Chapter XVI: Appendix: C

HUMAN SACRIFICE

Major Butler gives the following account [229] of a human sacrifice: “About the 27th July, 1850, Lieutenant Vincent succeeded in effecting, for thirty-seven rupees, the ransom of Tooleram, a Cacharee boy, who had been carried off from the village of Loongee-jair on the 18th February by a marauding party of Angahmee Nagahs. Two other children were at the same time carried off, but had been sold to other villages; a little girl was sold to some Nagahs at Beereh-mah, but could not be traced. The fate of the third boy was horrible; he was purchased by the adjoining tribe of Lotah Nagahs, and a man of the village having died immediately after the purchase, it was considered a bad omen, and that ill luck had befallen them on account of this captive child. They therefore flayed the poor boy alive, cutting off his flesh bit by bit until he died. These cruel and superstitious savages then divided the body, giving a piece of the flesh to each man in the village to put into his dolu, a large corn-basket. By this they suppose all evil will be averted, their good fortune will return, and plentiful crops of grain will be ensured.”

Nagas are always ready to give garbled, not to say scandalous, accounts of the customs of their neighbours, and there can be little doubt that Major Butler was misled by his Angami informants. Lhotas, in common with other tribes, believe in a vague sort of way that the taking of a head brings prosperity to the taker’s village, and the boy was probably killed and his body cut up and distributed, as was done more recently in the case of the Nankam slave bought by Akuk. But there is no tradition that it was ever the custom to torture victims before death, and I think the Lhotas must be acquitted of this charge. It would, further, be clean contrary to their customs to put pieces of human flesh in their rice, which would thereby become polluted rather than blessed. [230]

The story goes that long, long ago a rich Lhota was very ill. In vain pigs, cattle and mithan were slaughtered. Finally he had one of his slaves sacrificed in cold blood, in the hope that the slave’s life would be accepted in place of his own. The man died, however, in spite of this last sacrifice, and Lhotas, seeing that it was unavailing, have never imitated his example. This tradition and the practice of spearing the opya at the oyantsoa “genna” point to a time when human sacrifice was practised to avert evil fortune, but it would be safe to say that within historical times no such custom has been followed by them.

NAGA-ASSAMESE GLOSSARY

As far as possible Naga-Assamese words have been avoided. For the following, however, no convenient English equivalents exist.

apodia. From the Assamese āpăd (“misfortune”). Certain forms of death by misadventure are spoken of as “apotia” deaths (see p. 160).

chunga. A section of bamboo with a node left intact at one end. Used as a drinking vessel or for carrying water.

dal. Lentils.

dao. A heavy bill used by Nagas both as a weapon and for agriculture.

deo-bih. Literally “spirit-poison.” The juice of a certain root formerly used by Nagas for poisoning fish. The practice is now prohibited.

genna. A very common Naga-Assamese word and one used in various senses. (1) A Naga ceremony; (2) = “forbidden” (e.g. “It is genna to take the head of a man of your own village”); (3) = “tabued,” as Angami kenna, of which the word is a corruption (e.g. “my house is genna to-day”).

jhum. Naga cultivation (see description on p. 45). Also used = a field which has been cultivated in this way.

khel. A division of a village (see description on p. 24).

lengta. The small apron worn by the men of most Naga tribes.

machan. A bamboo platform.

madhu. Rice beer.

mithan. Bos frontalis (domestic) and bos gaurus (wild).

morung. The “bachelors’ hall” in which the boys and unmarried men of a khel sleep.

pan. A leaf which is chewed with betel nut and lime.

panji. A bamboo spike stuck in the ground to impale enemies or game.

NOTES

[1] See The Angami Nagas, Pt. V., “The Story of Hunchibili.”

[2] See Gurdon, The Khasis, p. 168, “The Story of U Loh Ryndi.” The version of this story with which I met in the Khasi Hills in 1911 substituted an orange for the fish. Another Khasi story derives the origin of the Jyrwa Nongsiet clan from a girl who came out of a bamboo shoot, but I cannot find it mentioned by Col. Gurdon, and it may be a Lynngam or Synteng clan.

[3] So, too, in the Khasi Hills the Khasis live in permanent villages, while Bhois and Lynngams are more or less migratory (Gurdon, op. cit., p. 34).

[4] In prescribing rewards for the learning of languages the Local Government has assumed a similarity of language between the tribes classed as “Naga” by giving a reduced reward for passing a test in a second Naga language after one has already been learnt, but in point of fact the linguistic test breaks down as badly as the migration test, for Sir George Grierson, in classifying the languages of the area, groups some Nagas with Kacharis, Mikirs and others in the Naga-Bodo group, some with Thado and other Kuki languages in the Naga-Kuki group, and others in different groups, and it would really be far more logical to base the examinations on these groups than on the false supposition based on the present use of the term “Naga,” which is really as inaccurate as the reputed divisions of the Hill tribes of Burma into “Tame Chins, Wild Chins and Ka-chins.”

[5] Nāga is a corruption of the Assamese Năga (pronounced “Nŏga”), probably meaning “a mountaineer” from Sanskrit Năg, a “mountain” or “inaccessible place.”

[6] Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, I. i. ch. vii. (N.B., pp. 331 and 387).

[7] Mr. T. P. M. O’Callaghan tells me that the Linghi sept of Mishmis came from the south; so, too, the Sotia clan of the Miri tribe is reported by Mr. R. C. R. Cumming as claiming a southern origin, though in both cases the rest of the tribe came from the north. The Apar Tanengs are also believed to have come from the south, and they, unlike their neighbours, practise the cultivation of irrigated rice with a certain amount of terracing.

[8] Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, I. i. p. 191 and ch. vi. passim.

[9] The origin of the Kuki-Lushai-Chin family is a matter of some doubt (see Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, I. i. p. 451 sq.), but apparently they came originally from the north and are probably related to the Burmese and to the Singpho-Kachin group.

[10] Probably Bodo.

