| caption: |
journey back to Mokokchung |
| caption: |
grave effigies at Ketsapomi |
| text: |
I reached the rest-house at lunch time but Bill did not come till after tea. He arrived soaked to the skin and at once plunged into a hot bath. But he had seen the grave-effigies and was happy. The Angamis bury their dead by their houses and erect memorials outside the villages. These are circular or rectangular piles of stones, neatly fitted into each other like a wall. The custom is dying out now, but if a man was a celebrated warrior they erected a wooden effigy beside his memorial and dressed it in his ceremonial clothes. I had seen some at Nerema on my way to Kohima by jeep - pathetic doomed figures with limply drooping arms, the tattered fragments of the once brilliant war-dress fluttering in the wind. |
