| caption: |
field rest house and earth cones |
| text: |
Hutton notes 'the permanent roads from the villages to the terraced fields are usually provided with a rest-house at some distance from the villages where parties returning from their fields can halt to drink rice beer' Angami Nagas p. 46. Illustration of one at Jakhama fully carved. |
| text: |
In Khonoma - a lot of little sheds in the fields for shelter and meals - keeping food and clothes during rains and work - and a 'singing shed' for use by boys and girls at the Tsungi (chadangi) genna - the path clearing festival - this is known as Mechuki - the hall was solidly built with a sumptuous tin roof - it was open on all sides & had a lofty view. A long log went down either side and I was told that the boys sat in the middle and the girls at either end. The hall is the property of the Semoma clan and is used by boys and girls of that clan when they go out to do the annual path clearing. They adjourn there each day of the clearing at sunset and stay till 9 o'clock cooking their food, eating it and singing. After the meal they return to the village and go to their parent's houses. |
| text: |
Twenty feet below the hall there was an ascending series of earthen platforms. The three lowest each contained a single conical shape, moulded out of mud and the uppermost had two rounded cones set side by side. The latter strongly resembled breasts. |
