Furniture and Household Utensils.

As in the case of houses, so with reference to furniture, the influence
of civilization shows many changes. The Khasi of the present day who
lives in Mawkhar [14] has a comfortable house regularly divided up
into rooms in the European style with even some European articles
of furniture, but owing probably to the influence of the women,
he still possesses several of the articles of furniture which are
to be met with in the houses of those who still observe the old
style of living. Let us take the furniture of the kitchen to begin
with. Above the hearth is slung by ropes of cane a swinging wooden
framework blackened with the smoke of years, upon which are spread
the faggots of resinous fir-wood used for kindling the fire. Above
this again is a wooden framework fixed on to the beams of the house,
upon which all sorts of odds and ends are kept. Around the fire
are to be seen small wooden stools, upon which the members of the
household sit. Up-to-date Khasis have cane chairs, but the women of
the family, true to the conservative instincts of the sex, prefer
the humble stool to sit upon. Well-to-do Khasis nowadays have, in
addition to the ordinary cooking vessels made of iron and earthenware,
a number of brass utensils. The writer has seen in a Khasi house in
Mawkhar brass drinking vessels of the pattern used in Orissa, of the
description used in Manipur, and of the kind which is in vogue in
Sylhet. The ordinary cultivator, however, uses a waterpot made from
a gourd hollowed out for keeping water and liquor in, and drinks
from a bamboo cylinder. Plates, or more properly speaking dishes,
are of several kinds in the houses of the rich, the two larger ones
being styled _ka pliang kynthei_ (female) and _ka pliang shynrang_
(male). Needless to say, the first mentioned is a larger utensil than