The Nagas

Hill Peoples of Northeast India

Project Introduction The Naga Database

manuscript - Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf, Naga diary four

caption: men's dance
medium: diaries
ethnicgroup: Konyak
location: Longkhai
date: 23.2.1937
production:
person: Furer-Haimendorf
date: 12.2.1937-31.3.1937
note: translated from german by Dr Ruth Barnes
acquirer:
person: School of Oriental and African Studies Library, London
text: While they are dancing the sky is getting darker and darker, but now the men of all morungs also arrive and perform a warrior's dance full of movement brandishing their spears and daos. This is not the slow circumnambulation of the people of Wakching but the dancers jump all over the place threaten imaginary enemies, form a circle only to dissolve it again soon and dance around individually. An old man who himself had still captured several heads has taken the Pangsha head from the euphorbia, holds it in his hand, and is dancing in front of everyone else.