[11] Census of India, 1911. Part I. ch. ix. The Bodo race seems to have been widely intermingled with the Munda and Mon-Khmêr families, and though the latter is spoken of as an Austric race, it seems clear enough that the Bodos came into Assam from the north, and it may perhaps be questioned whether the Munda Mon-Khmêr races are not equally Turanian in origin, an origin which has also been claimed for the Polynesians and Melanesians in the Pacific. Vide Dr. George Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 16, 17, 369, 370 (Macmillan, 1910).

[12] There are in Yacham and also in some Konyak villages to the east apparently definite traditions of an immigration from a place called Maibang of a clan which still preserves as heirlooms certain peculiar types of spiked armlets of bronze. “Maibang” is a Kachari place name = “Much paddy.” Besides the Kachari capital of that name in the North Cachar Hills, there is said to have been a Maibang village on the outer Lhota range.

[13] But even the Semas themselves contain traces of a mixed origin; there are clans in Vekohomi who admittedly came from the country to the south-east across the Tizu. These it is true claim that they were an offshoot originally of the genuine Sema, but there is little, not even probability, to support their claim. All the northern and eastern Semas contain large and demonstrable admixtures of Ao and Sangtam blood, and it is likely that the original blood of the Sema invaders is excessively diluted and that not even all the chiefly families are of true Sema descent.

[14] In Assamese the Lhotas speak of them as “spirits,” deo, but in their own language as “jungle-men,” orakyon.

[15] So has the Kacha Naga, and the Phom to some extent.

[16] See Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I. Book II., Map of the Races of Oceania.

[17] The black of a Naga’s or Kuki’s hair is normally a dull brownish- or reddish-black rather than the blue-black of some races. Children with reddish, or even yellowish, hair are particularly common in Phom villages.

[18] In the Konyak villages of Shiong and Tang there appears to be a whole clan whose hair is of this type. The member of the clan whom I saw had very curly hair which stuck out fuzzily in all directions.

[19] The Maru. Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, I. i. p. 386. The Lolos also burn their dead (ibid. p. 615) and put their ashes in clefts in the rock. In the Assam hills north of the Brahmaputra the Taroan and Miju Mishmis first bury, then exhume and burn their dead. The Khasi and Garo tribes also burn.

[20] In Yacham, a composite Ao-Phom village, each family has its own place of exposure where the bodies of its dead are exposed on a platform under thatch in the Ao manner, but smoked out of doors in situ, after which the heads are ultimately wrenched off and the bodies in their wrappings added to the heap in the clan burial tree.

[21] It possibly dates only from the comparatively recent absorption by the Chang tribe of certain Ao villages east of the Dikhu. Colonel A. E. Woods, touring among the Changs in 1900, states definitely that they bury their dead.

[22] Mr. Mills tells me that all these obsolete Lhota yanthang seem to be connected with the partial migration from the north as opposed to the general immigration from the south.

[23] The story of people created with their noses upside-down so that they could not go out in the rain, because it ran off their foreheads down their nostrils, is not the sort of story that one would expect to occur spontaneously to different peoples in different parts of the world. It is reported from the Bila-an in the Philippines (Frazer, Folk-lore in the Old Testament, Vol. I. p. 16) and is found in the Naga Hills among both Changs and Semas. The Angamis have the story in which the Semas and Changs introduce the incident, but do not, apparently, relate this particular tradition.

[24] Stone hoes (or axes), both roughly shouldered and with very carefully squared shoulders, are to be found in various parts of the Naga Hills, and are regarded as thunderbolts.

[25] The Lhotas are to some extent an exception. They know and use the cross-bow, though their Ao, Rengma, Angami and even Sema neighbours do not. North of the Brahmaputra both the long-bow and cross-bow are in use, and one tribe uses the former for shooting fish, special long arrows being used for that purpose.

[26] The Wa of Burma make drums of this sort (U. B. and S. S. Gazetteer, I. i. p. 502).

[27] Upper Burma and Shan States Gazetteer, I. i. p. 535.

[28] Playfair, The Garos, p. 34. So too the Lynngam and Bhois (Gurdon, The Khasis, p. 40).

[29] The Konyaks also have the custom of blackening their teeth like the Brè Karens of Burma (U. B. and S. S. Gazetteer, I. i. p. 534).

[30] Phoms and some Konyaks put up a single erect stone with flat stones round it as a place for the exposure of enemy heads in front of the clan “morung.”

[31] The reason given is that this kindred has never been allowed to carry the village oha (sacred stones) at the time of migration, or indeed to touch them at any time.

The Khawlthang sept of the Haokip clan of Thado Kukis also uses Y-shaped posts (vide Col. Shakespear’s Lushei-Kuki Clans, p. 65).

The Angami uses them only in the case of the Lisü “genna” performed in Kohima villages only. At this “genna” the spirit of fertility is caused to perambulate the village, symbolized by a Y-shaped and by a phallic post, the former pulled by chaste boys, the latter carried by a man, and representing respectively the female and male organs of generation. It has been already pointed out that the Puchatsuma clan in Kohima has a western origin.

[32] In some cases the Ang has really no political influence at all, and seems to be kept as a sort of “fetish” rather than anything else. Thus Kamahu in 1920, having never had an Ang, obtained one from Wanching, “because it was good to have one.”

[33] They also have different words for “father,” aphu and apyu, like the Tengima Angamis apo and apvu. The present census shows a practical equality of those Rengmas using apfsü for “mother” with the total of the Tseminyu using avyo and the Inseni-Kotsenu using azao.

[34] The word is distinct in meaning from Teprima, a foreigner from the plains, including Assamese, Bengalis, Europeans, etc. The proportion, as worked out, during the 1921 census, of Kepezoma to Kepepfüma in the Angami tribe shows a nearly three to one majority of the former among the Tengima and Dzunokehena groups, and a nearly two to one majority in the Chakrima group of the “Thevoma” over “Solhima.” This excludes the Kezami and Mĕmi sub-tribes, of which the former seems to be wholly Pezoma and the latter wholly Pepfüma, at any rate as far as the terms used are concerned, though the division may exist in fact but have disappeared from the terms of address as in the case of the Chakrima. The bulk of the Memi group are in the Manipur state and were therefore outside the scope of the inquiry. The total figures actually returned from those groups in which the inquiry was made were—

Kepezoma. Kepepfüma.

