The Nagas

Hill Peoples of Northeast India

Project Introduction The Naga Database

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

caption: Chapter Twenty-seven. Return to Nagaland
caption: executions of subjects in old style, and new councils
medium: books
ethnicgroup: Konyaks
location: Mon
production:
person: Furer-Haimendorf
date: 1970
text: Like other chiefs the Angs of Mon were autocratic rulers who had power over life and death of their subjects. A precipice with a drop of several hundred feet was used for executions. Any villager who had dared to make love to any of the chief's numerous wives was hurled down from this cliff. Such drastic retribution would now be unacceptable and the new pattern of authority is personified by a kinsman of the Ang, who was elected to the regional council and was also one of the representatives of Tuensang district in the Legislative Assembly of Nagaland.