Crossword-Solution: KHONE 5 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 12

For commoners it is called "Khone Chook"; for the nobility and royalty, "Soh-Khan," probably from the Sanskrit _Sôh Sâhtha Kam_, "finding safe and sound." The custom is said to be extremely ancient, and to have originated with a certain Brahmin, whose only child, being sick unto death, was given over by the physicians as in the power of evil spirits.

The Fahely, Serdie, Beni Szakher, Serhhan, who are constant residents in the Haouran, as well as most of the numerous tribes of Aeneze, who visit the country only in the summer, are, from remote times, entitled to certain tributes called Khone (brotherbood), from every village in the Haouran.

Each village pays Khone to one Sheikh in every tribe; the village is then known as his Ukhta [Arabic] or Sister, as the Arabs term it, and he protects the inhabitants against all the members of his own tribe.

The amount of the Khone is continually increasing; for the Arab Sheikh is not always contented with the quantity of corn he received in the preceding year, but asks something additional, as a present, which soon becomes a part of his accustomed dues.

The Serdie generally regulate the amount of the Khone which they levy, by that which the Fehely receive; and take half as much; but the Khone paid to the Aeneze chiefs is quite arbitrary, and the sum paid to a single Sheikh varies according to his avidity; or the wealth of the Fellahs, from thirty and forty piastres up to four hundred, which are generally paid in corn.