Tengima 13,516 4,748
Chakrima 11,051 5,771
Kezami 4,670 —
Memi — 1,099
====== ======
Total for those Angamis in the Naga Hills
District 29,237 11,618

The census for the Ao tribe showed the Chongli Aos 16,276 souls against 5,809 Mongsen Aos.

[35] The Sema clan of Chishilimi was perhaps originally organized on a dual basis, the clan being descended from two brothers, Chesha and Chishi, and the descendants of one brother being regarded as superior. Here again there was a dispute as to which was the superior division, the descendants of Chishi eventually establishing their claim by chicanery, though Chesha was the elder brother.

[36] Mr. Mills has pointed out to me that the Ung clan among the Changs is priestly, and that there must be one of this clan in every Chang village. As the Ung clan is usually spoken of with contempt it doubtless represents a conquered population acquainted with the gods of the soil, at any rate in the Chang country. Chang Ung probably = Konyak Ang in any case, and the Changs seem to be largely invaders in Phom, Ao or Konyak territory.

[37] So, too, the Garo dead point to the peak Chikmang (Playfair, The Garos, p. 103). North of the river Brahmaputra the hill tribes are said to have no beliefs as to transmigration into insects.

[38] Mr. Mills has pointed out to me that the Lhota word for a familiar spirit is Sonyo, and the familiar usually takes a leopard form, while the Ao word Chonyu means “leopard” pure and simple. The Chang word Saonyu = “tiger.”

The Thado Kukis, while not practising lycanthropy, believe very strongly in vampires and are extremely afraid of offending persons with the reputation of being such. The vampire sends his soul to suck the vitality of other men’s souls during sleep. The Meitheis also believe in vampires, but I have not met the belief in any Naga tribe.

[39] The Semas have a story of a stone at Champimi which fought with Tukahu (Japvo) mountain. The Aos have several stones that fight or fought, and the Lhota stories are given by Mr. Mills. It may be noticed that the Aos, like the Khasis, have the practice of divining by breaking eggs and observing the fall of the fragments of shell.

[40] McCulloch, quoted by Hodson (The Meitheis, pp. 68, 73), records a Manipuri tradition of the composition of the Manipuri people from different clans that came from the south, the east and the north-west. Mr. Hodson also suggests that the existing population was already located as at present in A.D. 1431 (op. cit. p. 74 note).

[41] But north of the Brahmaputra again burial is the rule.

[42] These Y-shaped posts are also used by the Wa of Burma to commemorate the slaughter of buffaloes (Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, I. i. p. 505), whose village defences (ibid. p. 504) must closely resemble those of the Angamis and Kacha Nagas.

[43] It might, of course, be possible to contend that this fusion took place as a result of two consecutive occupations of the Naga Hills themselves, but in my opinion all the evidence points to the fusion having taken place at any rate before the Angamis occupied their present sites. The barbarian element may have been Tai in origin.

[44] I am indebted to Mr. J. P. Mills for this explanation of the names of the Lhota phratries, which reached me long after I had formed the conclusions which they appear in some degree to strengthen.

[45] The meaning of the Lhota word is, I am told, very doubtful. If correctly interpreted it might perhaps refer to some habit of hairdressing. The Angami, in contradistinction to tribes to the north, brushes his hair up off his forehead; so does the Tangkhul.

[46] I take azo and ayo, Angami and Lhota respectively for “my mother,” to be the same word.

[47] Gait’s History of Assam, p. 162.

[48] The Lhota villagers on the outer range relate that the Burmese visited them in a horde which moved on from village to village, looting everything they could find and eating all the food supplies and defiling the houses in a very Prussian way before leaving, the Lhota inhabitants having fled to the jungle on the approach of the Burmese. One Lhota, who related this to me, said that the Burmese (mān) must, in his opinion, have been some sort of spirit or godling, but another contradicted him, saying that he knew well that the mān were men like themselves.—J. H. H.

[49] Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, No. 110, 1841, p. 162.

[50] Selection of Papers regarding Hill Tracts between Assam and Burmah and on the Upper Brahmaputra. Bengal Secretariat Press, 1873, pp. 295 sqq.

[51] Lhotas living left of the Doyang are known as Ndrung, and those on the right bank as Liye. The division of the tribe into two sections by a river which is unfordable for a great part of the year has led to slight diversity of dialect and custom.

[52] The following is the Lhota version of how the miraculous properties of the Kezakenoma stone were destroyed: In order to put an end to the quarrels of the brothers as to whose turn it was to dry, and double, his paddy, an old woman, who had no husband, and an old man who had no wife, were selected and these two had connection lying on the stone. This destroyed its miraculous properties. Possibly the idea was that the sexual act between these old people was bound to be sterile and that this sterility should be communicated to the highly prolific stone. The Rengmas have this story as well as the Lhotas. In The Angami Nagas (pp. 19 and 362) I have recorded other accounts, both Rengma and Angami, of the manner in which the stone was rendered unfruitful, and suggested that the methods aimed rather at offending or hurting the spirit in the stone, an explanation perhaps equally applicable to the Lhota version.—J. H. H.

[53] The languages of the Lhotas and Southern Sangtams are very closely akin.

[54] A village was not always founded by one man. It was quite common for two men of different clans to join at founding a new village, each bringing his quota of families. Each clan would supply wives for the other, and the inconveniences of marriage outside the village were thus avoided.

[55] The fire-stick of the Lhotas is precisely similar to that of the Semas and other Naga tribes. A small piece of dry wood is split and a little stone put in as a wedge. The fork so formed is laid over some cotton wool or whatever is used as tinder, the operator holding it in place with his foot. A strip of dry bamboo is put under the fork, which is notched to keep it in place, and pulled backwards and forwards till the friction causes the tinder to smoulder.

[56] See pp. 122 sqq.

[57] Wavy hair is common among the Aos and Konyaks, and curly hair far from rare.

[58] In villages near the Rengma border individuals are often to be seen who have adopted the Rengma custom and shaved their heads so high up all round that practically nothing but a small cap of hair is left.

[59] Vide p. 108.

[60] For description of social “gennas” see Part IV.

[61] As is the case among the Semas, a boy may if he likes wear any cloth to which his father is entitled while he lives with him. When he marries, however, and sets up house on his own, he may only wear those cloths to which he is entitled in his own right.

[62] What appears to be the original form of this ornament is still worn in some Eastern Chang villages. It consists of a long string of white wild Job’s tear seeds, which is made for and given to a man by a girl with whom he is carrying on a flirtation. Further to the west the seeds are sewn in rows on to a cloth wristlet, and among the Aos cowries take the place of the seeds.

[63] See p. 91.

[64] The Changs say they gave up the use of these daos three generations ago. The Aos probably did so about the same time, but they still keep a few as heirlooms, and the leader of the dance at a big feast holds one in his hand.

[65] Some villages seem to regard this particular dao only as yanthang and either do not know, or refuse to admit, the existence of a whole class of daos called by that name.—J. H. H.

[66] I was told in Yimbang that though the red embroidered lechapsü was worn originally for taking part in a raid, it may now be worn by “anyone who has ever carried a load for Government,” i.e. by all able-bodied Lhotas.—J. H. H.

[67] Col. L. W. Shakespear, History of Upper Assam, Upper Burma and North-Eastern Frontier, p. 202.

[68] It may be noticed that while the Lhota word for “morung,” champo, seems allied to the vocabulary of the north-east (e.g. in Chang chăm = house, and some Konyaks use the same word), the word for “house,” oki, is that of the western Naga vocabulary (Sema aki, Angami ki).

The Bachelors’ House is an institution common to most of the tribes in Assam, and is also found among the Oraons of Chota Nagpur, a Kolarian (or Mon-Khmêr) tribe. Cf. S. C. Roy, The Oraons of Nagpur (Ranchi, 1915), p. 211.—J. H. H.

[69] Konyaks, after rebuilding a “morung,” immediately go into the jungle and try to kill a monkey, the hand of which is tied to the main post. Failing a monkey, anything, even a little bird, will do, but something must be killed, and the hunting party returns home singing as if they had taken a head.

[70] The word emung, which corresponds exactly to the Ao term amung, means literally “gathered together.” On an emung day no one may go down to the fields to work, or go farther from the village than is necessary to get water and firewood.

[71] In some villages the head and trunk of the dog are tied up on the main post (humtse tachungo) of the “morung” and left there to rot.

[72] Lt.-Col. R. G. Woodthorpe’s sketch on Pl. XVIII., Vol. xi., of the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1888, shows what the mingetung of Phiro looked like in the old days.

[73] The spot where this was done is called Rāmākātī or mān yōnchopfĕ́ the latter meaning the “Burmese iron-foundry.” It is a small outcrop of very shaly coal. Possibly the ancestor of the Thangwe Eni clan caught in the jungle by the Eni who adopted him was a Burman, like the ancestor of the Tephri-Methama sept of the Methama clan in the Angami village of Chichama.—J. H. H.

[74] It is with the same idea, perhaps, that an Angami selling an ancestral field retains as his own a sod or two which remain nominally his.—J. H. H.

[75] The process described below is that employed in the case of ordinary land. On the very poor soil the jungle is often cut in July and burnt at the beginning of December. The soil then gets a longer exposure to the air.

[76] The Kayans of Borneo, who have several cultural affinities with Nagas, follow the same practice. They give as their reason the necessity of providing abiding places for the spirits (toh) of the locality. (Hose and McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, II. 23, quoted Sir J. G. Frazer, Folk-lore in the Old Testament, III. 70.) The value of the practice is obvious, as it gives the trees a chance of seeding and so of restocking the cleared ground and making it fit for jhuming again.—J. H. H.

[77] Cf. pp. 151 sqq.

[78] See Man, July 1917, “Some Types of Native Hoes, Naga Hills,” by H. Balfour, M.A.—J. H. H.

[79] Corresponds to the Angami Chadangi, which is performed about the same time of year.—J. H. H.

[80] Most Naga tribes erect some white sign by a path when clearing it. Aos, for instance, set up rows of saplings cut obliquely at the top to show the white heart. Some tribes put up peeled stakes, or stakes split down the middle.—J. H. H.

[81] In many Angami villages the First Reaper must be a woman.—J. H. H.

[82] See p. 115.

[83] The charms recorded for this ceremony are those used in Akuk. The formulæ used in ceremonies vary considerably in different villages.

[84] Persons of another village are on no account allowed to help in threshing.—J. H. H.

[85] The wild orange is found in the forests along the foot of the Naga Hills on the Assam side, while the culture of limes and pomelos, though apparently not of oranges themselves, was brought up from the Chindwin valley by the Southern Sangtams, who carried the seeds with them on their wanderings. Cf. also Gurdon, The Khasis, p. 41.—J. H. H.

[86] I have heard of one case of a mithan interbreeding with a gaur (Bos gaurus), a few of which are still to be found in the foot-hills of the Lhota country. The calf died, however. Such crosses are said to be not uncommon in the North Cachar Hills.

[87] The Semas have a similar custom. The intention apparently is to keep a certain amount of control over this semi-feral animal by retaining something which has been in close contact with it.—J. H. H.

[88] Lhotas give to newly acquired pigs the bulbous root of a small ground orchid which they call wokoloha (pigs’ luck-stone). This is believed to have the effect of inducing them to take to their new surroundings without running away (as we put butter on a cat’s paws) and prevents their fighting with the other pigs in the house. It also seems to promote the prosperity of the pig generally.—J. H. H.

[89] There are two distinct types of Naga dog—one with a short and hard coat, sometimes red, but usually black with white chest and often with white paws and collar or a white splash on the back of the neck; the other long-haired and either black or red, though sometimes all white or white with a few black blotches. The long-haired type, like the other, has a good nose, but its coat is too thick for it to be able to hunt game for long.—J. H. H.

