The Nagas

Hill Peoples of Northeast India

Project Introduction The Naga Database

manuscript - Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf, Naga notebook five

caption:

funeral customs

medium:

person:

ethnicgroup:

location:

date:

production:

person:	Furer-Haimendorf
date:	25.8.1936-5.5.1937
refnum:	School of Oriental and African Studies Library, London

text:

(18) Wakching 1/9/1936

text:

Informant: A-pong.

text:

Wanching.

text:

Funeral.

text:

All clans dispose of their dead in wooden coffins. Only people who died apothia deaths are put into coffins made of bamboos, - like the The-phong and Oukheang in Wakching.

text:

Apothia death are: falling from trees, drowning, dying within one or two days without evident illness, death in childbirth. Men killed in war are tied to one single bamboo and put on the scaffold (19) like this, hanging under the bamboo.

text:

The corpse when found is wrapped up in jungle leaves and carried to the village and left outside of his house. After giving him food they carry him to the burial place.

text:

If a man's head or limbs are taken by the enemies, the body is carried home and his wife or mother wash the body and then disposed.

text:

For a person [who] died an apothia death only the wife or mother wail, and no young man or girl comes to the house or near to the place.

text:

(20) The other apothia dead are put into bamboo coffins, and also people who died of leprosy are disposed of in this way.

text:

The words spoken at the funeral and the other customs are the same as in Wakching.

text:

When a man of Balang, Bala or Totang morung dies the girls of Dzing-shi strew leaves, and vice versa.

text:

The Pandzong morung is sub-divided into two sub khels:

text:

1. with the clans Dzon-nok and Haunok
2. with the clans Shang-long-hu, Yu-shou-hu and Shang-moi-hu.

text:

(21) so when a Dzon-nok man dies the girls of the sub khel 2 come

text:

(Shang-long-hu etc.)

text:

When a Balang girl dies the Balang girls strew leaves and the Dzing-shi boys go with them and come to the funeral.

refnext:

refprev: