absent in the cosmopolitan society. That is to understood that a familiar offender is safer than an innocent stranger because suspicion will never transpired in the human mind.

 THE CONGENIALITY AND SOLIDARITY IN KHASI SOCIETY

The congeniality among fellow human is one of the most important characters of personal conduct and social behaviour. In the Khasi context, the strange person from one territory that appears in front of another person or hang around in a gathering of a particular territory must be introduced with the pleasant gesture usually accompanied with a greeting smile and oral enquiry about the identity. Then the subsequent query is about the clan to look into any probable kinship and to facilitate and strengthen the relationship. The oral mass communication is a habit of every individual and a custom of the community and a culture of the society. In this regard, the stern, arrogant, reserved and introvert person is compelled to intermingle with the community and change the behavioural pattern of an individual and cultivate solidarity among the community. This culture is also applicable to strangers from various communities. The eye contact is always followed by greeting gesture and communication. This could be the universal and modern civilised behaviour among the elite section of the society in the private enclosure, which will not be compatible in public spaces; but in Khasi culture it is mandatory even in public space and in isolated and remote rural areas of the region. It may not be so in the urban society because of the intercultural attitudes, but for the rural Khasi folks it is compulsory to communicate with strangers in the secluded atmosphere and ensure safety of the passersby. Therefore, every section of the society is familiar with each and every person from across several villages in varied distances within the province or alongside the adjacent territories if not in the entire region.

The emergence of trade with other communities has further increase the familiarity and solidarity among the people of the entire region and the liberal nature of the Khasi community prevailed throughout the length and breadth of the continent. There are oral narratives that the Khasi people traveled and inhabited in various clusters along the Himalayan ranges to the plains of Bengal, from the Persian deserts to the Burmese terrains. Moreover, there are Khasi folklore with the mention of the Khasi term of 'Shi Lyngka' or Sri Lanka and the 'Makashang' or Himalayas, the Angkor Vat and the Patsha which have not been deciphered and substantiated. The Khasi word 'Shi Lyngka' literally means a single digging with an iron bar; 'Makashang' literally means dangerous to tread; Angkor Vat could be speculated to refer to 'Bat Akor' literally means to abide by social ethic in Khasi language; 'Patsha' in Khasi literally means the emperor, which might refered to kings and emperors of the Indian subcontinent. Within the Khasi territory the Sohpetbneng peak where the Khasi mythology related about the genesis of mankind, there was scientific excavation and exploration works that established the human civilisation and in the vicinity there is a Khasi village 'Sumer' conceivably might have some links with Sumerian civilisation if proper research is conducted. In the periphery of the present Khasi territory, the Guwahati city has a local oral information that it is the erstwhile 'Guwa'  betel nut and 'hati' market of Khasi region, the Sylhet district of Bangladesh is actually Shella town in Khasi region and 'Hat' is market or 'Shellahat' which over the time it became Sylhet. One of the most significant tradition of the Khasi community is the extensive erection of monoliths, which is the vibrant cultural heritage that have traces of migration in certain tribes of Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland, Chotanagpur and possibly the incredible theory of the stone erection cultures across the globe, like the Stonehenge in England, the Callanish stones of Scotland, the Greek menhirs and dolmens and several other stone cultures of the world.

The stone culture of the Khasi community is profoundly associated with the matrilineal system. The composition of ceremonial stone megaliths are essentially of the particular clan and the standing stone is associated with the uncle and nephews or male stones and the flat slab stone is the mother or female stone. The ossuaries are exclusively associated with matrilineal linage and the initial identity of each ossuary is with the original ancestress and continued the deposit of all the bones of the maternal descendants in the same ossuary, and every ossuary belonged absolutely to a particular clan. The cluster of ossuaries of various clans are usually located in the same location and this can be assumed that even after death, congeniality and solidarity is always maintained in Khasi matrilineal society.

In the ancient Khasi matrilineal custom married couples always maintained truthfulness in their relationship, so much so that any man might have been attracted to another woman at the different village and wishes to engage in relationship or by mistake could have already been engaged in relationship without the knowledge of his original spouse. Such a person is duty bound to inform his wife about what had happened and the wife might allow him to carry on and might resented depending upon the personal feeling. If she does not have any objection the man has to undergo through a cleansing process so as to avoid contamination or adulteration, which means that simultaneous relationship is never entertained; and if she protest then the necessary formality of divorce must be executed and proclaimed publicly. In both cases the woman may avail her freedom of choosing another man if she so desired or remained single without any interference from any quarters. On the other hand if the woman happened to have been affectionate or involved with another man in the prolonged absence of her spouse, she must inform her husband if the relationship should continue as usual or ceases to continue any longer, where necessary formalities of cleansing or divorce should take place. The man also may choose to start a new life if he so desired unless there are family negotiation to sort out the complication. However, in reality there are far more possibility of men involving in such incidents than women because by nature women are generally more devoted to her husband and less vulnerable to such cases because she is always in the vicinity of her homestead; and men are more susceptible to such situation because he always traveled far and wide and meet different types of people. This is the reason why the Khasi are phrased the 'man of twelve flags'. Therefore, any accidental or intentional occurence of probable variance between any couple is transparent and does not affect the social congeniality. Moreover, there is hardly any chances of cheating, deception or seduction because everything could be apparent. Further, there are also exceptional instances of mismatch in the reproduction process of the married couple, where either of the spouses are sterile and there could be mutual arrangement of substitute by any trustworthy person for reproduction, while the relationship is resumed thereafter and the foundation of matrilineal lineage is abided in all respect. Hence if the man is sterile, he may engage an alternative arrangement for his wife if he is comfortable, but if the woman is barren they can adopt any maternal cousin sister or the man may be mutually allowed to separate and marry another woman depending on his choice. In such cases also the social congeniality and solidarity will always prevailed in every situation.

 THE REALITY OF THE MODERN SOCIETY

The contemporary social situation is hardly truthful and the current reality is that it might not be possible or compatible with the temperament of the people in the modern society. Moreover, the constitutional law came in to force to contain every offence and penalty is rewarded to the culprit without counselling. It is a known fact that the legal system is an instrument for maintenance of law and order situation in the society through legal experts that are culpable to nepotism and corruption. These complications are not easy tasks to overcome by the citizens and favours is always with the rich and influential section of the society. Nevertheless, there are some good souls and rational people in the system that worked for universal justice of the people, even as they are in constant surveillance of certain wicked people. It is ordinary human nature to do something that will suits own interest and it is common human nature to want everything unlimited. There are social forces that can keep a watch on this and personal conscience that will sacrifice for the general wellbeing; but these are limited and always vulnerable to selfish motive of the individual person or group of people. The present situation that prevailed in the general mindset of the people demands the intervention of the law with the appropriate justice delivery system to the just or the guilty as they deserved. It is not feasible to romanticise the past when the present reality is different and it is not justified to ignore the virtue of the ancient knowledge that has brought about positive changes for the wellbeing of the society. The Khasi customs and practices are dynamic and could cope up and keep pace with the contemporary situation in the society. Therefore, the convergence of the ancient practice with the modern development should bring about an ideal mechanism for the effective civil management.

In the present situation the family composition of the married couple with their children is universally practicable and it might not be possible in the Khasi society that the man will remain in the core maternal family and lessen his responsibility on his children. Therefore, the present family set up prevailed with the sons and daughters being the legitimate custodian of family tradition and the parents are the supreme authority over their children. There are parents that stressed on responsibility for nurturing the upbringing of their children and anticipated dependence when they grow old; but the children when they are grown up usually engaged with their occupation and hardly have time for their children and old parents. In this way the grand parents and young grandchildren are upfront in their relationship with each other without the care and concern of the parents. On the otherhand, there are parents that reared their children like cattle and utilised their service for their selfish benefit without proper care and guidance. In this way there are more disparity in the transitional growth of human being in society. Moreover, the convenience, comfort and luxury offered by the affordable gadgets of digital technology has fascinated and diverted the communication system from the personal human touch to the social media link. In this manner, the young generation wandered in wilderness without any consultation and discussion, debate and argument during the transitional growth of each individual person in the society to understand properly about life.

The majority of the people of the Khasi community have followed the trend for modern lifestyle after the invasion of the British imperial supremacy and the subsequent influence of colonial culture and the conversion to Christianity coupled with the advanced of technology that has changed the entire global cultural landscape. The rapid progress of modern civilisation and deterioration of the ancient knowledge and tradition have manipulated the thought process of the people in the various aspects of education, healthcare, career, law, sciences, arts, entertainment and even culture. The education system is providing facilities for excellence of the career prospects in science and technology, law and economics, arts and entertainment, theology and psychology and other topics of humanities; but lacking in integrity and etiquette, compassion and spiritualism. The healthcare system emphasised in pharmaceutical and technological diagnosis; but deficient in service and dedication to the patients. All the career oriented faculties of various subjects are designed for commercial sustenance and economic stability; but ignoring or wanting in quality and merit of the individual and the subject matter. The corporate establishments have penetrated in every aspects of human development and capitalism overrides every essence of communism.

Christianity is one of the most instrumental entity that has professed compassion with political ideology and divide the Khasi community on religious sectarians. Further, the segregation of innumerable denominations within the Christian religious sects have fragmented the Khasi community to the extent that every minor denomination are in cohesion within their respective faithfuls, which included of diverse ethnic origins. Almost every Khasi Christian faithfuls are more compatible and intelligible with the fellow members of their respective denomination from another community than with their kinfolks. Nearly all the Christian denominations are under the patronage of foreign clergy and sponsorship leaving the entire Khasi clerical heirarchy and ordinary devotees as inferior congregation of believers. Actually, the entire tribal communities in the third world countries are being perceived as the deprived section of Christian communities that need the benevolence of the superior benefactors from the advanced countries. The majority of the Christian denominations are like the corporate employment avenues for certain simple tribal religious leaders to draw mass membership from the community within the particular flock. The various Christian religions are the offshoots of influential people that asserted male dominant traditions and institutional patriarchy; and together with the overwhelming global patriarchal culture, there are rigorous efforts by the majority of the prominent religious and secular leadership to lure the Khasi people to embrace the patriarchal system. The trend of male domination in the world is noticeable during the emergence of significant scientific and technological advancement in the sixteenth century onwards.

