The Nagas

Hill Peoples of Northeast India

Project Introduction The Naga Database

book : Return to the Naked Nagas (1939;1976)

caption: Chapter Twenty-two. Love and Poetry
caption: implicit taunt songs
medium: books
ethnicgroup: Konyak
location: Wakching Wanching
production:
person: Furer-Haimendorf
date: 6.1936-6.1937
text: While in this taunting song the event singled out for ridicule described in broad outline, there are other songs which allude to the event in a minimum of words and are consequently understandable only to the initiated:
text: O Dzu-hu, O Dzek-ben
Their brothers' temples
To cut with dao
Thus we taught them.
text: O Keangding,
Great chief's brother,
Squashed by the drum,
He lay dying.
text: Both these songs are sung by Wakching men in derision of the alleged -- and in Wakching proverbial -- stupidity of the people of Wanching, a neighbouring village. Although Wanching was founded by kinsmen of the founders of Wakching, the people of Wakching claim that they have frequently made fun of their simple-minded neighbours and the stories alluded to in the above songs are typical of the many tricks played on the Wanching men:
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