“Women amongst the Khasis enjoy a position of unusual dignity and importance... For generations they have been custodians of property”, observed David Roy Phanwar, a Khasi intellectual born in 1884. What led to this beacon of matriliny, surrounded by societies where women were secluded in purdah?
Was it the absence of plough agriculture, keeping women vital to farming? Or did geography play a more indirect role - with mountains and monsoons blocking conquest, preventing patriarchal forces from gaining dominance?