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 Tseminyu and Tesophenyu
caption: blacksmith
medium: tours
ethnicgroup: Rengma <Western
location: Tseminyu
date: 26.1.1947
production:
person: Archer/ W.G.
date: 31.12.1946-14.2.1947
text: In Tseminyu I watched a Rengma blacksmith heating iron and then hammering it into the shape of a dao. (39) The bellows are quite distinct from Asur and Agaria ones. The twyers (sic) connect with two wooden cylinders three feet high. Each of these contains a skin bag from which a tall handle sticks. Behind the cylinder is a bench. A boy then squats with his feet on the cylinders and his buttocks on the back and works the handle up and down like pistons.