| caption: |
Head-taking; goitre and its prevention; funeral monument |
| text: |
Halted. A day of rest and washing for men and coolies. I visited Chingmei village. The slaves are being kept there and seem better already, this being their third day of freedom. Soap is really what they need most. There is a fair collection of heads in Chingmei, the most famous being that of a Panso man who is said to have taken 50 himself. One of Chingmak's sons has contributed eight to the collection. Goitre is very bad, as it is in many villages round here. Salt from salt wells is believed, probably quite rightly, to be a preventative. Certainly villages with no salt wells seem to suffer most. There are a few Yimsungr men in the village, and there was a very fine funeral monument to one recently dead. |
