The Nagas

Hill Peoples of Northeast India

Project Introduction The Naga Database

manuscript notes made by W.G. Archer between 1946 & 1948, and miscellaneous papers and letters

caption: Longkhai morungs
medium: notes
person: Lamun morungAng morung
location: Longkhai
production:
person: Archer/ W.G.
date: 1946-1948
refnum: 4:37
text: Longkhai.
text: Lamun morung - has Ang clan members and therefore 'Ang' posts outside - 2 of the 'Ang' posts have been carved with a snake catching a frog. Open porch - inside it a cross-board with soldiers. Middle pillar - 2 loving couples fully carved in the round - left - a man and a girl with an arm round each other's waist - the arm elongated so as to reach right round - right - a couple in intercourse, the girl's legs straddling the man's, the knees of both slightly bent. Cross-board - interlacing forms - from left, 2 monkeys bending over a hornbill link on to 3 men with intercrossing arms one of whom is clasping another hornbill by the neck - on the right, the same pattern but in reverse. At the back of the morung about 20 yards below a little shed with a large flat stone - the latrine. In front of the morung 2 menhirs 'to celebrate the heads'.
text: Ang morung - 'Ang' post - a snake eating a frog.
text: First pillar - 3 seated men - their faces edged with white. Cross-board - soldiers, men and girls (with excited organs - the penis, vulva and breast stressed with white). Inner pillar - a loving couple ('The Naked Nagas') - features and sex marked with white - the girl has now lost a leg - above them a man holding a hornbill. Second cross-beam - a line of men with swinging arms - 'the white lines because the morung has taken heads'