The Nagas

Hill Peoples of Northeast India

Project Introduction The Naga Database

manuscript - Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf notebook nine

caption: terms of address and their meaning
medium: notes
ethnicgroup: Konyak
location: Wakching
date: 12.3.1937
production:
person: Furer-Haimendorf
date: 29.10.1936-24.3.1937
acquirer:
person: School of Oriental and African Studies Library, London
text: (158) Wakching 12/3/1937
text: Inf: Shankok
ou-shim - Imperial pigeon
o-shim - address used between girls of same morung or clan and same age.
o-ning - address used between girls of different morung and same age.
text: Girls of same clan (ie. Metahu) and different morungs (ie. Thepong and Bala) call each other o-shim.
text: (159) shimba - address between men of same morung and age ningba - address between men of different morung and same age
text: The men of Thepong, Aukheang and Angban call all women of Bala who are approximately of their age (though there may be a difference of a few years) a len-nok-yo.
text: The corresponding term for
the Thepong girls is yalenokyo
the Aukheang girls is shem-yo
the Balang girls is lem-tok-yo
the Angban girls is ang-nok-yo
text: (160) yo - is the girls "morung
amai - is the way Wakching men address all women of their age of
other villages; they are called by them amai too
(mai-bu - sexual intercourse)
text: Thepong men call men of their age of Chingtang, Chinglong, Wanching, Tamlu, Namsang, Kongan, Tanhai, Punkhung "shimba". They call all men of the Sheangtu group "eibha". But the children of Wakching girls who married to other villages call their cousins in Wakching "ningba". (161) First cousins can marry if of different clan. The reply to every address is "u-i". When a young man doesn't want to go himself to the house of a girl he wants to meet, he sends a small boy of his morung (but not his brother)., This boy knocks at the girl's wall. The girl comes out and asks [konyak] "Why have you come?"(162) The boy says: [konyak] "My elder brother says he wants to meet you". Then she replies [konyak] "[he may] come tomorrow night". The next night the young man goes himself to her house. [konyak] (163) Then they sit down at the platform of her house and exchange pan and betel nut. They seldom have intercourse the first night and the flirtations on the machan may go on for a month. First intercourse usually takes place on the porch of the house, only later on they go to the granaries.
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