In the first place, their social organization presents one of the
most perfect examples still surviving of matriarchal institutions,
carried out with a logic and thoroughness which, to those accustomed
to regard the status and authority of the father as the foundation
of society, are exceedingly remarkable. Not only is the mother
the head and source, and only bond of union, of the family: in the
most primitive part of the hills, the Synteng country, she is the
only owner of real property, and through her alone is inheritance
transmitted. The father has no kinship with his children, who belong
to their mother's clan; what he earns goes to his own matriarchal
stock, and at his death his bones are deposited in the cromlech of his
mother's kin. In Jowai he neither lives nor eats in his wife's house,
but visits it only after dark (p. 76). In the veneration of ancestors,
which is the foundation of the tribal piety, the primal ancestress
(_Ka Iawbei_) and her brother are the only persons regarded. The
flat memorial stones set up to perpetuate the memory of the dead are
called after the woman who represents the clan (_maw kynthei_ p. 150),
and the standing stones ranged behind them are dedicated to the male
kinsmen on the mother's side.

In harmony with this scheme of ancestor worship, the other spirits
to whom propitiation is offered are mainly female, though here male
personages also figure (pp. 106-109). The powers of sickness and
death are all female, and these are those most frequently worshipped
(p. 107). The two protectors of the household are goddesses (p. 112),
though with them is also revered the first father of the clan,
_U Thawlang_.

Priestesses assist at all sacrifices, and the male officiants are