| caption: |
to Wilong and Oklong; megaliths, terracing and other culture traits of tribes compared |
| text: |
6th With Political Agent to Oklong. A wet march. |
| text: |
7th With Political Agent to Wilong where I pitched a sopping tent in the rain. This village has a Manipuri school master and had 56 houses burnt this year by accident. There were many houses newly decorated since I was last here (in 1926 I think) and the male figures on all the houses all wore the Konyak cane belt now as usual shown in black and white horizontal lines recalling the Angami lengta with its cowries. A wooden feather pattern also very suggestive of Konyaks. I fancy the megalithic culture of this part of the world belongs to the older strata represented by Konyaks and Kachha Nagas and has been adopted from them by the Angamis together with their coiffure. Probably terracing has been brought in by the Angamis. The Konyaks do not do it and the Kachha Nagas here, though they have had terraces for generations still say that they much prefer to jhum as that is the ancestral method of cultivation. There is nothing in the Angami country to equal the stones put up at Wilong and Maram, and the latter is essentially Kachha Naga. Longjang could follow much of what they said and remarked that the language resembled a mixture of the three Kachha Naga dialects. Maram also shows the obtuse pertinacity typical of the Kachha Naga. |
