MOHUR, a Persian gold coin, used in India from the 16th century. Between 1835 and 1891 a gold coin, also called a "mohur," was struck by the Government of British India and was of the nominal value of 15 rupees. On the establishment of a gold standard in India in 1899 the British sovereign was declared legal tender and the mohur was superseded.
MOI, a name used collectively for the hill tribes of Tongking in Indo-China who are probably of mixed race with Mongolian. Indonesian and Caucasian blood (see MAN). Generally speaking their polity is one of pure democracy, the chief, if any, being elected. In marriage patrilineal endogamy is reported to be the rule, though exogamy is permitted in some groups. There are traces of polyandry, and of a matrilineal system of genealogy and inheritance. A man works for his bride in her father's house, and the heir of a dead man marries his widow. They seem to be Buddhist by religion, but venerate stones. The dead are in some
places buried, in others exposed on platforms. Trial by ordeal takes the form of a diving test to see which can stay under the longer. Like the Karens they have a quasi-Biblical legend of the Creation, and they have a legend about Amazons who smelt cop per. They shave the heads of their children habitually, and their own when in mourning, a trace, perhaps, of Hindu influence. Their medicine-men practise legerdemain, and cure sickness by "extracting" the cause in the form of "dirt." They have separate buildings for the unmarried, and the approaches to their villages are made under tunnels of thorn which can be cut down to block the way. They use a flexible sawing thong to make fire, piston bellows, the gourd organ, and as weapons the crossbow and the gun-arrow, both of which may be used with poison.