[90] It is probably also thought that the preservation of the shell aids the preservation of the chicken during its infancy.—J. H. H.

[91] Corresponds to the Angami Tsikeo.—J. H. H.

[92] By the Semas, at any rate, something, if only a scrap, must be given by the owner of the dogs to the dogs themselves. Cf. S. C. Roy, The Oraons of Nagpur, p. 157.—J. H. H.

[93] In some villages of the Northern Lhotas the curse is removed by cutting off the head, not the paws.

[94] Cf. T. C. Hodson, Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 57.

[95] This fruit, thrice cooked, is used as food by the Konyaks and pronounced very good—“like ghi.” Cooked once only, it is used by them as a rat poison.—J. H. H.

[96] A Chang who loses his way cuts off a bit of his hair and sticks it in a cleft stick or the fork of a tree, no doubt as a substitute for his own person. After which the python lets him go and he finds his way home. A Sema under similar circumstances offers a bit of the fringe of his cloth.—J. H. H.

[97] My experience of fish “poisoning” by Lhotas is that the discipline of the leaders over the younger men beating the “poison” into the river is so poor that the invariable result is that almost the only fish taken are a few labeo, a bottom-feeding fish more susceptible to poison than mahseer, and any cat-fish (Bagarius yarrellii or Silundia gangetica or some similar Siluroid) that there may be in the river. Ultimately I came to the conclusion that, as far as game-fish at any rate were concerned, poisoning by niro did more good than harm, as it cleared out the predatory fish while scarcely affecting the mahseer and its kin. I found later that Mr. Soppitt’s experiences among the Kacharis in the North Cachar Hills had led him to precisely the same conclusion (see C. A. Soppitt, Historical and Descriptive Account of the Kachari Tribes in the North Cachar Hills, Shillong, 1885. Reprinted with an introduction by E. C. Stuart Baker, 1901, pp. 51, 52).—J. H. H.

[98] See p. 160.

[99] I have known Lhotas diving in the Doyang in the rains, when that river was muddy and in spate, catch fish by hand without any sort of aid, apparently picking them up stupid from the river bed.—J. H. H.

[100] On the other hand, the Aos and Changs place a high value on otter flesh. They believe that fish-bones will never stick in the throat of anyone who has eaten it. If a particularly large fish-bone does by any chance stick in the throat of a Chang who has ever eaten otter meat he has only to murmur “I am an otter,” and down it goes.

[101] Most Nagas, including Lhotas, eat hawks with avidity. Possibly this accounts for it.—J. H. H.

[102] Probably the reason, in some cases at any rate, is the fear that the propensity of the animal for destroying and wasting paddy will pass to the woman, who is responsible for regulating the household consumption, and thereby cause the household store of grain to be unduly depleted. This is almost certainly the reason in the case of the monkey and might apply equally to the wild mithan and buffalo, to the bear and to the elephant. It could hardly be applied to the serow or to the pangolin. The former of these two is a roaming animal and rarely sleeps long in the same spot, which offers an obvious reason for the prohibition. The pangolin is such a curious beast that anyone might shy at eating him. The Sema forbids gibbon meat lest the children inherit the cry.—J. H. H.

[103] A Lhota woman was accused in my court of having poisoned her husband under circumstances which left little doubt as to her guilt in my mind, though the charge could not be proved in court. It is generally believed that women have knowledge of poisons which are unknown to men, and I am inclined to think that the belief is not without foundation.—J. H. H.

[104] The names of the lines given here are those current in Akuk. The names vary considerably in different villages.

[105] Cf. T. C. Hodson, Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 62. Cf. also Lt.-Col. J. Shakespear, Kuki-Lushei Clans, for its prevalence throughout the hills.

[106] This variety is, I think, identical with the Bean game as played by the Angamis, while the other variety probably bears more resemblance to the Sema game.—J. H. H.

[107] The Sema, like the Angami, flute has two round holes, burnt.—J. H. H.

[108] The order given is that in which the first ancestors are said to have emerged from the earth. The three phratries are regarded as being of equal status. Tom-pyak-tserre is said to mean “forehead-scraping-clean-men,” Izumon-tserre “scattered-men,” and Mi-pong-san-dre “with fire-smoke-conquering-men.”

[109] A big Sema village of the Asimi clan in the Doyang valley, south-east of the present Lhota country.

[110] Another tradition says that the old man was of the Nguli clan. The Chorothui clan only numbers nine households all told. They do not know to what phratry they belong.

[111] I have always heard the relationship stated as between the Sema Wotsami and the Lhota Shetri. In any case I am inclined to think the relationship between respective clans of different tribes an artificial growth no doubt derived from the considerable diffusion of common blood among the Naga tribes. If it were genuine the Wotsami clan of Semas should be associated with the Othui rather than the Nguli or Shetri clans. Vide infra, Part V.: Story of “How men were turned into Gibbons.” Up to a certain point there is no doubt a real connection, as the Ao Pongen or Pongrr, like the Sema Chishilimi, claim a patrician descent distinct from that of other clans, while the corresponding Ang clan among the Konyaks still retains its distinct patrician position. I believe the Changs’ refusal to intermarry with a corresponding Ao clan is probably no older than the absorption by the Changs of a number of Ao villages at a comparatively recent date, when they also adopted the practice of exposure of the dead. At the present time they expose or bury as they feel inclined, but Colonel Woods, who toured in their country in 1900, states specifically that they bury their dead and makes no mention at all of exposure, though this was certainly practised at that time by the neighbouring Ao, Phom and Konyak villages also visited by Colonel Woods.—J. H. H.

[112] Cf. The Angami Nagas, Part III., “The Exogamous System,” and Appendix III. under “Lhota.”—J. H. H.

[113] The Semas, who do the same, regard such marriages with favour rather than disfavour, I think.—J. H. H.

[114] Cf. Sema chochomi.—J. H. H.

[115] This is what is normally done by the Semas.—J. H. H.

