| caption: |
Chapter Twenty-seven. Return to Nagaland |
| caption: |
arrival at district headquarters of Mon |
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The road wound along hill slopes and we looked over wide open country lit up by the setting sun. The ripening rice fields covering the hill slopes were turning from green to gold. As we turned a corner, the district headquarters of Mon, spread out over a broad saddle, came suddenly into view, and it was in this moment that I became aware of the transformation that had taken place. Here I was in the domain of the once so powerful Ang of Mon, tribal territory which I had never been able to enter, but now the site of a town comparable to the Kohima of 1936. The old village of Mon, perched on a high hill behind us, was invisible, and the new Mon occupied land belonging partly to Mon and partly to its equally famous neighbour Chui, a village which the Wakching people used to call Chi. In Wakching I had several times encountered the chiefs of Mon and Chui, and I was thrilled by the prospect of seeing now their villages and perhaps meeting even the men I had known. |