 THE ANCIENT FOLK METHOD VERSUS THE MODERN LEGAL PROCESS

Some of the manifestation of patriarchal notion are the proverbial discourses of great thoughts for mankind; the great philosopher Aristotle once said that the woman is a deformed man, the old testament of the Bible have a series of prominent male bastion starting with the obnoxious idea that the woman came out of the ribs of a man, Adam, then came Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Samson, David, Solomon, Isaac, Joseph, Jesus and all the authors of the gospels Marcus, Lucas, John and Mathew are all males; the Roman Catholic church have the supreme head in the Pope with the clerical heirarchy of male priests. Further, male chauvinism is apparent in the Bible, when Adam is portrayed as the innocent man tempted by Eve to commit a sin and it is written that Jesus never called Mary his mother, but a woman, just a means of giving birth to the son of God. The Islam religion and socio-cultural ambience is a male citadel; the Hindu sages and pundits are all males and other secular and religious institutions are the stronghold of the male person. The intention is not to ridicule the great works of philosophy and literature, but to understand the perspective of the actual situation in the society pertaining to the various aspects of human life from the essence of ancient mythology to the logic of modern technology. There are several elements of female icon and female role in the various religious and secular scriptures of ancient myths and legends, which are relevant with modern society. Through generations reverence have been given to the nature of the feminine in society in the form of idol, mother, priestess or simply a girl or woman. In every concept the feminine figure is the sphere of care and compassion and the masculine is the realm of defence and protection, which reflected that the inner emotion emerged out of the feminine and the outer temperament stimulated out of the masculine. Therefore, in Biblical stories the role of Eve, Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Miriam, Deborah, Ruth, Hannah, Esther and Mary the mother of Jesus is significant in every aspect of every man of their life in determining the social, cultural and political circumstances of the time, even in Islamic Quran it is the same but never mention their names except for Maryam the mother of Isa or Mary the mother of Jesus. Similarly, in Hindu tales of Mahabharata the feminine deities like Radha, Sita, Durga, Kali, Saraswati, Lakshmi have important roles in the social, cultural and political situation in each episode of their lives and times. Definitely, there are related stories of the feminine characters in every tradition that are instrumental in the social, cultural and political development of the respective community, even as the level of involvement may varies according to relevant situations. One thing is certain that the nature of the feminine and the masculine is the same in every culture, where the domestic matters are the responsibility of the women and all the other responsibilities belonged to the men; and that is why the physical space of the men is far more larger than that of the woman, whereas the other aspects of mental, emotional and spiritual spaces are intangible and could not be assessed in volume. In the contemporary context, it may be specified that the man may toil, earn and sacrifice to provide everything that the woman and children needs, but the woman may not literally earn anything tangible but she will toil and sacrifice everything that the man and children need for comfort and solace.

In the Khasi Matrilineal system the feminine is already the core of every maternal family and the custom has distinctly defined the role of women and men in society. The domestic matters are the domain of women under the custody of the mother, and all the external affairs outside the periphery of the domestic space are the responsibility of the men under the authority of the maternal uncle. If not for the misinterpretation of the British colonial officials, it is could be still functional because in practice it is relevant even in today's situation. Although, nowadays the men settled with their wives and children, they did earned the respect from their maternal family to a greater extent except for certain unfortunate circumstances. Some of the men usually lost their authority over their maternal family because of their irresponsible behaviour and conduct like negligence, alcoholism, promiscuous lifestyle, besides the misbehaviour of their youngest sisters over property disputes. Generally, the family structure are far more secured when the men assumed the authority of prevention and protection from external interference; while the self acquired authority of women are more vulnerable to interference by the unscrupulous inlaws and other vested interest. Therefore, it is essential to modify the Khasi customary law inherited from British legacy or restored to its original form whence the mother or youngest daughter are custodian of the family matters and the eldest uncle the authority to decide upon the concensus resolution of the family council over any issues in the maternal family. In the absence of any responsible maternal uncle, the father may excercise as the de facto authority or consultant in favour of the clan of his wife in matters pertaining to external interference; where effective outcome of such method has already prevailed on certain cases. The moot point is that women and men should work in tandem for domestic harmony, where women are found to be more efficient as the costodian of ancestral family integrity and property, while men are proven to be more effective in the role of defence in favour of the integrity and property of the ancestral family. All the brothers and sisters in the maternal family must be active to intervene on any attempt to disrupt the harmony in the family or the clan even if is required for consultation with the reliable family member of a different clan to resolve amicably, rather than the engagement of legal expert.

There are instances of amicable resolution of family or clan disputes by the trustworthy elderly relatives with social integrity instead of legal settlement that may devastate the veracity of the particular family or clan. Therefore legal settlement is for immediate resolution with doubtful future relationship between the contending parties, whereas ancient wisdom is for gradual resolution with certainity of prolonged and consistent rapport in the family, clan and society.

 THE CORE OF SURVIVAL AND DELIVERANCE

Every culture germinates, grows, blossoms, matures, and is applicable, suitable and relevant to a particular community that emerged and taken shape from the myths and legends of the respective community. Those cultural practices might conflict with another when they encountered in the society, especially through religious belief system. Therefore, tolerance, adaptability, coexistence and familiarity with the neighbouring community shall evolved a new form of cultural component that will blend on both cultures. However the sudden encounter with the culture from the strange place will face resistance and protest when the popular culture tried to dominate, impose and influence on another alien culture. The consequence is the social disparity and division among the community that was susceptible to the forces of the dominant culture. Christianity is one such dominant and popular culture that has created inequality and contradiction within the community. The life of Jesus Christ, the Bible and the missionary zeals of the earliest pioneers of Christianity have laid indelible impression on the mind of the majority of the people and captivated for several decades. The latter part of Christian faithfuls are following the legacy of the forebears, mocking the trend of popular religions and blind devotion without proper foundation.

The traditional believers of indigenous Khasi faith have diluted the essence of the belief system with the strategy of hatred and prejudice towards Christianity, and the counter approach of conversion and defamatory remarks against the Khasi indigenous faith by the Khasi Christian faithful have degenerated the spirit of the religious ideals. Although Hindu and Muslim religions prevailed in certain segments of the Khasi community, there is neglegible impact as compared to the overwhelming conversion to Christianity. However, it may not be taken lightly because the marginalised Khasi indigenous faithfuls found solace in the rigorous intervention of Hinduism, where many elements of adaptation and merger are discovered in the Khasi indigenous faith. On the other hand the undercurrent of aggressive conversion method of the Islam religion could not be ignored as well. In the larger context, there are theories of social studies which revealed that the Aryan populace will reach the foothills of the Himalayas in few centuries, and the indication is already evident in this generation. The population trends and demographic imbalance are the gradual indicators to the hypothesis and the assimilation process is particularly alarming among the Khasi community. The Khasi ethnic identity is liable to be submerged with any dominant communities, which represented the various religious institutions and there is no political mechanism to contain the menace of influx. The constitutional apparatus provided by the government of India for protection of the fundamental rights of the indigenous people was represented by politicians, who are more concerned about their career than the welfare of the community. The Khasi traditional institutions are swamped in corruption and nepotism, with the chieftain and the council of nobles are pawns of the government bureaucracy while the major ethnic cultural festivals are exotic tourism potential for revenue generation. The traditional market meant for genuine indigenous citizens for merchandising the local products, became the engine of economic prosperity for merchants and traditional institutions; while the authority of the nobles were denigrated to that of the middlemen of wealthy merchants. The forest resources including sacred groves were swindled by timber merchants in connivance with the traditional elders. Every cultural resources were converted to economic reserve for sustainability of the traditional institutions and opulence of the traditional elders, leaving aside or at the cost of the wellbeing of the community.

Hence, corruption is the root of all evils in society and organised religious or secular institutions are not adverse to fraud and misappropriation of fund to go well with personal aspirations. Primarily, the economic position defined the social status of the person in the clan or the community. In the Christian ceremony for social occasions some Khasi people observed the traditional custom, while others ignored or are not aware at all. The marital engagement or marriage ceremony is usually initiated by the maternal uncle for any negotiation or mediation with the civil authority or with the religious institutions, even in the Khasi Christian tradition. However, there are factors that determined the role of the father is more appropriate in the Christian ceremony and generally depends on the particular family, even as the change from the maternal uncle to the father is imminent. The baptism of new born child in the Christian tradition is also the responsibility of the parents and the maternal uncle could be the guest. The formalities for the death ceremony is also taken over by the children instead of the nephews and nieces. Essentially, the traditional role of the maternal uncle is relieved with the taking over charge by the father. Earlier the men have more affinity to the nephews and nieces of the maternal clan, but now the father is closer to the children even when they do care for the nephews and nieces. Nevertheless, the evolving customs is coping with the contemporary situation and keep pace with the change, while the matrilineal system is intact and abided in all respects.

The social changes are natural process that occurred in every society and the tendency of the imposition of dominant cultures in to the minor communities are human nature that could not be controlled for all practical purposes. However, there are certain communities that could sustained their ethnic identity in spite of consistent pressure, because they strongly abided by their traditional cultures based on folklore. The best examples are the Isreal and the Bhutanese with their diverse situation in the regular encounter with the surrounding communities. The Isrealis have travelled the world over and endeavour to excel in their works and struggled to survive, inspite of rigorous attempted discrimination, hegemony and genocide by the dominant races, because they are rooted in their culture based on their myths and legends, even as they are superior in the advancement of science and technology. The Bhutanese confined themselves within their communities and tolerated with the ancient system of survival within the country, even as they catch up with the world outside the boundary of their nation and they are relevant in every aspect of human and social development. The history of the Khasi community with the strategic location in the region, coupled with the trend of social upheaval is susceptible to assimilation by the dominant communities from elsewhere in the country. The Hindu, Islam or Christian religions and the patriarchal system will not be able to salvage the situation to save the ethnic Khasi identity; and the only strategy to survive against the forces of religion and modern civilisation is the ability to realise that the myths and legends, folklore and the matrilineal system are the core of existence and salvation for the Khasi community.