[116] A serious quarrel between villages resulting in bloodshed entails a similar prohibition. For instance, Pungkitung once killed a number of Lungsa men, and Lungsa retaliated in kind. To this day members of the two villages cannot eat together, and a Lhota of another village who has accepted hospitality in either Lungsa or Pungkitung cannot on the same day take food from the hands of a man of the other village. This bar does not, however, prevent the inhabitants of the two villages from intermarrying freely.

[117] One “khel” of Rephyim is supposed to have died out because the head-taking ceremony was once performed there with a Lhota head.

[118] So too the Kachins (Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, I. i. p. 432) and the Northern Brè (ibid. p. 533).—J. H. H.

[119] Yampongo of Phiro, a man of great note in his time. He died of a burst blood-vessel when leading home a mithan captured in the operations against the Kukis in 1918, and he was over sixty at the time.—J. H. H.

[120] Compare the Sema song sung by returning warriors, “O Yemusali, O Yemali,” the meaning of which is not known to the Semas. The words are obviously the same as those in the Lhota song; and if, as seems possible, there has been a more intimate connection between the Lhotas and the Southern Sangtams than now appears, then the Semas may have acquired the phrase from the numerous Sangtams whom they have absorbed during the comparatively recent growth and extension of their (the Sema) tribe.—J. H. H.

[121] See p. 25. One Lhota from Pangti told me that orrülama were left by the returning warriors at each cross-roads they came to on their way home, the object being to guide the spirit of the slain enemy as it followed the head. The Changs believe that the spirits of dead enemies follow their heads some hours later, whimpering as they go.

[122] The Southern Sangtams put them into gourds and place them on the top of bamboo poles outside the “morung,” the head or gourd being transfixed vertically with a bit of wood like a spear.—J. H. H.

[123] So too the Sea Dyaks of Sarawak and some African tribes.—J. H. H.

[124] The practice of buying slaves or orphans for this purpose is perhaps worst among the unadministered Konyak villages, where it is a matter of common occurrence, and is probably normal when a chief’s son wishes to put on warrior’s dress and marry. His father buys a slave, who is tied up in the village, where the boy kills him in public. —J. H. H.

[125] In some Lhota villages—e.g. Lungithang—specially made wooden clubs were kept for use in village rows, and no doubt also fights of this sort, to avoid recourse to edged tools. The Yachungrr tribe does the same, clubs being made for women as well as men in this tribe, and I have known Kacha Nagas (Maruongmai) also to use made clubs, long and flat, for village riots.—J. H. H.

[126] = Sema Kungumi, and Chang Müghka.—J. H. H.

[127] Potso is commonly used as a form of address to highly respected persons such as sahibs, like the Assamese Deota, which is, or at one time was, employed in the same way, and means a godling of some kind.—J. H. H.

[128] This is the translation given me by Lhotas. The word may really mean “water-mother,” opfu being one of the Lhota words for mother.

[129] The Sema belief as to Muzamuza, the corresponding Sema deity, is stated in the same terms, but Muzamuza is Echo.—J. H. H.

[130] The lizard, in particular the sand-lizard with a very shiny skin, is the subject of some superstitious belief among most Nagas. Thus it is engraved by Tobu (a ? Konyak village east of the Chang country) on the long daos they make, tattooed by Chang warriors on their breasts, painted in black gum on the central white band of the Rengma head-taking cloth, and sometimes, I think, painted or carved in Konyak “morungs.” The Semas seem to associate it somehow with the distinction between the sexes (v. The Sema Nagas), like some Australian tribes. —J. H. H.

[131] Cf. The Angami Nagas, Appendix VII., The Meitheis (Hodson), p. 99; The Khasis (Gurdon), p. 170. Mr. W. S. Furness (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, XXXII., 1902, “Ethnography of the Nagas of Eastern Assam”) states that a stone called Puzzi, near the Sema village of Champhimi, which used to be erect but is now laid flat, was killed by the Angami god Tukko, who knocked him down and cut off his head. This god “Tukko” is clearly Tŭkăhū, which is the Sema name for Japvo mountain.—J. H. H.

[132] Shakespear, The Lushai Kuki Clans, p. 64.

[133] All Naga tribes that I know hold these two conflicting beliefs as to the life after death, regarding the soul as inhabiting a butterfly or other insect, and also as continuing an anthropomorphic existence. The discrepancy does not seem to occur to them till pointed out, and not to worry them much then. “Who knows?” is all they say.—J. H. H.

[134] The Angami differs in sending the souls of the “good” to the sky and the rest only to the underworld.—J. H. H.

[135] On this road the spirit, Etchhilivanthamo, lies in wait for passers-by to catch and destroy them if he can. To appease him every dead Lhota has a bead tied to his wrist when buried, so that he can give it to this spirit and get by.—J. H. H.

[136] The Angamis regard the shrew mouse as the wild boar of the dead.—J. H. H.

[137] Probably in the under-world or as insects; cf. the Angami belief (The Angami Nagas, Part IV.).

[138] In Phiro and Saki the term Puki is used to denote not only the religious officials of the village, but anyone who has performed all the social “gennas,” a use closely resembling that of the title Kemovo among the Angamis (of the Kohima group only, where Pitsü is used = Puthi in its usual sense, other Angamis using Kemovo = Puthi, and Pitsü for the oldest male in the village).—J. H. H.

[139] Cf. The Oraons of Nagpur, p. 111, note.—J. H. H.

[140] In Morakcho I was told that anyone who speared the opya in the “head” would die within the year.—J. H. H.

[141] See Hodson, Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 119.

[142] The blade of a dao is ground on one side of its edge only, giving a plano-convex cutting edge, so that blows can be made to cut only by a downward stroke from the right, or an upward stroke from the left, or, in the case of a dao made on purpose for a left-handed man, vice versa.—J. H. H.

[143] The Kalyo-Kengyu preserve the bodies of the dead in coffins in their houses during the year, and on a fixed day at the “genna” for sowing throw away all the bodies collected during the year, together with their coffins, belongings, etc. The bodies, however, are broken up first and the bones collected out of them and put in an earthen pot and kept at the back of the granary, where they are left to decompose of themselves.—J. H. H.

