The Nagas

footnotes 12. These combs are of two kinds, one coarse, for general use and the other fine, for the removal of vermin. Both measure about 6 inches long by 4 wide, and are made of bamboo splines bound ...
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footnotes 13. These are wooden cylinders 2 feet long and 18 inches in diameter, with a deerskin membrane at either end. They are beaten during the ceremonial spearing of wooden images during the winte...
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footnotes 14. Heramui is a potent and in many ways dangerous ceremony. The fourteen great spirits whose names are known are summoned one by one to a ceremonial feast set out as though on a table on th...
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footnotes 1. The only example of polygyny in the period 1940-6 occurred at Hangrum. The wife of the man concerned had borne him several daughters but no son, and as they were both no longer young, she...
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footnotes 2. The personal names of married persons are never used by the Central Nzemi, either in address or in the third person. The expressions "father of so-and-so", "mother of so-and-so", using th...
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footnotes 3. The rain-making ceremony must be performed by a man of the Neomi moiety. See also J.H.Hutton, "Races of Further Asia" Man in India, Vol. XII, No. 1, p.6, on the occurrence of dual organiz...
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footnotes 4. It is not known who was Nriami's wife.
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footnotes 5. Nui is believed to lie to the north-west of the present Nzemi country.
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footnotes 6. Compare the Angami putsa (Hutton, the Angami Nagas, pp. 115-117). The Nzemi word tsami appears to be derived from atsa (grandchild) and mi (people). The Magulong cluster use -nami from an...
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footnotes 7. There has been no Government survey, and there are no official figures of infant mortality rates among the Central Nzemi. Some information is obtainable from genealogical material, and in...
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footnotes 8. Vide infra, p.45-6
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footnotes 9. In 1935 a man named Hozekiemba returned to Laisong from Asalu, to which village his father had moved for reasons Hozekiemba was reluctant to disclose. An Asalu man, Haintseng, moved to Ma...
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footnotes 10. His personal property is inherited under a different rule. Lungdiliang is provided for during his father's lifetime. Namkia, the youngest son, makes a home for his parents in their old a...
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footnotes 11. Hutton, The Angami Nagas, p.16 "In many Kacha Naga villages exogamous clans are found bearing the names of Khonoma clans, probably adopted as a result of their subjection to Khonoma". Th...
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footnotes 12. See Appendix A. (missing)
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footnotes 13. Hutton, The Angami Nagas, p.115.
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footnotes 14. The Western Nzemi claim that they still adhere to the orthodox rules of exogamy, and deplore the Central Nzemi custom of marrying within the moiety.
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footnotes 15. Vide supra, p.38, et infra, p. 131, 156.
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footnotes 16. From kade (land) and -peo (a man). But -peo might also be here -peo (father) as in apeo (my father) and anapeo (father-of-my-child, i.e. husband), suggesting a conception of authority in...
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footnotes 17. This is also the pattern of succession to the Angami office of kemovo. The kemovo, like the Nzemi kadepeo, is a descendant of the chief founder, but unlike the kemovo, the kadepeo has re...
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footnotes 18. It is impossible for a widower to entertain in the way expected of a kadepeo, for he has no wife to pound paddy, cook and brew and attend to the other tasks which fall to the Nzemi woman...
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footnotes 19. Vide infra, p. (sic)
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footnotes 20. The kilt assumed at puberty is the nzing-ni, a strip of handwoven cotton 40 inches long by 15 wide. It is blue-black in colour, and is worn almost exclusively by unmarried man.
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footnotes 21. Girls below the age of puberty may enter the hangseoki 'without shame' and when watching dances often sit on the benches in the body of the hall.
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footnotes 22. The rahangmi still form a guard at night. Strangers arriving in a village after sundown are challenged from the hangseoki, and Government messengers travelling after dark may be provided...
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footnotes 23. Vide infra, pp. 107,154.
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footnotes 24. See also pp.107,154.
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footnotes 25. Vide infra pp.141-2.
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footnotes 26. Vide supra, pp 28-9
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footnotes 27. An unmarried Nzemi youth is classed as a minor and his father is responsible for any debts he incurs.
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footnotes 28. A case occurred at Laisong in 1940. An Impoi youth courted a Laisong girl. He was assaulted by the Laisong rahangmi, who objected to his instrusion, and the negotiators he sent to the gi...
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footnotes 29. If a man dies before his son marries and the widow and children remain in the house, the eldest son takes over the house on marriage, his mother and younger brothers and sisters continui...
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footnotes 30. The Kabui Naga Feasts of Merit form a close parallel.
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footnotes 31. It should be noted that the large-scale feasts may also fall into abeyance where villages are so great that such feasts become impossibly expensive. This has occurred in certain Angami v...
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footnotes 32. In 1946 Ramkailungba of Hegokuloa stayed the night in a house in Jalwa and drank more than was wise. On seeing his host's wife, then a woman of 45, he remarked to his host that she had b...
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footnotes 33. A central Nzemi's hair is normally brushed down all round from the crown; it is cut to frame the face, and at the back it reaches the nape of the neck. It resembles some European styles ...
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footnotes 34. Vide infra, pp. 143-4, for a brief account of the final ceremonies for the dead.
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footnotes 35. Although women have no share in public business and the administration of the village, they still wield a considerable influence on affairs. When Nzemi were being recruited as guerrillas...
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footnotes 36. Central Nzemi kinship will, it is hoped, be treated more fully later in a separate paper.
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footnotes 1. Mathai, meaning a headman, is a term in common use in North Cachar. Its origin is obscure.