THE ENDEAVOUR FOR SURVIVAL AND SUSTENANCE

The present geographical area of Meghalaya is surrounded by State of Assam in the entire Northern, and Eastern region and by Bangladesh in the South and Western region, in which both the territories are in constant intrusion by the migrants and immigrants; and even the Garo brethren in the State allegedly encroached in to the Khasi land. Since the inception of the State in 1972, there has been regular conflicts regarding boundary disputes. After the partition of India, the Khasi land is divided in to two separate countries, India and the erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, which on both countries it is being intruded by the dominant communities allegedly at the behest the state administrative machineries. The large stretch of certain portion of Khasi land in the adjacent border of India and Bangladesh consisted of the areca nut and betel leaf groves which is being cultivated for centuries and contributed substantially to the economy of both the countries and there is hardly any other communities attached to the particular jungle farming profession. The rest of the land are vast plain and contour fields for agriculture, dense forest and some patches of human habitats. The Khasi land is shrinking day by day, the Khasi community assimilated easily with other dominant communities; and the day will not be far when everything will be merged with the mainland India, if awakening is happening soon.

The demography situation in India is a matter of concern for the minority communities of Northeast India and the most deprived are the indigenous communities of Tripra, besides those from the mainland. Shillong, being the capital of erstwhile British colonial administration, then the composite State of Assam and now Meghalaya had undergone transitional changes and became the cosmopolitan hub of every ethnic communities of India. In spite of the fact that India and China are the countries with the largest population in the world, the influx to the remotest region of Northeast India is being protected by the isolation, the himalayan range and the partition of the Indian subcontinent. The population of Meghalaya is almost equivalent to the ordinary city in the mainland India. Nevertheless, the Khasi community has survived for many decades, but the trend is alarming because the demographic imbalance is reaching outrageous proportion. According to the Indian census of 2011, the population of indigenous Khasi community is only forteen lacs as compared to the total of thirty five lacs people in the entire State. On the otherhand, it is surprising to know that the Khasi community in Bangladesh is hardly assimilated with the Muslim population and settled in the enclosed cluster among themselves, even as many of them became educated and mixed with the mainland people in every aspect of social communication. The similar situation is happening in the various clusters in other parts of the Northeast India, the Khasi community settled among themselves and the educated also barely combined with the other surrounding communities in social occasions. There are pockets of Khasi community in the Barak valley of Assam, in Tripra, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram and almost all of them are engaged in the cultivation of areca nut and betel leaf.

The Khasi society in all the clusters of the Northeast India and in Bangladesh are united as the community, whereas in Meghalaya there are disparity in the religious belief system, economic condition and educational status. The major division among the Khasi community in Meghalaya is the religious belief system. Christianity has penetrated to the remote territories and segregate themselves from the original inhabitants; and in almost every rural villages there are two segment of settlement based on religion, the original people of indigenous faith and the Christian converts sections. The influence of Christian tradition along with the modern lifestyle is more pronounced in the urban cities. The resistance movement of Khasi people belonging to the indigenous faith against the spread of Christianity since 1897 rooted in Shillong city and formulated an organised socio-cultural institution, Seng Khasi and in the course of time, certain elements of the modern method of congregation is being practiced to propagate the indigenous faith. However, in the rural areas the indigenous faith is never displayed in the public domain except during certain cultural ceremonies and festivals. Therefore the congregation of the Khasi indigenous faithfuls with chanting of traditional songs is almost synonimous to the church service with hymn singing of Christianity as if to make their presence felt in the society and attract others in to their fold. The fascination for modern social apparatus and the sleek appearance of the British people are the natural appeal for everybody, which they wanted to imitate. The charm of colonial hangover is still prevalent even today and people cherished the legacy of the destroyer of their cultural resources.

The reality of life in the present generation of the Khasi community is that everybody should learn about history, about the myths and legends, about the proverbs and prophecy of the ancestral knowledge and wisdom. It is alright to know and avail the tremendous output of science and technology, computer and electronics, commerce and economics, glamour and entertainment as long as one is not obsessed with all that superficial properties and ignore the essential knowledge from the abstract messages depicted through the wisdom of the forebears. The limited human desire for personal satisfaction should be extended to the collective vision for communal sustenance. The quest for vital and enormous information to attain excellence in the private domain should be expanded to the search for inherent and sufficient knowledge to sustain in the vast horizon. The endeavour to accumulate excessive wealth for individual possession should be developed to the effort to toil for vibrant and resourceful prospects for public consumption. Above all, the need for exclusive ownership of tradition should be enlarged to the inclusive rights of humanity. The Khasi myth on the genesis of mankind is the benchmark of human evolution, social communication and cultural identity. It is alright for human to travel and search for shelter, food and clothing in the vicinity of another settlement of the different society and cultivate harmony than to snatch away from somebody all the necessity and accumulated more than the requirement and confronted with the neighbours. The advantage of harmonious cohabitation is greater than the intellectual and physical prowess for greed.

 THE FAULTY BRITISH LAW ON KHASI CUSTOM

It is human nature to want everything and plenty is never enough of immeasurable extent. It is human nature to choose anybody and deprive somebody and the balance of communal ownership never occurs in the human mind. Therefore, the need for social norm arises, the neccessity of legal mechanism demands for justified distribution of human wants in the society. Prior to the British invasion there are regular turmoil in the society and tribal conflict for territorial supremacy prevailed consecutively without coherence. There are certain mechanism in the form of belief system that facilitate to contain the counter arguments of different segments in the particular territory. The ancient justice delivery proceedure is based on those belief system and there is hardly any mischievous sheme to devastate the system. The temporal awareness and the spiritual knowledge are working in tandem through the belief system and it was effective and relevant during those times. In the course of time the human intelligence operated in a subjective manner, even as there is a social instrument for objective functions of customary law. The intrusion of the British imperialism is one of the major social disaster that has changed the course of human thought process. The chieftain of Nongkhlaw province, Syiem Tirot Sing would not have imagined that there are certain human being on earth that are capable of defying the solemn oath of licking salt from the sword, because it had never happened in any encounter among the tribal communities. The word is a sacred covenant that even the enemies are liable to be trusted and this culture of human integrity is being honoured for generations. However the shameless and socalled civilised people of the British empire dared to act in a barbaric and cruel manner; and thereby changed the conduct and behaviour of the simple tribal people of the entire region through their vicious strategies for ruthless invasion. Although, the conduct and behaviour of the Khasi people are compelled to change because of the cunningness of the immigrants, but their character and integrity is intact; and even today many of the elderly person are frank and simple in nature.

When the British colonial rule came to an end, they handed over to another set of clever community from the mainland to execute the civil administration, even as the patriotic temperament and rational approach of the central leaders are in favour of protection of the fundamental rights of the people. The Khasi traditional chieftains was forced to sign the Instrument of Accession and the Standstill Agreement under duress. These constitutional documents were inferred to recognise that the Khasi states are independent and acceed to India on certain conditions; however, the smart administrative officials failed to comprehend the principle of Khasi democracy that the Khasi chieftain will not be able to decide on behalf of the citizens without the endorsement of the council of nobles, which have the chain of command with representatives from the grassroot level. Prior to Constituent Assembly and the inception of the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution of India, there was a federal government under the Federation of Khasi States, but it was trampled upon by the Indian government and made the Khasi states as the districts under the State of Assam. Thereafter, there was constitutional protection of the Khasi states under the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution of India, whereby the Autonomous District Councils were established. The United Khasi and Jaitia Hills Autonomous District Council and Garo Hills Autonomous District Council were incorporated for the traditional institutions and was elected by adult franchise for protection of the cultural heritage and resources of the Khasi and Garo communities. The United Khasi and Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council was later bifurcated to separate the Khasi Hills from the Jaintia Hills districts for administrative convenience. Hence, the foremost duty of the Autonomous District Councils is to enact the traditional laws and codify the customary laws.

Unfortunately all the laws enacted by the Autonomous District Council were documented and archived by the British colonial rulers and consequently inherited from the Assam Government, while the codification of customary laws are yet to be executed, except for certain modification or amendment of existing laws. There is a need to amend certain laws enacted by the British to be modified and interpreted in the original Khasi customs and practices. Some of the most vital modifications is to be stated that the youngest daughter should be read the last daughter of the maternal choice; the role of inheritance should ber termed the custodian of family properties; the definition of property should be clearly defined as both tangible and intangible properties instead of just material possessions; and the role of the eldest maternal uncle should be revived as the authority over the implementation of the resolution passed by the family council. These proposed modifications to be amended in the act could be further elaborated as follows with valid arguments:

The British interpretation of the youngest daughter was literal, but in the actual Khasi custom she should be the last daughter to remain in the core family and not necessarily the youngest, even as convention always goes with the youngest daughter. The reason that she should be the last daughter to remain in the core family is because the mother in consultation with her eldest brother or the maternal uncle will decide on the most obedient and suitable daughter or niece, which will be the most legible person to take over the custody of family properties after the demise of the mother. However, with the faulty law enacted by the British, every youngest daughter claimed ownership of every ancestral possession and derided the authority of the maternal uncle and ignored all the family members after the demise of the mother. One of the most ridiculous occurrences, which is frequently happening is that the youngest daughter could be pampered by the parents and might indulged in socially objectionable activities away from the family, while the other brothers and sisters are taking care of family properties including the ailing parents. Contrarily, on the demise of the mother the youngest daughter would pretended like a remorseful child and subsequently staked claim of all family possessions and neglected all her family members, because the law made by the British defended her action and offended all other members of the family.