[144] Formerly it was the custom for a man who had performed the whole series to give a final feast, to which even birds and beasts were invited. Rice and food were scattered on the ground for the village pigs and chickens, and a special share of meat and rice was taken down to the performer’s fields and left there for the crows. There is no one alive now who has dispensed hospitality on this lavish scale.

[145] Among the defects which disqualify a mithan in the view of Ao Nagas is any defect in the position, etc., of the whorls of hair on the animal’s throat and muzzle, about which the Aos are very particular. —J. H. H.

[146] The ceremonies described below are those performed in Pangti. The details vary considerably from village to village.

[147] All Nagas put up green stuff over their doors when observing household “gennas,” apparently as a signal to strangers not to interfere. There may be some other idea beneath it. A Lhota who passes the corpse of a man who has met with a violent end waves a bit of green stuff to and fro across his face. Mr. Mills tells me that this is to ward off the evil fate (nyok) which has attached to the dead man and may infect the passerby. Nyok possibly = Angami ropfü (v. The Angami Nagas, Part IV.).—J. H. H.

[148] The Northern Lhotas carry the stone, but the Southern Lhotas drag it up on a rough sledge made of a forked branch, small branches being repeatedly laid in front of it to act as rollers.

[149] Mr. C. R. Pawsey tells me that the stone set up at Pembvo’s grave (on the same ridge as Changsung and Ralung but to the south of them, a long-deserted village site) bears a rough incision believed by the local Lhotas, who greatly cherish Pembvo’s memory, to represent the hornbill feathers he used to wear. The incision is in the form of an arc, the convex side upmost, with six lines proceeding from it like rays. I have once seen a stone ornamented with designs in pig’s fat; the village was, as far as I remember, Changsung.—J. H. H.

[150] These Y-shaped posts are used as an emblem of prosperity by the Garos, Naked Rengmas, Sangtams, Semas, and by the Hankip clan of Thado Kukis, and were clearly used by the Kachari kings of Dimapur, who have left them in stone instead of wood at Dimapur. Originally they doubtless represent the female organ of generation, in which capacity they are still made and carried in Kohima village at the Lisü “genna,” and, preceded by an emblem of the male organ, are dragged through the village by chaste boys. Kohima, however, seems to be the only genuine Angami village which either uses the Y-shaped post or performs the Lisü “genna” in this way. Possibly the Y-shaped post is to be definitely connected with the Bodo immigration into Assam.—J. H. H.

[151] Lhotas believe that a man who kills a pangolin will die if a scale falls from the skin of the animal. The Phoms of Hukpang have the same belief.—J. H. H.

[152] Lhota women wishing for an easy delivery in childbirth catch the little sand lizard called shamdram, probably belonging to the skink family, having a very smooth and glossy surface to its scales, and of active habits, and rub it round their navel and abdomen, saying, “Let my child be slippery like you, and come without difficulty.” Then they let it go again.—J. H. H. The Hopi Indians of Arizona use a weasel skin for the same purpose (cf. Man, July 1921, p. 99).

[153] Angamis and Semas bury the afterbirth. The Khasis hang it up in trees.—J. H. H.

[154] A similar taboo exists among the Garos; cf. Major A. Playfair, The Garos, p. 23.

[155] The Semas and Angamis still do, I think, but they do not abandon the house.—J. H. H.

[156] The same custom obtains among the Kacharis and other tribes of the Assam valley.—J. H. H.

[157] Among the Aos and Konyaks, on the other hand, the usual practice is for a youth to choose as his wife one of the girls whose favours he has been in the habit of enjoying.

[158] A somewhat different account of a Lhota wedding is given on p. 74 of Part I. of the Assam Census Report, 1911. In spite of careful inquiries I have been unable to find any Lhota who has ever heard of the marriage song and mock fight there described.

[159] In the case of the Rengmas a younger brother who has a fancy for his elder brother’s wife by no means necessarily waits for his brother’s absence, nor does the elder brother necessarily object to his younger brother’s having intercourse with his (the elder’s) wife. I have known the elder brother acquiesce in this even when the younger was married to a wife of his own. This last it was who objected.—J. H. H.

[160] Some of the Konyaks use coffins of this type, and the Kalyo-Kengyu also seem to use a dug-out receptacle for the bodies of the dead while they are kept in the house during the desiccation process.—J. H. H.

[161] One or two villages situated near the lower reaches of the Doyang where it emerges into the plains make dug-out canoes hewn from a single log. These are admittedly copies of those made by the Assamese, with whom these villages have been in long and close contact.

[162] So the Assamese of the plains believe that if a false report of a man’s death is circulated he will live long. The Semas on the other hand believe that it will cause his death untimely.—J. H. H.

[163] The Northern Lhotas build a miniature roof over the grave.

[164] The Kalyo-Kengyu make periodic offerings by the path until the sowing following the death, when the body is broken up. A mat is spread and every sort of grain poured out, and some of all the fruits and vegetables available, together with wooden daos, spears and cross-bows, are put out for the dead, whole baskets of valuable grain being emptied by the roadside for this purpose.—J. H. H.

[165] The Tangkhuls build a miniature house on a very high machan (for the size of the house) with a tiny notched bamboo for the spirit to use as a ladder.—J. H. H.

[166] For a similar belief among the Garos, cf. Major A. Playfair, The Garos, p. 23.

[167] According to Sir J. Frazer the reason is fear of the ghost, vide Psyche’s Task, pp. 134, 135 (2nd ed.), where the customs of the Shans and Kachins are mentioned and prove to be remarkably similar to those of the Lhotas.—J. H. H. These deaths are known in Naga-Assamese as “apotia.”

[168] In a case that came to my notice at Lotsü, when the Puthi’s son got drowned when fishing, all the men with the lad threw away all their cloths, weapons, ornaments and everything they had taken with them on their outing. Even the dogs they had with them were killed and their bodies thrown into the jungle. The fact that it was the Puthi’s son that was drowned probably made the matter much more serious. The misfortune was put down to the anger of Tchhüpfu at the village having failed to “poison” the river with deo-bih, but it is possible that this was done in the hope that I would allow that forbidden practice to be renewed.—J. H. H.

[169] Semas sometimes come and ask for them, also for the paddy left to rot in the grain-house. I have known both taken without objection, and I have known Lhotas also object to both on the grounds that in the act of taking them away it would be necessary to move them across the village lands, and that this alone might be enough to bring about some terrible calamity. I think, however, that jealousy had something to do with this attitude.—J. H. H.

[170] Unless the disposal of enemy heads on the mingetung is so reckoned, or the disposal of the afterbirth in trees. Both are buried by the Angami and the latter by the Sema also.—J. H. H.

[171] The Changs believe that “tiger-men” are confined to the Haki-Ung clan, where the peculiarity is hereditary. They say that at the time of the Universal Deluge, when only the highest peaks remained above the flood, the Haki-Ung clan was the only one from which tigers claimed no victims. They therefore became the adopted sons of tigers, and to this day have tiger “familiars.” No member of the clan may kill or touch the corpse of a tiger. When a tiger is killed it is believed a member of the Haki-Ung clan will die six days later in a distant village.

[172] In this connection the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (“Leopard Men in the Naga Hills”) for Jan.–June 1920 may be referred to.—J. H. H.

[173] Among other Naga tribes these stones must be black and heavy for their size, and show a wet smear when rubbed with the thumb. They are nodules of some stone which is not a normal geological feature of the country, and are regarded as distinct from the larger water-worn stones kept to bring fortune to the community, which are definitely of the locality. Cf. The Sema Nagas, Part IV. (Anagha).—J. H. H.

[174] See The Angami Nagas, Part I.—J. H. H.

[175] The Semas and some other tribes rub them with pig’s fat.—J. H. H.

[176] It may be noticed that the presentation of fish by a man to his betrothed is the formal sign of the completion of an Ao marriage.—J. H. H.

[177] Cf. Apuleius, The Golden Ass, Chap. XV.—J. H. H.

[178] Rarakham appears to be the same as the Sema pulakhu, which, however, was identified for me as Mosla dianthera. It is quite likely that both plants are used by Nagas under the same name.—J. H. H.

[179] The Aos erect a stout and tall rice plant on a piece of bamboo and put it by the field to make the rice grow, by its good example, as high from the ground as the top of the uplifted rice plant.—J. H. H.

[180] There is a white serow of supernatural qualities at Seromi in the Sema country, and the Assamese, indeed, call the species deo-chaguli, “the spirit-goat,” no doubt owing to its exceeding shyness and elusiveness.—J. H. H.

[181] Lobeni, a dream-woman of Phiro, who was an acquaintance of mine and whose dreams of hunting prospects were famous for their accuracy, used to ask for a cloth or handkerchief of her client on which she used to sleep. The same practice is recorded of the Moscoc, dream diviners of Peru. (Memorias Antiguas Historiales del Peru, Hakluyt Soc. 1920, p. 60, note.)—J. H. H.

[182] So, too, the Samoans; George Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians (Macmillan, 1910), p. 219.—J. H. H.

[183] Cf. the New Britain belief; George Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 193.—J. H. H.

[184] The interpretation of dreams by opposites (cf. Apuleius, The Golden Ass, Chap. XXI.) is frequent among Nagas generally, and may no doubt be usually based on this principle.—J. H. H.

[185] I have found the same belief among the Thado Kukis.—J. H. H.

[186] This belief might be connected with that by which some Nagas explain earthquakes as the spirit under the earth shaking the earth as in a winnowing fan to find out what the crops are like and weigh their quantity and quality.—J. H. H.

[187] Cf. the somewhat similar Garo story; Major A. Playfair, The Garos, p. 85.—J. P. M.

Cf. also Col. Gurdon, The Khasis, p. 172, where it is to be noticed that the Khasis, like the Semas, make the moon masculine and the sun feminine. The Sema version (The Sema Nagas, p. 250) is still nearer to the Lhota, and a similar story (with a “rabbit” instead of dung) comes from Mexico. A geographical link between the two stories is perhaps provided by Japan, where the hare is associated with the moon (vide Lord Redesdale, Tales of Japan, “The Crackling Mountain,” note 1). The Malays also say that the sun and moon were once of equal brightness (Ratzel, History of Mankind, I. p. 478). The Nicobarese have the same beliefs as the Lhota both as to the former proximity of the sky and as to the interchange of functions between the sun and the moon (vide The Indian Antiquary), August 1921, Part DCXXXV. p. 235.—J. H. H.

[188] This view of the cause of eclipses is in accordance with the common Tibetan account current generally also over at any rate the north of India. It is the form which explanations of eclipses usually take among Nagas, but in contrast to the Angami story, which represents the orb eclipsed as repaying a loan of borrowed light.—J. H. H.

[189] Naga folk-lore in general has much in common with that of other races of Mongolian affinities. Thus the Naga (Angami) and Kachari story of the origin of the domestication of certain animals as opposed to the rest is akin to the Lapp story given by Mr. Andrew Lang under the title of “The Elf Maiden,” in his Brown Fairy Book. The Angami story is to be found in The Angami Nagas, Part IV., the Terhengi Genna, and the Kachari version in Soppitt, Historical and Descriptive Account of the Kachari Tribes of the North Cachar Hills, p. 56. Much closer, however, is the resemblance between an incident in the story of “The Fox and the Lapp” (same volume of Mr. Lang’s Fairy Tales), and the almost verbally identical incident in the Sema story of Iki and the Tiger (The Sema Nagas, p. 319). In the latter Iki escapes from the tiger by pointing to a hornbill flying over and saying, “I made that.” The tiger asks if Iki can make him like it, and on Iki’s consenting agrees to let himself be tied up, and to undergo an operation entailing his destruction. In the Lapp story the fox escapes from the bear by precisely the same ruse, a woodpecker taking the place of the hornbill. In the same volume of Mr. Lang’s is a story called “The Husband of the Rat’s Daughter,” quoted as from Contes Populaires, but apparently coming from Japan, which is identical with the Angami story of “The Rat Maiden” (The Angami Nagas,