The Nagas

Hill Peoples of Northeast India

Project Introduction The Naga Database

part of original tour diary of Lt. R.G. Woodthorpe 1876

caption: Some of the annoyances of touring; ritual and beliefs; widowhood; marriage
medium: tours
person: JumanTulloch/ ColMemaram
location: Kamahu Samaguting Nian Yungya (Yangia) Wanching (Tablung) Tangsa Geleki Jorhat (Jorehaut)
date: 11.2.1876
production:
person: Woodthorpe/ R.G.
date: 1875-1876
acquirer:
person: Pitt Rivers Museum Archive, Oxford
text: (26) Friday 11th.
text: (More pea soup. Nothing visible 5 miles off. More clouds and gloom towards evening, but no rain up to 9 p.m. Little drops after that. Height of camp at 9 p.m. 4240/4100 M = 4170. Height of 3rd Kamahu 4610/4480 M = 4550 100 houses. Height of mark 4360/4230 M = 4300. Max during day = 75o. Min at night = 57o.)
text: Got up at daylight. Had, as usual, to call my servant. No chota haziri. Eggs and chapatti bad. Went on to mark. Found that two of the legs had been partly cut through and tied up again. Found that Juman had forgotten key of my office box. Sent back for it and asked Col. Tulloch to send for headmen of 3 villages and enquire about the mark cutting. The key came up about 10, and then found that Juman had forgotten the ink, so as there was no chance of doing any triangulation and could not do any writing. Came down. Gave Juman bad stick beating to his disgust. Breakfast. After wrote diary. Went up to village to sketch. Made sketch of middle village and carved post in morung. Back at 6 p.m. Found that only 3 maunds of rice had been brought in, and though sepoys said there was any amount of dhan in the joomhouses and khuds, yet the gaonbura declared there was very little rice. I told him if he did not give it we should have to take it. If so he could not be paid a pice, and let him go. He promised to bring rice tomorrow if we did not march. I said we should remain until we got the rice.
text: I find that the clans of Kamahu are
1. Longjan E. vill. I tried to find out without
2. Ramin W. " success, what other villages
3. Pongtao W. " belong to these clans if any.
4. Shaoshong E. " Not speaking Assamese it is
5. Pangshong E. " difficult to arrive at what
6. Chinglang W. " I want to know.
7. Peshao E. "
text: I think that the men in these three villages wear the waistcloth indiscriminately - as some I saw in all three villages today and others without it. (The cloths are white and embroidered with red or white, stamped with figures of men with that india rubber composition.
text: In front of the 3rd Kamahu upper morung was a circular arrangement of stones round a fire place resembling those at Samaguting. About the morung are a great many flat bits of rock on which had been roughly carved (27) outlines of feet.
text: A young fellow from Tablung who has been living in Tangsa for a wife? (? is it necessary to serve for a wife as with Jacob and Leah etc. Yes. Memaram whom I asked says it is in these parts the youth having taken a fancy to a girl serves in her parents' house looking after the fields etc. for 1, 1.5 or 2 years according to agreement.) for a year past who has been acting as interpreter today and who says he frequently works at Geleki and gone to the Jorehaut races and accompanied us through the villages. He told me about the houses which have a small matted room in the front verandah as in above sketch.
text: Many of the houses in the village have a small fenced garden attached in which garlic is grown. I fancy the fence is to keep off the pigs and the plants are frequently interspersed with panjis, especially in the gardens on the ramparts (ie. between the lines of fortification.)
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