 THE LEGAL PROVISION FOR THE WELFARE OF THE COMMUNITY

The family properties in the Khasi context is not only the material possessions of land, valuables like costumes and jewelleries or any other agriculture and occupational equipments and implements; but included the care and custody of the deprived members of the core family like the deranged mother and maternal uncles or sisters and brothers due to any misfortune, or the orphans on the demise of their mother. It does not include the children of brothers or uncles because they will be taken care by their respective maternal family members.

The British law on Khasi customs had totally ignored the traditional authority of the maternal uncle over the family properties which included both tangible and intangible properties. Any of the legible senior maternal uncle should be empowered to assume authority in the decision making process of the family council. He should execute his power according to the family consensus and would not be allowed to decide or implement any maternal family matter at his own disposal. The definition of British law on Khasi customs are faulty and the oral culture prevailed that most Khasi families entrusted on the maternal uncle for every responsibility within the maternal family and the clan. Due to the defective British law that the youngest daughter claimed every ancestral possession and prompted certain instances that the maternal uncle also misappropriate and misuse his authority on ancestral or clan possessions.

The constitutional provisions under the Sixth Scedule to the Constitution of India have already structured that in the case of any conflict between the State laws and the laws of the Autonomous District Council, the State laws shall prevailed and automatically override the laws of the Autonomous District Council. In the present situation the Autonomous District Council should be more proactive to enact laws or amend the existing laws in the true spirit of Khasi customs and usages, otherwise the indigenous Khasi community will be compelled to comply with the legal process prevailing in the State and the country. As far as the Khasi community is concerned, the cultural identity has its roots in the ethnic clan kinship (Kur), the ethnic language (Ktien Kmie) and the ethnic land (Khyndew) management system. The other tangible paraphernalia of ethnic culture, like the folk costumes, the folk music and dance performances, the traditional food and liquors, folk festivals and ceremonies, folk agricultural and structural technology are the additional elements to reinforce the authentic character of the community. In the Khasi creation myth, after the genesis of mankind on earth the seven huts or the seven clans settled in the vicinity of the Sohpetbneng peak in their respective seven cluster and communicated among themselves. Subsequently they interacted and encountered with each other in social relationship and reproduced, while the clan cluster is maintained separately in all respects. Thereafter, every clan expanded and spread across the surrounding land for twelve years journey, which signifies about the radial distance of approximately twelve miles from the nucleus of human genesis, the Sohpetbneng peak. This forms the initial segment of land of the Khasi people since the beginning of human settlement. Subsequently, the further expansion of the seven clans evolved with the growth of habitation of the diverse racial communities throughout the world.

The chronology of Khasi creation myth provided a sequence with the tangible landmarks on existence of celestial energy to the origin of the human race from the seven maternal families that descended from the golden vine on top of the Sohpetbneng peak, which literally means the heavenly umbilical cord. The initial creation of the five elements- the sun, moon, air, water and fire as the source of energy and the earth as the existing solid mass and space are universal in every culture; but the heavenly umbilical cord or the celestial navel- the Sohpetbneng peak is a specific concept of Khasi myth, which is existing and has archeological traces of human habitation and ancient civilisation. The umbilical cord is the source of the divine human soul, the earth is the source of the mortal human body and the spirit is the source of the independent human emotion. The umbilical cord of every mother is the source of human soul that passed through to the embryo of the infant in her womb, which is being nourished and developed for ten lunar months until it is riped and matured enough for giving birth in to the world. Then the navel of the new born infant is detached to provide an independent life under the care and further nourishment of the mother until he or she is capable of endurance on his or her own effort. This is the universal human reproduction process that is relevant throughout the entire human race, which established that every soul is in constant affinity with the mother from every perspective.

Therefore the laws that the Autonomous District Council shall codify or enact should be emphasised on matters that are related with the clan kinship, the language and the land, which are the vital conditions of the Khasi national identity. The ethnic cultural attribute is required to be sustained in the maternal clan kinship to apprehend the probable intrusion of the modern perception and invasion of dominant cultures of the other communities. The economic prospect of every family is neccessary that it facilitated to be retained within the community, to prevent any seepage of benefits to communities other than the Khasi community. The law could impose certain provisions to the Khasi community that any social transaction with communities other than the Khasi community shall be liable to scrutiny and punitive action by the authority. The traditional properties could be registered, monitored and reserved for community purposes to be defined specifically by the authority without external control and interference whatsoever. The contents of the legal documents including the judicial proceedings and the definition of every provision of the law could be prepared in Khasi or bilingual languages of Khasi and English, where legal binding will be considered on the Khasi version, while the English version will serve as supplementary documents for other communication with legal counsel or the State authority. These are suggestions on the the modalities to safeguard the ethnic identity of the Khasi community, where actual involvement of experienced and learned legal experts is essential to frame and promulgate as and when necessary.

THE ISOLATION OF MATRILINEAL SOCIETY

The law is needed because the mindset of the local people has changed since the contamination of shameless lie, deception, hypocrisy and several such pretentious conduct and behaviour being taught by the socalled advanced and civilised people from the west, initially led by the British colonial rulers. They assumed that the tribal people of the North Eastern region of India are barbarians, cannibals, stupid and believers of witchcraft; without any attempt of tolerance and compassion that they have learned from the Bible. They intimidated on the resistance of the enlightened and responsible local leaders head on and at the backyard they sent the Welsh missionaries to captivate the sentiment of the weak, simple and fragile mind of few men, women and children. With the strategy of treachery followed with the sword at the neck and Bible on the lap, they brashly invaded the region, but not without a heavy casualty of British commanders and Indian sepoys. When the British chivalrous merceneries finish the loot, they left and leave the legacy of crippled laws that the present heirs of civil administration are bound to fiddle in bewilderment. Perhaps, it is never too late to reform and realised the virtues of indigenous knowledge and wisdom of the forebears. One of the fundamental legacies of ancient wisdom is the tradition of matrilineal clan lineage.

There are similar situation elsewhere in the world about the sustainabilty of the matrilineal system, in spite of the brazen influence and imposition of the patriarchal system from all around near and far. The Khasi and Garo communities in India and Bangladesh have been able to retain the vibrant tradition could be due to the isolation of the region from the mainland. However, the Nair of Kerela, the Bunts bad Billava communities of Karnataka in the South India mainland have already converted to patriarchal system. In Indonesia bad West Sumatra, the Minangkabau are the devout followers of Islam, but strangely abided by the matrilineal system with zeal and fervour, while nearby in Malaysia the Negeri Sembilan already adopted the patriarchal system. In the American subcontinent the Gitksan community is practicing the matrilineal system, while the Cherokee, Choctaw, Haida, Hopi, Iroquois, Lenape, Navajo, Tlingit including the Kuna community of Panama have already converted to patriarchal system. The matrilineal system is strongly prvalent with the Musuo community in South China, the Akan, Ashanti and Tuareg communities of Africa, the Serer community of Senegal, Gambia and  Mauritania. There is a peculiar situation in Sri Lanka where the Islamic Sufi shaykh and the Tamil communities are strictly following the matrilineal system. There are several communities in Isreal also that are dedicated to the ancient matrilineal system. The pressure of patriarchal system upon the people has given rise to many factors of male chauvinism. Some of the weird customs that are usually prevalent in the region and elsewhere in the country among the communities other than the Khasi community are that the woman is supposed to cook but should not taste or eat anything before she serves the man even if it is the mother or even if the man arrives home after midnight; women are supposed to wash the feet of the man every evening after he returned from work; woman is supposed to remain indoor after marriage and should never look in the eye of another man even if it is the brother-in-law, and many such customs.

In the Khasi culture there is a sense of respect that the householder, usually the mother, sisters or the spouse to slice the top layer of the cooked rice and kept aside in a plate for the bread earner before the family members eat their meal, and the bread earner could be a husband or brother, uncle or father, even whether a man or a woman. The head of the maternal family is always preferred by the eldest uncle or any legible male member unless there is none that the woman could be the head of the family. It is surprising to note that some reputed media reports stated that the woman and youngest daughter is the head of the family in Khasi society, which is totally false and baseless; because they were mistaken and could not distinguish between matrilineal and matriarchal.

Another factor that the male oriented process is being imposed upon every society across the world is that the entire members of the family is taken for granted that it should bear the same surname obviouly of the father as the head of the family, which is not relevant in any of the matrilineal society in the world. For instance, the documents in educational institutions, in career and employment establishments, or the passport and any such important testimonials is considered standard and systematic to bear the uniform title of the male head in the family. In this regard, there are also some empowered married women in the patriarchal society, particularly those with celebrity status who are keen to retained their original name without the surname of the husband, are more than often argued vehemently by the male counterpart as if it is the birthright. In the patriarchal society there are many women who were forced to shut their mouth on these issues, not only by the husband or father, but by the society or the system. However, in the matrilineal society, it is a proud privileged to keep the surname of the mother for all the male and female children. Significantly, in the Khasi matrilineal society, it is not a mere taken or given the surname of the female or the mother, but it is specifically considered literally from the umbilical cord inside the womb of the mother. In the Khasi matrilineal system even child adoption should be within the clan, preferably the children of the sister or the female kinsfolk. This is the reason that in the Khasi matrilineal system, there is never ever anybody young or old to beg for alms, even today there is hardly any beggar of the Khasi community.

In spite of all these virtues of the matrilineal system, it is still isolated in this world of man literally the man's world as someone says. Nevertheless, the more the solitude the better the sustenance of the matrilineal societies of the world. It is heartening to know that the Minangkabao settled in the mainland of Indonesia and professed the Islamic faith, but religiously abided by the matrilineal system until now. It is not certain for how long will the matrilineal system of the Khasi community will survived, because majority of the most influential families, the Anglo Khasi families and certain groups of the elite section of the society are vigorously endeavour for a change to the patriarchal system, even as it is vibrant until the present moment.

