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Chapter One. The Material Background |
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Compared to many of the tribal populations of other parts of India, the Konyaks had an ample and well assured supply of food. Thanks to abundant and reliable rainfall, crop failures were rare, and there was no shortage of cultivable land. The average Konyak family, therefore, never lacked an adequate diet, and only the most improvident and inefficient had ever to fall back on the charity of their kinsmen. Rich people were able to accumulate large stores of grain, and some men of Wakching possessed rice bins filled with a surplus of grain from the harvests of two or three years. |