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Relations with Tributary States and Frontier Affairs |
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Nankum-Are feud; head-taking |
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Another case in connection with this village in which British villages were concerned occurred later on in the year. On the 5th of June last information was received at Kohima from the sub-divisional officer of Wokha that the small trans-frontier village of Are was at feud with Nankum, men having been killed on each side and what made the matter more serious, that Are, which is one of the four Lhota villages not included in British territory, had received assistance from two of our own Lhota villages, Changse and Rephim. Nankum demanded assistance, the gaonburas stating that if this were withheld, they could not prevent their villagers taking the law into their own hands. To prevent the possibility of a combined Lhota raid across the frontier, a small expedition was at once organized, and a force of 50 men was led to Are by the Deputy-Commissioner. Are was reached on the 17th June. Enquiry showed that the original cause of the feud was the cold-blooded murder by an ex-British subject living in Are of a Nankum boy, and that in the subsequent events leading to the death of three women of Nankum and a gaonbura of Are, Are had been principally to blame. The Are murderer was surrendered by the gaonburas on the Deputy-Commissioner's arrival at the village and was subsequently sentenced to 15 years' transportation, 4 accomplices belonging to the British village of Changse for whose behoof the murdered boy's head was taken in satisfaction of a debt due, being sentenced to periods of imprisonment varying from five to two years. The villages of Changse and Rephim were further fined Rs.150 and Rs.300 respectively for having taken up the quarrel of Are and threatened a Government dobasha. In the course of the enquiry Nankum was visited and although not two months had elapsed since the Deputy-Commissioner's visit in April to the same village, it was found that no less than six of the inhabitants, four being women, excluding the four persons killed by Are, had been murdered in that short time by Semas of the neighbouring villages. These villages were all visited with the results stated below. In the case of one of these villages, Limitsami, Nankum was itself found to have been the aggressor and was punished by a fine of Rs.300 which was realized before the expedition withdrew. |