 THE BRITISH SUBJUGATION OF KHASI TERRITORY

The matrilineal system is the unique culture and the most ideal method of family ancestry among the human being. It was proven once upon a time in the ancient past, it is the divine process of hereditary in the human race that has stood the test of time, despite the consistent and aggressive influence of patriarchy. It shall remain and flourish once again in the world as the social cleansing instrument and cultural enlightenment to purify the biological nature of the entire human race. It is there in the subconscious mind of every human being, particularly male even as men rule the world over. Every male human is always reminded that their mother keeps the warmth of the hearth at the bosom her heart. The essence of matrilineal inheritance is reflected in every branch of social, cultural and scientific studies. In language studies and linguistics,  anthropology, ethnography, biology, geology, philosophy, psychology, studies of mankind, society, races and humanities, mother is essential; in mysticism and fantasy, cyber and digital technology, earth and space sciences the mother is the core of every conception and fundamental learning process. But most men ignored this bare fact and visible truth of life- What makes a man?

The initial encounter of the Khasi community with other communities was in the barter market on the border and during the conflict situation among men of both sides over various issues. There is a democratic principle in the Khasi concept of administration on the land with distinct cultural landmarks of boundary pillars with megaliths of the respective clan. These megaliths are always erected at the patches of groves believed to be the abode of the spirits and by the natural course of the river or the contour of land and natural depression the boundary of erected stones are marked. The territory is always marked with such ancient method to differentiate between the provinces or Hima in Khasi. Every province is demarcated with the trench of natural depression and river course authenticated with the boundary stone pillars and it is considered taboo to intrude across these barriers. In the olden days, when there is plenty of vacant land the people of another communities are engaged in farming activities and settlement with stringent political administration. The people of the different Khasi clans of every province are considered the citizens with equal legitimate rights among  the chieftain, the nobles and the ordinary person in the community, while the inhabitants from another communities are counted as the subjects with certain privileges in the principle of natural justice. The Khasi egalitarian theory of communism allowed every human being to avail the resources from nature through the process of administration being represented by any family head in the grassroot level. The oral history narrated that the Karbi community were driven away from their native land by the Ahom and Bodo Kachari kings and sought protection from the Khasi chieftain of Hima Shyllong. The council of the chieftain and the nobles agreed to provide rehabilitation to the Karbi community and earmarked certain territories for habitation and sustenance while they were under the supervision of the noble known as Basan in Khasi. The tradition of paying tribute to the Khasi chieftain is being observed until the present generation during the annual harvest festival and ceremony of the province or Hima hosted by the royal family, now at the sacred royal home of Hima Khyrim at Smit village. The festival and ceremony is popularly known today as the Nongkrem festival. The respective noble or Basan would leads the contingent of Karbi traditional heads and the priests known as Bongthai in Karbi language and the term is adopted in the Khasi terminology; they would march together before the chieftain and nobles for making the offering of farming products including the goats for the performance of the ceremony of prosperity and wellbeing. The council of chieftain and nobles will always appraise and instruct the Karbi subjects within the provincial territory to safeguard the border and should never encroached to the adjacent land of the other communities even if it was among the fellow Karbi community. It is considered a sacrilege to either encroach in to someone else territory or to allow somebody to intrude in to the territory of the province or Hima.

In the provincial democratic administration, there was influence from the neighbouring culture of the Ahom and the Bangla aristocracy and their Hindu religion had significantly manifested the caste system. The kings and the royal clan are the feudal lordship over the subjects, even as the warrior caste and the trading caste are bestowed with certain privileges. One of the most powerful and prominent chieftain of the Khasi provinces is the chieftain of Sutnga province. There are oral historical narratives bout the clashes of the Sutnga chieftain with the adjacent territories including the Khasi provinces. Before the advent of British invasion, the Sutnga chieftain invaded the Jayanta or Jaintia parganas in the Bangla territory, which subjugated the Bangali community and commanded to pay homage to the Sutnga chieftain that was honoured as the Jaintia king. Although the practice is against the essence of Khasi democracy, the Sutnga chieftain assumed supremacy over the subjects and avail the privilege of a feudal lord. However, the Bangali brahmins are clever and influenced the Sutnga chieftain with Hindu religion and later amalgamated with the indigenous faith of the Khasi Pnar community of Sutnga province. The Sutnga chieftain introduced Hindu rituals and ceremonies to the citizens and established a Hindu temple at Nartiang, and subsequently the functions of the associate priesthood locally known as Bamon is included in the indigenous ceremonies of other places like Raliang, Shangpung, Mukhla, Ïalong and Jowai. The associate priesthood of the Bamon could be the distorted derivation of brahman or brahmin from the Hindu tradition.

Unfortunately, after the British colonial supremacy, the position of the Sutnga chieftain was abolished and the Sutnga province was included as the Jayanta or Jaintia province of the erstwhile undivided Indian subcontinent. Immediately after the partition of India in 1947 the Jaintia Hills district became the British area along with the inhabitants in the Barak valley within the Assam province of India and the Jaintia parganas under the Sylhet province of East Pakistan and now Bangladesh. There are oral discourse that the status of the Jaintia or the Pnar chieftain was eliminated from the administrative council due to the violation of intrusion in to the foreign territory. Nevertheless, the subordinate power was elevated to the Doloi of the various segments of Jaintia territory for the dual responsibility of both religious and civil administration. The British subjugated provinces of the entire Khasi territory was liberated through the mutiny and peaceful national freedom movement for around one hundred years. The prophesy of the gallant Pnar warrior, Kiang Nangbah came true and the term Ka Ri Umsnam U Ñi U Kong and Ka Ri ki Laiphew Syiem Khatar Doloi was coined to refer to the fierce battle for freedom and the subsequent consistent and consequential resistance movement.

THE ESSENCE OF KHASI MATRILINEAL CUSTOM

Prior to the encounter with other tribal cultures in the neighbouring territories and before the onslaught of British occupation and influx of migrants together with the onset of formal education, the custom of tagging the surname along with the proper name was not there. The usual tradition of enquiry about the clan and the place of origin while addressing or simply calling the familiar or any strange fellow is common. Therefore, it is not very important to always refer the clan surname once it is known; however, in the modern context it became necessary to keep the clan surname after the proper name in casual or formal introduction of personal identity. Moreover, the modern system is very specific about the precise personal identification of the individual person to the minute details, and the advanced method of biometric detection is in the offing. It is a norm in any documentation process to indicate the specific credentials of personal identity and is customary to maintain the distinct specification in all respects. Further, there are clever strategy in social status recognition of personal identity with Anglicised discordance nomenclature and other discreet motives for individual convenience and interest. In this regard, there are social dissent and derision, which prompted legal regulatory provisions to be promulgated by the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council.

The reason about the alteration or modification of certain aspects of ethnic elements of culture for fulfilling the requirement in the modern system to suit personal aspirations or social concern is the lack of proper knowledge and entrenched understanding of the fundamental of Khasi clan kinship system. The ancestral mother or Ïawbei is the foundation of the inclusive maternal family structure of Khasi clan. The remnant of the bones after the cremation of the ancestral mother was the initial depository at the ossuary, and thereafter only the bones of the maternal descendants both male and female from the ancestral mother could be kept in the ossuary accompanied with clan rituals and ceremonies. When there is a clan that has prospered with widespread habitation or even those who have settled overseas to the extent of losing familiarity for generations, they are still considered of the same descend and prohibited for any proposal of marital relationship. It is important to know the clan kinship relation if the descendants are from the same ancestral mother and in the Khasi culture if such acquaintance occurred instantly there is a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. The young persons in their eligible age if there is mutual or part attraction between a male and a female, but it is customary to enquire the clan origin and the moment they knew of the kinship, they will involuntarily refrained and consider themselves as brother and sister. Hence in Khasi culture there is no love at first sight, unless they are certain of the clan affiliation. Furthermore, if two infants from different clans breastfed from one mother the sanctity of the occurence is considered as maternal relationship, but it remained only for the particular mother and her immediate descendants, which is not valid with other members of the ancestral mother.

For more clarity on this aspect, a case study could be elaborated in the story about the origin of the  War Nongjri clan. Once upon a time a plague broke out at  one isolated village where the entire inhabitants died, while a young female infant survived lying at the bosom of her mother. Soon after the tigress from the nearby jungle came about and heard the crying child and took her away to a safe place. The tigress is the spiritual guardian of the village and carry the child to the alcove of a giant fig tree, and took care the child. The hunting royal contingent happened to have roamed around the area and in a while one of the hunters heard the crying and giggling sound of a young human. He crawled towards the place and saw beneath the fig tree that the tigress was licking the body of the child, while she was sucking milk from the nipple of the tigress. Actually, the prince was an apprentice engaging in training to use the bow and arrows in hunting wild animals in the jungle. After awhile the man rushed to informed his group, then the young teenaged prince and his contingent went to witness the strange occurrence. After sometimes, the child went to sleep and the tigress left the alcove. When the situation appeared to be out of danger, the prince crawled to the alcove and took away the child. He ordered his troupe to pack up and return to the capital. The prince was escorted by his contingent while they saw that the tigress was trailing behind them until they reached the capital. As soon as they entered the courtyard of the sacred royal home, the queen mother was sitting in the porch breastfeeeding her young child. The young prince came forward told about the incident and handed over the girl child to his mother. Meanwhile, one of the elders felt the aura of the tigress moving in the royal courtyard and chants prayers to assure that the child was taken care by the royal family and after a while the tigress sensed that the queen mother breastfed the girl child also, and disappeared in the jungle. When the child have grown of age along with the royal siblings, the queen mother realised that one of the princes fall in love with the girl. She appraised and consulted the nobles regarding the situation, whom she knew that the girl child is considered as one of her children because they had been breastfed from her, although the clan of the girl child is not known. The royal family initiated the consecration of the new clan for the girl child and the augury confirmed the title of War Nongjri. Thereafter, the queen mother requested one of the nobles to send her away to another royal family in the Khasi province of Hima Nongkhlaw, because according to custom it is forbidden for any marital relationship among the children who breastfed from the same mother. The binding is between the newly consecrated War Nongjri clan and the royal descendants of the queen mother, but not with any of the descendants from her sisters. Therefore in the Khasi matrilineal custom, any strange child who had been breastfed from one mother are considered brothers and sisters with her legitimate children and thereby prohibited for marriage. In case of any inadvertent casual relationship also it is considered a taboo. Furthermore, the feline is considered sacred and would not be allowed to be harmed by any War Nongjri clan because the ancestress had been taken care and drank milk from the tigress. Hence, the bondage is not confined to human being but even other creatures also who could be involved in the similar situation. There are clan attachment with plants also where the clans are derived from certain plant and abstained from eating that particular plant; like the Pathaw clan are not allowed to consume pumpkin or the Nongsiej clan would stay away from bamboo shoot and so on and so forth.

