Election and constraint
Each hima was headed by a syiem chosen from a particular clan by an electoral college of clan heads, and his authority was limited by a durbar that had to be consulted on matters of consequence. The syiem could be removed. Khasi political language is explicit that he ruled by consent, and the formula that he is a chief among men, not a chief over men, is often quoted.
Succession and property descended matrilineally, with the youngest daughter — the khadduh — holding the ancestral property and the maternal uncle exercising the family's public authority. This is the largest surviving matrilineal system in the world, and it applied to the political order as well as to the household.
Christianity and after
The British established indirect rule over the hills from the 1830s after the resistance led by Tirot Sing, and Welsh Calvinist missionaries arrived in 1841. The Khasi hills became overwhelmingly Christian within a century, and the missionaries' adoption of the Roman script for Khasi shaped the written language.
The hima system was not abolished. Twenty-five himas are recognised today under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, working alongside the autonomous district council — one of the few pre-colonial political forms in India to survive with its institutions intact rather than as a ceremonial remnant.
The living root bridges of the Khasi hills, grown over decades from the aerial roots of the rubber fig across ravines, belong to the same communities and are still made.
Further reading
- Keay, John. India: A History. HarperCollins, 2000
- Kulke, Hermann. A History of India. Routledge, 2004
- Wolpert, Stanley. A New History of India. Oxford University Press, 2009
- Asher, Catherine B. India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2006
- Bayly, C. A. Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire. Cambridge University Press, 1988
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.