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footnotes 2. The feast is called Hegwong-ngi, 'the chief's feast'. The Nzemi root -wong is found also in Kabui, with the same meaning of a chief or ruler. Compare the Konyak ang.
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footnotes 3. There is no information as to how frequently men not of Kadepeo Tsami served as administrative village heads before administration. I suspect that this practice has increased since admini...
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footnotes 4. In the case of Samrangba (vide infra, p.96) his mother was also in danger. Samrangba having no father alive, it may have been felt that she was to some extent to blame for Samrangba's lac...
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footnotes 5. This is a statement of fact, not a figure of speech.
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footnotes 6. Vide note 4.
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footnotes 7. For a close parallel, see J.H.Hutton, The Angami Nagas, p.144.
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footnotes 1. Certain clusters of Central Nzemi villages have not and never seem to have had boundaries between them. Until 1910 the present Laisong, Haijaichak and Kepelo formed the two large villages...
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footnotes 2. An Ao villager may prevent fellow-villagers cultivating his land if he so wishes, even though the community is cultivating the area in which his holding lies. The difference may gain be d...
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footnotes 3. Vide infra, p. 106
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footnotes 4. It is uncertain whether the holder of the right of usufruct from tsami land could claim rent from another member of the same tsami. No case has arisen to settle the point.
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footnotes 5. For the Kabui parallel, see Hodson, Naga Tribes of Manipur p. 172.
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footnotes 6. Vide supra, p. 56.
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footnotes 7. From the end of the harvest in December to the hoeing of the burned-off fields at the end of March, women use any time not taken up by any other household tasks in the preparation and dye...
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footnotes 8. In the dry Spring of 1946 a single fire near the writer's camp burned for 3 days and devastated 30 sq. miles of grass and woodland.
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footnotes 9. In the Central Nzemi area the average annual rainfall is of the order of 200 to 300 inches, most of which falls during June, July and August.
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footnotes 10. Vide supra, pp. 56.
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footnotes 11. In Asalu, Pokpat-ngi generally falls in the last week of August; in Laisong, about September 15th.
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footnotes 12. The average amount carried per domestic family unit is of the order of 90 to 100 loads of 60 lbs.
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footnotes 13. Zao kasang ("true rice-beer") is a thick white beer made from rice-flour. It is the only kind offered at important ceremonies when food and drink are set out for the spirits, and is used...
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footnotes 14. Red, a favourite colour, was once produced by the Central Nzemi from rubia sikkimensis, and dark blue was derived from strobilanthus flaccidifolius. During a period of extreme Angami pre...
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footnotes 1. Because of the gentler slopes surrounding it, the Angami village of Kohima can use fields up to 7 miles from the settlement. It may be noted in passing that among the Naga tribes the dist...
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footnotes 2. "With a taungya system on the other hand the low proportion of total cultivated land used at any one time implies that large settlements require a most unwieldy total farm area". Leach, C...
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footnotes 3. Leach, op. cit. p.260-1. "In practice, where this ideal type of slow rotation taungya is in operation, as in the Kachin Triangle, the component villages of the village cluster tend to be ...
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footnotes 4. Vide supra, pp.28-29.
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footnotes 5. Tesenmi, Impai and Bopungwemi are Northern Nzemi villages. The other sites are shown on the accompanying sketch-map. SKETCH
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footnotes 6. Haichangnang of Asalu, who in 1946 was the senior member of the Nubumheungtsami, is eighth in descent from Mbairaong.
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footnotes 7. See Appendix B.
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footnotes 8. In resettling a site it is usual to place the hangseoki in the positions they occupied in the earlier village. There are three reasons for this; the ritual associations of such sites, the...
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footnotes 9. Leach, op.cit., p.257.
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footnotes 10. On the Northern Nzemi-Angami tribal border Nzemi villagers have for many generations seen a wet-rice terrace system carried on most efficiently and with great success. Only three Nzemi v...
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footnotes 1. Village rituals are always performed by the priests. Ceremonies in individual houses, whether as an accepted part of a village festival or purely privately, to cure sickness or avert misf...
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footnotes 2. Vide supra, p.112.
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footnotes 3. It may flare up briefly at any time when the young men are in active competition, especially at the catching of pigs and other sacrificial animals, when a high state of excitement prevail...
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footnotes 4. Vide supra, p.48.
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footnotes 5. The Nzemi have two theories about this custom. One is that the death is directly caused by the neglected and slighted ancestors; the other, and more common, holds that the hera think that...
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footnotes 6. Wormwood (hega-zing) is believed to be able to wound spirits as a spear does a man; spirits also cannot abide the smell of it.
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footnotes 7. See T.C.Hodson, Naga Tribes of Manipur, pp.119 and 170.
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footnotes 8. Vide supra, p.29.
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footnotes 1. Vide supra, pp.124-133.
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footnotes 2. Kepelo and Haijaichak, which split on a political issue regarding relations with the administration, is the only exception known to me. Those opposing the Government formed a separate vil...
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footnotes 3. Compare the Konyak morung. (C. von Furer-Haimendorf, The Morung System of the Konyak Nagas, J.R.A.I., Vol. LXVIII, 1938, pp. 349-378.
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footnotes 4. Central Nzemi folklore and tradition give a vivid and detailed picture of the functions of the kienga and hangseoki in unadministered conditions. These functions were, as I have mentioned...
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footnotes 5. Vide supra, pp. 142-3.
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footnotes 6. All members of the village community, even the humblest, are entitled to their share at a feast of merit or a feast held by the kienga to which they belong, and in the past even slaves we...
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