 THE JOURNEY OF ETERNAL LIFE

The fundamental of every Khasi clans is laid upon the maternal ossuary. After the cremation of the original ancestral mother, the ossuary was set up in her memory and her incinerated bones was deposited initially. Thereafter at every demise of the decendants from her womb, their incinerated bones are to be deposited in the respective ossuary called Mawshyieng and later the ceremony will be held for the collective depository of the bones of the expired descendants in the original maternal ossuary called Mawbah. The incinerated bones of both the male and female offsprings from their respective mother are compulsory to be deposited in the original maternal ossuary with proper rituals and ceremonies of cleansing the bones of each and every deceased clan member. Therefore, the incinerated bones of those who were indulged in incestuous relationship are never allowed to deposit in the original maternal ossuary and considered a taboo. For the deceased clan member who died in accident of any situation of violence like murder or suicide, the incinerated bones are required to undergo through an elaborated cleansing process. Only the successful cleansing proceedure will be allowed to perform the rituals for the collective depository into the original maternal ossuary, otherwise their bones should remain in their personal receptacle. The living souls are confined to their respective original maternal home around the hearth as the source of knowledge about the generations of the forebears that had gone to the original maternal ossuary. The ceremony of collective depository of the incinerated bones of the departed souls is being performed at regular intervals depending upon the volume of the accumulation of the bereaved families of every clan. The impact of Christianity has deterred the customary practice of the ceremony and there are only few places that the ceremony are being performed. The Phur or the post cremation ceremony is being held regularly only in the Lamin village and at Nongjri and Sohbar villages in the southern terrains of the Khasi territory. During the past few decades there were certain clans who migrated from Jowai to Shillong and would observed the post cremation ceremony with religious fervour. The bereaved family used to carry the bones of the departed relatives in the cinerary earthen urns and walk on foot all the way to Jowai for the solemn ceremony. The contingent of clan members walked in groups of the respective clans and performed chants and mourning music as tribute to the departed soul and before crossing any stream or river, they would connect a string from one edge to the other to faciltate the smooth journey for the spirit of the departed soul until they reached the location of the maternal ossuary for all the necessary rituals and ceremonies.

The elaborated Phur ceremonies is being performed regularly at Lamin village every alternate year and the Sohbar and Nongjri villages have consecutive observation and performances of the Phur ceremony. One of the most interesting aspect of the Phur ceremony at Lamin village is the traditional storytelling session (chohnyio) at night where one of the eldest and most knowledgeable persons of any clan would narrate the story of the recent incidents in the clan and expanded to the chronology of events in the village with the significant episodes as it traced to the past memories and connected with the myths and legends of the community. Simultaneously, the other old person in the session would intervened if there is any break in the sequence of the events and sought the concurrence of the group to take over the narration. In this way every listener in the session would recalled the memory and try to authenticate the local history as it ascended into the ancient past. It is almost like a storytelling competition of the oldest people of the village which usually lasts till dawn in the next day. In the Phur Nongjri and Sohbar, the most interesting part is the role of the priest who is required to sacrifice his mortal being and abdicated from all social interaction for a certain period preceeding the ceremony. During the lent period the priest is devoted to the spiritual observation and performances dedicated to the wellbeing of the departed souls. He may moves around in the village and facilitate the formalities for the ceremony but refrained from any conversation and physical contact with the living persons including his immediate family members. Usually, he is confined to the sacred home of the priest clan and take the responsibility of every spiritual proceedures during the ceremony in the presence of designated nobles, where the ordinary residents and the  public are not allowed. Although, the practice is in the secret knowledge of the few, it is not a cult where the priest is the charismatic and ultimate performer because the other functionaries of the ceremony are designated through a democratic process and participated in their respective role. Finally the outcome of the ceremony is let known by the official announcer (sangot) to every clan members and the people at large before the community involvement of every household will take its own course of the duties and responsibilities.

These post cremation ceremonies are not mere memorial events in reverence of the departed souls; they are the journey of life for the living human being to understand the purpose of the mortal life on earth. The ceremonies and the mourning performances are part of the communication with the divine and the interaction between the bereaved families with the souls of their departed relatives. The time, space and resources of the society involved in every personal life and generally in the community are equally important for the departed souls even when they are not tangible to the normal human senses. The Khasi shaman related that the souls are hungry as much as the living person, they have aspirations and emotions like the living person and will react accordingly and thereby affected the society of the living persons. It is the duty and responsibility of the living persons to understand their needs and to provide them with  every necessity. It is not proper for any living human being to perform anything in favour of the departed souls without suitable knowledge and it is not proper to ignore due to lack of knowledge either; because the consequence will occur in apprehension of actual information or in ignorance. The Khasi faith is the quest for the truth on the consequence that may appeared as different fact for different person. It is neither a belief system nor a logical justification and the perspective of the consequence depends upon the exerience of a person.

THE TESTIMONY OF THE REALITY OF LIFE

The definition of Khasi faith is not the belief without experience and not the reason of the human intelligence; it is the never ending quest for the truth that will be revealed to an individual person as per his or her understanding about life and the ability to accept the limitation of the human reasoning power. Let's assume of a consequence in the normal situation in the society where the accident took place and one person died and his close acquaintance survived because he could not accomany in the trip. In the common perception of people the cause of the accident could be ascribed to the reckless conduct of any responsible person at the particular time and specific location of the mishap or the blame could be on the fragile condition of the location that the coincidence occured at such time or any other reason. These judgements are relatively factual, but the cause could be something else in the analysis of a shaman, where the spiritual guardian of the survivor could have prevented and protected from the accident or the death could be due to ignorance and negligence of certain predestined warning. Generally, the public will not accept the verdict of the shaman, but others might rely on and abided by it, and the fact remained that the accident did occured where someone died and somebody else survived and some deficiency in the space and time of the occurrence.

In one of the incidents, my friend from a foreign country visited our place and later at a time when he was  set to leave, he felt excited to witness one of the rare socio-cultural occasion in one village. We went together for the ceremony of demarcation of a plot of land between two clans, known as 'Saiñbri' ceremony at Sohryngkham with the intention to return back as soon as possible. We were led to the household of one clan where the mother of the house was performing the ceremony in the presence of the chieftain, the priest and few nobles. After the ceremony, altogether we were served with the meals prepared by the family. The ceremony followed at the site of demarcation where the priest performed all the necessary rituals and thereafter everybody are supposed to visit the other household for the feast prepared for the purpose. It is customary to partake with the feast on both sides, which is significant of concurrence and endorsement to the performance of the ceremony; otherwise the home deity will not be happy and certain unfortunate consequences might occurred. Since my friend is in hurry to take his return trip, we have politely excused for the meal because the formalities of ceremonial performances was over. As the tradition goes, the other family was apprehensive of our refusal even as there was no suspicion of our reaction, and so we went away without their contentment. As soon as we started our journey, we met with the minor accident and safe but got delayed in the process of negotiation for the incident. After everything is done, the contingent of the chieftain, the nobles and others were on the way and halted to enquired about our fate. One of the elderly persons commented that because the home deity is sad to have refused the feast and the accident is the obstacle to our deeds. This was already anticipated, whether we accepted to the consequence or the coincidence, the effect is the same; either way we got delayed.

In another incident, we were prepared for some work as the tribute to the memory of the recently departed daughter. When the actual implementation of the work were taken, there was torrential rain and could not execute the work properly. It was a great disaster that we ignored the fact that there should be not be any major activity pending the mourning period of one year. This was not agreed upon by someone in the family, but we went ahead anyway, even as we argued that it was for a favourable cause. However, the consequence was horrible and the coincidence of terrible stormy weather was even more disastrous, the effect is the same as the work was severely affected even as it was for a good cause.

Life goes on whether there is the conciousness and awareness or not about the necessity to care and offer sufficient attention to the souls of the dead and considerable thoughts on the past, because whatever we did in the present will impact the future. The simple approach to life is that there should be congeniality and pleasant ambience at the domestic front for every attempt or effort to carry on with life, otherwise the challenge to overcome the external obstacles will always prevail. Therefore, if we are unable to project the future course of action, it is always preferable to consult someone who knows to suggest  a safe path for every journey of life. The consequence for the future could be changed for the better if not predicted, on the condition of the reliable medium of sufficient experience, knowledge and expertise of communication with the past. It is not a belief, but an attempt to quest for the safe passage to the future.

The comfort and convenience of every human being should not be depended or relied upon the individual decision without understanding the consequence; it is always better to know and realise the outcome of every action that we did. The collective concern should be the priority over the personal satisfaction. The community wellbeing is healthier than the personal vigour and the more wider the concern the better for the society, for mankind. One man or one community will be affected if they stay safe by drinking water from the upstream and polluted the river that flows downstream to another community, because the disease that shall caused will definitely spread everywhere. The Khasi matrilineal system is an inclusive society that embraces every soul within the boundary of the core family as much as several other core families embrace every soul within their respective circle. The western tradition of patriarchal system endeavours for exclusivity and struggle for the survival of the fittest with economic supremacy, while the aura of suffering of the abandoned lot will haunt the entire society, the whole mankind.

