| caption: |
Chagyik inhabitants of Saochu and their customs; women's hair-style; tattooing; goitres; head-taking and display at Momching |
| text: |
23/11/1926 To Saochu - about 9 miles. Here the signallers managed to pick up the station Piyongkong, the tip of which was visible about a mile down the spur below the village. Saochu is a Konyak village of the sub-tribe called Chagyik by the Changs. Nobody loves them, and being a small village they are treated by all their neighbours as "a garden to pick flowers in" as a Chang dobashi euphemistically described it. The women shave their heads, plucking out some of the hairs by the roots so a to leave a sort of parting on each side of the head. They also tattoo their faces with zigzags or a sort of flag pattern according to clan, while the men tattoo a line straight down the nose and chin. The people are mostly of small stature, goitrous and warishly inclined, wavy or curly hair common. The men are said to vacate their houses when favoured guests visit them, leaving the guests to enjoy their wives. I made no attempt to verify this report. I have heard the same statement made of Lhotas by a Sema, but probably untruthfully. A Sema, however, once offered one of my dobashis hospitality of this sort, but he was not a person whose behaviour could be taken as standard Sema, by any means. |
| text: |
Between Logong and Saochu we passed through Momching, a recent village thrown out from Saochu, not on the map. They had a good many heads in the morung. Some of them mounted with three horns, a small one being carried where the nose joins the fore-head. These heads were brought with them when the village was built. |
