Note 9 — Laws and Customs

But it is among the Dimásá of the North Cachar Hills and the Hojais of the Nowgong district that this minute subdivision of the clans would seem to attain its highest development. In this portion of the Bara race some eighty clans are recognised, of whom forty are known as men’s clans (sengfáng) and forty as women’s (zŭlu). All the members of these different clans eat and drink together freely, and are, or were, all strictly exogamous.9 The only exception to this strict rule of exogamy is that of the so-called royal clan, known as Há-chum-sá,10 i.e., “black earth folk,” all the members of which were compelled to marry within their own sub-tribe, marriage with a member of a subject clan being of old absolutely forbidden. (Cf. the analogous restrictions enforced by various “Royal Marriage” Acts in other communities.)