 THE ETHNIC CLAN CONNECTION AND EMERGENCE OF NEW CLAN

The Khasi word for memory 'kynmaw' is engrained on stone, which is 'maw' and 'mawbah' is the great stone or the ossuary that signifies the storehouse of memories. This memory always reminded every present generation of human being that the body remembers each and every bit of the being of a particular community or even an individual person. The feature of the children are more than often resemble their parents. The genetic inheritance of the father has stronger memory on the tangible feature, while that of a mother has stronger memory on the intangible aptitude. Despite the fact that patriarchal lineage is more pronounced in every society across the globe, the individual aspiration of every individual person is always longing for the mother particularly during mental depression and anxiety. The attachment of the children is more inclined towards the mother, even when the father asserts for supremacy over the family. This is generally the universal truth that no other forces on earth can change. Nevertheless, thare are certain instances of wicked mothers and compassionate fathers on specific social and cultural situations, particularly in modern society. The ossuary is a memorial marker of tradition and history of the Khasi community. Some of the prominent ossuaries are the Mawbah Meikhmah of the Lyngdoh Mawphlang clan at Mawphlang village adjacent to the sacred grove; the Mawbah Mohkynhong of the Kharkongor clan at Mawïong Rim near Mylliem; the cluster of ossuaries of various clans at Lamin village, Nongjri village and Sohbar village. There are small cluster of ossuaries at Sohra, Nangbah, Jowai, Nongkhrah and few other villages.

Some of these ossuaries are of the single clan, while others are in series of affiliated clans emerging from the same ancestral mother. The Laloo, Diengdoh and Marngar clans emerged from the ancestral mother known as 'Ka Ϊaw Shibdi'. The Majaw, Rapsang, Kurbah, Hynñiewta, Basaïawmoit, Khongjee and Syngkli are the clans of the same ancestral mother; however, later there are claims of clan affiliation with the Lyngdoh Peiñlang, Khongwar, Muktieh, Be, Lyngwi and others, which altogether accounted to twentyone clans. The local informants related that the Be clan came out of the marriage with the Syngkli clan. There is an information that the Khongwar clan was bifurcated from the Khongjee clan; the Lyngwi clan splited from the Basaïawmoit clan. The Wahlang Pahsyntiew and Wahlang Nongtathiang clans are said to be the same and has affiliation with the Ryntathiang. The Kharsawian, Kharwanlang, Kharphanbuh and Kharngapkynta clans are known as the 'Dkhar Saw Kpoh' or the clans of four wombs, which means that they are sisters born out of the Khasi father from the ancestral mother who is not a Khasi. The maternal families of the four sisters Ka Bon, Ka Teiñ, Ka Wet and Ka Doh were the original inhabitants of Jowai town and from them came the Ymbon, Pakynteiñ, Paswet and Langdoh clans. The Shylla, Pariat and Thangkhiew clans are of the same ancestral mother. There are different variations of clans that changes the nomenclature with certain significant incidents or because of migration or because the other people made references of the actions of any particular clan. There is a practice in any maternal family that bore only the sons without daughter; they were made to marry the women of other communities for the continuity of the family ancestry. Then the new clan or clans were consecrated from the daughters of the mother from another community and that mother became the ancestral mother of the new clan or clans inherited from her daughter or daughters. The Khasi territory was surrounded by the Ahom territory on the north and Bangla territory on the south, Garo territory on the west and Karbi territory on the east. Therefore, most of these clans came out of the marital relationship of the Khasi father and the Assamese or Bengali mothers, because of the long range proximity of the Khasi territory with the Ahom, and the Bangla territories, even as there are instances of marriage with the Garo and Karbi people also.

The social marital encounters with the Assamese and Bengali communities facilitated for the consecration of the new Khasi clans when the Khasi men were made to bring their spouses to the Khasi territories; but for the men that married the Assamese or Bengali women and remained in their respective territories they merged with the society and acquired the new identity. However, there is a different social situation in the adjacent territories of Garo or Karbi communities. Any marital encounter in the western part with the Garo community, the new clans evolved and formed the sub-community in the region, where they were known as the Lyngngam to the Khasi community and as the Megam to the Garo community. The culture of this hybrid community has both Khasi and Garo elements in their customary practices. The most significant aspect is the common belief in the abode of the dead known as Balpakram to the Megam and Krangraid to the Lyngngam. Some of the cultural landmarks in the vicinity of the location bear different name with similar purpose. For example there is a small pool of dark water believed to be the place where the departed souls wash or cleanse their souls before they enter the eternal abode. This pool is known as Chidimak in Garo language, which literally means the black or dark water and signifies that the souls rinsed away all the impurities in the pool before they left for the eternal rest and that is why it is called black or dak water. However, in Khasi language it is known as Umbyllieñ literally means water of forgetfulness, which signifies that all worldly memories are washed away in the pool and forgot everything about the earlier life as they ascended to the realm of the departed souls. The Balpakram or Krangraid is a biosphere reserved of diverse species of flora and fauna and is a massive depression from the surrounding Khasi and Garo plateaus. The upside-down paradigm of the topography is the reversal perspective between the living and the dead; what is down to the living, it is up for the dead souls and therefore in Khasi it is said that the souls of the dead ascended to the abode of the spirits even when the elevation is downwards. On the other hand, the marital encounter with the Karbi gives rise to the emergence of new Khasi clans and there are situation that the Khasi people in the Bhoi region termed it as the 'Ring Bhoi' ceremony, where the Khasi men marry the women of another community, usually the Karbi for the continuity of the maternal ancestry if there are no daughters.

 THE BODY, THE SPIRIT AND THE SOUL OF BEINGS

The entire Khasi clans is mandatory to possess the ossuary based on maternal ancestry, whether for the immediate or subsequent generations depending upon the ability of the descendants to observe and abide by the tradition. The ossuary is the medium of communication between the mortal being and the eternal divine spirits, the link of the present to the past. The ossuary is for the mortal descendants of every clan inheritance, but there are divine clans that does not have any ossuary on earth. When there was social turmoil in the society, the divine intervention facilitated the emergence of spiritual being to contain and pacify the commotion among the communities. In the Khasi myth there are three clans believed to be of divine descend. Legend have it that there was a man named Harata who was abandoned by his family and used to stay in the location known as 'Lum Shad Klew' literaly means the mound of dancing peacocks on the shore of the river Kupli. Coincidentally, the three fairies are fond of swimming and bathing at the Kupli river and one day they landed on the Lum Shad Klew and discussed among themselves that they would like to live in the society of human beings. The spirit of the river Kupli suggested Harata to take away one of the costumes of the fairies while they swam in the river. Harata obeyed her and brought the costume to the spirit, while she exchanged with the identical costume and asked him to keep back at the same place. When the fairies finished their bath they wore the costumes and flew away.  The other two sisters are already in the sky and saw a man in the vicinity, but the youngest realised that she could not fly any more. They were trying to take her along but could not help her; so they approached the man to give her a place for shelter. As instructed by the spirit of the Kupli river, he accepted and she was compelled to stay together. Every day after he went to the field, the fairy would search all around the surrounding but there was no chance of recovering her costume. Ultimately, she married Harata and bore a girl child, even as she never gave up about her longing for the costume. One day she found and tried it on and with the help of her sisters who always came to bath in the same place, they could fly together again. They flew away and abandoned the child, and when Harata realised that she had left he took care of the girl child all by himself. After a long time there was a social gathering that the father of the fairies knew about their misadventure and disgraceful consequence, which compelled him to chase them away from home. They knew of no other places and was always enchanted by the mound of dancing peacocks and there they reached to find solace in the spirit of Kupli river. They told her about their aspirations and revealed about their fate. The spirit of Kupli river already knew about everything they told her and show them the path to becoming the royal ancestresses of the three provinces in the human settlements. Together, they became the divine ancestry of the three royal clans and the social and political turmoil were sorted out among the communities. When the mission was accomplished the fairies resumed their spiritual beings and disappeared from human society, while their descendants became the legitimate royal clans and reigning chieftains and queen mothers of the three provinces of Shyllong, Sutnga and Madur Maskut. This is the reasons that their human bodies of the fairies were unable to be cremated and there were never any ossuaries of the divine royal clans in the Khasi tradition.

The ossuary is the fundamental existence of the eternal human souls established by the ancestral mother or 'Ïawbei' and the ancestral maternal uncle or 'Suitnia', while the ancestral father or 'Thawlang' will be the ancestral maternal uncle for his maternal clan. While in the community every clan has the foundation stones in the hearth which is represented by the eternal spirit and mortal body of the ancestral mother or Ïawbei ancestral maternal uncle or Suitnia and the ancestral father or Thawlang. After the human body is cremated it turns into soil and becomes earth, the spirit wanders on earth and the soul transcends the temporal space and ascends into the abode of the divine beings. Therefore, the spirit of the dead prevailed in the society and needs the care and attention of their living descendants on earth, which the community will survive according to the action in human society. The destiny of every individual person is being shaped by the personal action and the reaction of the spirits controlled by the souls of the departed forebears. This trinity of human existence is the mystery beyond the comprehension of the human intelligence that the humankind shall always endeavoured to quest for the ultimate truth- the truth to salvation that every individual will experience through their personal thought, conscience and faith upon the divine energy that created the cosmos. The truth to salvation is not the belief system and religious congregation imposed upon by the fellow human being, which is being perceived as the actual participation and material existence of the medium for worship and reverence of that divine energy that has taken the shape of a single god, or the gods and goddesses and the various deities of diverse forms and functions.

The trinity of human existence is broadly defined as the body or 'Ka Met', the soul or 'Ka Mynsiem' and the spirit or 'Ka Rngiew'. The mortal being or the body will perish and converted into its original compound, which is the earth. The spirit and the soul shall remained and prevailed at their respective realms and they shall conduct and behave according to the demand of the situation in the society of the living beings. The living is active and participated with the spirit and the soul of the fellow living beings; however, it is essential that the living should be active and participated with the spirit of the departed souls also. In the ancient system the simple living beings have the wherewithal of communication with the spirit of the departed souls; whereas, in the contemporary situation there are limitations of such ability and there is a tendency to ignore. Nevertheless, there are conscious expression in the form of memorial occasions and making of memorial monuments in the name of the departed souls. These occasion are usually attached with momentous religious service and observation in various activities of paying tribute or homage with anticipation of blessings. The ability to connect with the spirit of the departed souls depended upon the personal experience and not the collective formalities facilitated by the functionaries of religious organisation.  

THE IMMORTAL HUMAN SOUL

The mystery of life on every being on earth is a thing beyond the comprehension of the human mind. The superiority of the cosmic power and the sophistication of its creation is an infinite element that the capacity of the most intelligent human being is like a tiny particle in a vast expanse of the earth. The superiority of human intelligence and extent of inventions and discoveries in technology and engineering is a tiny particle that every fellow human being endeavour to acquire and possess anything and everything. Therefore, the search for the ultimate excellence is an excercise that every human is perpetually longing for and will never achieve, but to be contended and satisfied within the limitation of the personal capability to acquire and possess something at least. Spiritualism is another aspect of human aspiration that the most honest and the purest heart may not be entitled to enter the realm of the divine. The Khasi theology defined that the ultimate destiny of every human soul is on the threshold of the divine sphere and god is an immortal, omniscient and omnipotent entity that does not have any category or extent of being that the tiny human intelligence can described or defined. The realm of the divine is an evelasting abode of the soul where the energy of the sun, moon, air, water and fire are ever active and never exhausted. The ability of the human mind to comprehend this mystery will enable them to understand the ability of reproduction as a sacred covenant for every human being to engage in the process of life creation. If every human being is able to perform the duty of reproduction with responsibility, there would not be jealousy, prejudice, conceit or any evil motive towards the fellow human being. The world is never made for what it has prevailed, otherwise the earth is the heavenly realm itself that all human beings should alway exist in peace and harmony.

The Khasi myth relates that the entire human race is created to be immortal and the divine energy has created a protective mechanism from all sorts of sufferings, sorrow and death that the other creatures experienced. The chieftain of the human race was curious to know about sickness, suffering and  death of other creatures that he could not comprehend when he witnessed that the animals died and the other living creatures bereaved and mourned over the dead. He compared the human being with other creatures that they were all born as infant and gradually grow older until they became matured adult and old; however, from there on the animals expired while human being became young again and grow older again and so on and so forth. The chieftain was baffled and desired to experience the same. One day he announced the death of his daughter and inform the divine sentinel about it. The divine sentinel was not convinced and went to visit the house of the chieftain to confirm about the incident, because he was responsible to protect the human being from the entry of any evil force of suffering and death. However, he discovered that the chieftain kept the dead dog in  the hearse and proclaimed that it was his daughter. The divine sentinel was furious and trampled upon the protective guard of evil forces. Hence, the human race started to experience mental and physical suffering and death and learnt to mourn and wail with a melodious sound of the 'Maryngod' a folk stringed instrument that resembles the violin.

The tradition prevailed that the wailing music of the maryngod is meant to be played on the occasion of death in any family. There is a particular tune called 'jamlu' that relates with the mourning of the dead, which is not supposed to be played on other pleasant occasions. The solemn  tune of the jamlu fascinated the demons that they wanted to play on certain occasion; however, the human being never wanted to abuse for other purposes. One day the queen of demons known as Thapbalong challenged the human being to play the maryngod while she dance incessantly. The human was scared and climbed on top of the tree and played the maryngod, while the Thapbalong is dancing. The rendition carried on for the whole night until the Thapbalong was tired and the man descended and pierced the chest of the creature with the sharpening implement. The creature never died and the man was exhausted, even as he never gave up while she is still very weak. Ultimately, the bulbul arrived on the scene and advised the man to select a particular bamboo spike and pierced on her body and smear the blood on its tail every time he punched the spike. The human repeatedly thrashed with the bamboo spike and smear the blood on the bulbul's tail until the Thapbalong died. From that instance, the creatures other than human never dare to use solemn jamlu mourning tune of the maryngod.

Another legend narrated that the young man was ploughing the field and every time he ploughs, there was a swine that dig the earth with its nose. The young man was not agreeable with the action of the swine and drew his bow and arrow to shoot at the swine. The arrow struck the leg of the swine and it fled away. The young man is chasing behind the swine and after sometimes he was casted with a spell and realised that he had entered another sphere of life. He was astonished to discover that everything was reversal and suddenly saw his mother with the arrow on her leg. He instantly realised that it was his mother who had died earlier and cremated in the backyard. She told him that she tried to help him but faced the consequence, even as he repented for his deeds. The young man never wanted to leave and was happy to have met his mother again, but he could not adjust with the reverse situation in every conduct and behaviour of the departed souls. The mother realised his anxiety and handover to him a set of percussion instruments and a pipe instrument called Tangmuri. She taught him to play the mourning tunes and instructed him the formalities of the post-cremation ceremony in her memory. Thereafter, she escorted him to the edge of the temporal world until he woke up from the trance and found the musical instruments by his side. He was familiar with the place and walked away until he reached at home. Everything that her mother taught him he requested and instructed the community to participate. Since then the post-cremation ceremony called 'Ka Phur' was performed for generations. The most vital formality of the Phur ceremony was performed at the ossuary of the ancestral mother, which is the nucleus of both the living and the dead souls in the Khasi matrilineal system.

 THE CONCLUSION

What the world will be? If there are no space for jealousy, predudice, selfishness, enmity, lie, fear, anxiety, greed, conceit, suspicion, betrayal, infidelity, violence, murder, and all sorts of evil thoughts, motives, intentions and actions. There would be no occurence of  'ka lanot ka shipa' or poverty, 'shemlanot shempap' or tragedy, 'ka khlam ka ngoh' or calamity, 'ka bih ka lasam' or venomous poison, 'Aiksuid aikhrei' or witchcraft, 'Raibi' or hereditary misfortune, 'ka tyrut ka smer' or demonic violence, 'u thlen ka shwar' or mammon, and every bad omen in life. The satanic influence and manipulation will vanish into the 'khyndai pateng ñiamra' or the nine layered chambers in the subterranean and will drown in the 'mynkoi u jom' or the devil's pool of impurity. There will reign gentleness and humility, ethics and etiquette, safety and security, hope and peace, love and compassion, conscience and sympathy, joy and happiness, and all types of good thoughts, motives, intentions and actions. The deities and spiritual sentinels will be cooled and calmed, and divinity will reign supreme and adorn with the 'khyndai spong khyndai pansngiat' or the nine turbans nine crowns. As long as the people of the world shall stay alive and shall die and shall turn to mother earth, so the mother of every person is the core of existence that the they shall inherit the legacy of the clan for generations. Unfortunately, the trend prevailed that patriarchal reigned supreme and dominated the world, without realising the core of existence that emerge from the mother.  

The core of Matrilineal lineage is based on the umbilical cord as the source of life that emerged from the womb of the female human and connected with the navel of the infant that she conceived. The soul of the umbilical cord in the foetus that germinated from the male sperm and the female embryo enable to animate the infant inside the womb of the female human. The core of patriarchal lineage is based on the sperm of the male organism as the source of the being that is delivered through the womb of the mother. The patriarchal lineage ignored the embryo in the womb of the female human that merged with the sperm of the male human to germinate the human foetus. The patriarchal lineage neglected the breeding period of ten lunar months inside the womb of the female human and the initial breastfeeding and nourishment period of approximately three years at the bosom of the mother. The pregnancy of the female with the breeding period of ten lunar months inside the uterus together with the breastfeeding and nourishment period of about three years after birth for any normal infant is the collective effort of creation with natural forces of energy from the cosmos in coordination with the fertility of the female being. The sexual relationship between the couple is the consecutive momentary carnal experience of the male and female human, which could not be compared with the consistent life giving process of thoroughly around four years or more at the disposition of the mother only. The biological sciences authenticated that the child inherited out of patriarchal lineage bears nuclear cell DNA, which is the compound of both male and female organism; whereas the child inherited out of matrilineal lineage bears mitochondrial cell DNA, which is exclusively of female organism or the mother. This indicated that there can never be an exclusive cell of male organism that can conceive an infant, which endorsed that every infant is the legitimate identity of the mother.   

The current reality is that patriarchal system is an austere tradition that has prevailed for centuries and an established social practice approved by most cultures and religions. It is significant to be concerned about religion because it is perceived as sensitive and majority of the people are obsessed with their respective religion and moderate with culture and almost absent with spirituality. Majority of the women considered patriarchal as the custom that has been followed for generations and will never even think of any change, and will offend if anybody claims for reformation. Most of the men will never be receptive to the idea of matrilineal lineage without forethought and will definitely assert for dominance and supremacy over women all the time. For the time being in place patriarchal is the mainstay of universal culture. The head of the family is a man, the head of governance will usually be a man, the head of commercial establishment will be mostly a man, the head of voluntary organisation will be generally a man, the head of every religion must be definitely a man, the man will be always on top of anything and everything. There is nothing wrong for the men to be on the top of certain things, even in the Khasi matrilineal system, men are always on the top of things either by convention or by the law of nature. In the Khasi matrilineal system, there is a balance in the distribution of responsibilities between the man and the woman and both are equally important in their respective dispensation; and the ratio is substantially larger with the men than the women. The domestic space is the part of women domain and everything else outside the domestic space is the extensive sphere of men. The investment of emotional attachment of the mother towards the children, her spouse, her parents, her siblings, her inlaws and her kinfolks are worthy of the economic investment of all the others in the family, which is being perceived otherwise in normal circumstances particularly in the modern society. There is no assessment for those working in the domestic chores that the money collected and spent in the family is assumed as favours or even charity. The endangered matrilineal system is a social tool that those communities have to offer to the world to make it a better place on earth. It may not be perfect and needs further analysis, scrutiny and study to improvise certain aspects, but definitely it is the efficient egalitarian system that the other cultures of the communities in the world deemed proper for a change. It is an inclusive system that will do away with various social abuses on infants, children, youth, elderly and the aged people. It is the effective system that could contain or prevent theft, violence, rape, murder and other criminal tendencies. It is the ideal system that could make people think positive about life, society and mankind.

The Author: RAPHAEL WARJRI.