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Detailed descriptions of the of Aghching and Shakchi |
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25/11/1926 To Shakchi, about 7 miles, visiting Aghching on the way. Aghching is an interesting village, in its own way. It appears to be a very ancient site and outside it there are two phallic stones male and female, one on each side of the gateway, which are worshipped by the villagers as their forefathers did, they say, from remote antiquity. There are two khels, one of them - called Yingching, much more goitred, ugly, dwarfish and cretinous than the other, though both are bad in these respects. They used basketwork soul figures for the dead, and place them in a sort of shrine open in front. The body and head are buried, apparently underneath. We found in the morung etc. stones hanging up dressed like enemy heads, and were told that when an abortive raid was made, such stones were brought back from enemy land to aid the raiders in getting real heads next time, on the imitative magic principle, probably. One of the morungs was carved with pairs of martens, biting each others' necks. Small buildings are arranged to provide latrines and pig pens simultaneously. |
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From Shakchi Piyongkong was visible quite close. This village uses buffalo headed drums, but the figure head end of these drums is open, and the head carved out horizontally from the upper side of the hollow log. Outside the village was a large stone that had been dragged, they said, from the river, about 7 miles away, by a former inhabitant. Probably it had originally been set up in an erect position, but is now lying horizontal. Offerings are placed on it. The skulls of the dead when separated from the bodies, which are exposed on platforms like the Konyaks, are placed in rows in ledges of the cliffs which surround the village, below it, on three sides. |
