The Nagas

Hill Peoples of Northeast India

Project Introduction The Naga Database

typescript tour diary of W.G. Archer, S.D.O. Mokokchung 1947

caption: visit to Cheswejumi
caption: house carvings
medium: tours
keywords: Moza feastZhatho feast
person: Zine Angami/ of Cheswejumi
ethnicgroup: Angami <Eastern
location: Cheswezumi (Cheswejumi) Kigwema
date: 17.1.1947
production:
person: Archer/ W.G.
date: 31.12.1946-14.2.1947
text: Going round and round the village I was struck by its general neatness, its broad and clean streets and by the prevalence of carvings. About one house in four has carved panels and possibly one in five has house-horns.
text: With the fifth feast, stones become permisable. A fifth zhatho enables the celebrant to install two of them. A sixth does the same. The seventh and eighth each qualify him for four stones more while the ninth and the tenth carry eight stones each. The eleventh feast is marked by ten stones. Only one villager, Zine Angami, has so far completed eleven feasts and his thirty-eight stones can be seen beside the path just below the rest house.