| caption: |
murders in the Trans-frontier region |
| text: |
6. The relations of trans-frontier villages among themselves could hardly be worse than they are. Each is at feud with its neighbours, and each seems perpetually to be either undergoing or taking part in raids. Every raid means loss of life, and when as in the Kamahu case a village is attacked by a combined force strong enough to expel the inhabitants the slaughter is appalling. Even professed friends join in it, and the majority of victims are women and little children. As is well known, the Naga warrior regards neither sex nor age. These atrocities are perpetrated within sight of our subjects, in whom the only feeling they excite is one of envy. They are perpetrated almost before the eyes of the District Officers. Some of them are in a manner due to the extension of our boundary. Mangaki's village was raided mainly because we had annexed their former protectors. In common justice it must be remembered that a village which does not raid is sure to be marked as one from which heads can safely be taken, and to suffer accordingly so that undoubtedly self- defence is frequently one motive in what appears to us mere barbarity and lust of slaughter. |
