The Lhota Nagas

by J. P. Mills

Among the tribes that jhum there is a marked difference in the method of sowing rice. The more southern tribes—Angami, Lhota, Rengma, Sema—sow carefully, digging a little hollow and dropping in the grain. The Aos and Changs, on the other hand, sow anyhow, just chucking the seed down broadcast, and so do the Konyaks, in so far as they sow rice at all. The amazing fact about the latter is that taro, not rice, is the staple crop, and in spite of excellent land for rice cultivation, they only sow very little. They prefer taro (Colocasia antiquorum).[29]

Closely associated with terraced cultivation is the custom of erecting megalithic monuments. The erectors of the most numerous monoliths are the tribes practising terraced cultivation, though Kacha Nagas (Lyengmei) and Kabuis put up little dolmens and occasional monoliths, while the Lhotas and Rengmas proper, also having no terraced cultivation, yet erect monoliths and alignments of monoliths in all their villages. North and east of the two latter tribes, however, few Nagas seem to put up either, and the place of stones in ceremonial is apparently taken by wooden and Y-shaped posts, used by Semas, Sangtams, Kalyo-Kengyu, Chang and possibly other tribes, while the Ao uses round-topped posts or posts with a divided top.[30] The Garos, it may be noticed, also use the Y-shaped post, while the similarity of both the Y-shaped Sema post and the round-topped Ao post respectively to the bifurcated and round-topped stones left by the old Kachari kings at Dimapur is too close for mere coincidence. It should be added that Mr. Mills tells us that Lhotas occasionally substitute a Y-shaped post for a [[xxx]]stone in their ceremonials where no stones suitable for erection can be found, while there is a kindred of a clan in Yekhum village which migrated from further east and which habitually erects posts, as it is not allowed to erect stones.[31] In building, again, while the Angamis, Tangkhuls, Semas and other tribes south of them build on the ground, the Aos and other tribes to the north build on a bamboo platform or “machan.” The Lhota method is a sort of compromise, as when he builds on a “machan” he covers the floor with earth.

Even more than their customs the social constitution of several Naga tribes suggests a diversity of origin. In more than one tribe we find traces of a dual division crossed by a triple one, and indicating a division into three elements, either as three separate groups or as two primary groups, one of which is again split making three. In addition to these there are odd clans descended from “men caught in the jungle” and others, as already mentioned. Thus among the Aos are found two linguistic groups, Chongli and Mongsen, existing side by side in the same villages though retaining frequently their different languages, and always, among the women, their differences of tattoo and of hairdressing. The word for “mother” in the one of these two Ao languages is ocha (Chongli), in the other avu (Mongsen). Across this dual division of the Aos we get a triple division into three clans, Pongen, Langkam and Chami, which are nominally at any rate exogamous and which run through both the linguistic groups, though the nomenclature varies, and though the whole exogamous system is somewhat complicated by subdivision and by adoption from one group to [[xxxi]]another. Of the three groups mentioned Pongen is generally recognized as doyen, while the social position of Chami is usually regarded as decidedly inferior to the other two. Again, among the Southern Konyak villages at any rate there seem to be two linguistic and tattoo groups (one of which tattoos the face of the warrior and the other the chest only) called Thendu and Thenkoh, while there are said to be also three social divisions running through both groups, of which the first, called Ang,[32] corresponds to the Ao “Pongen” and provides hereditary chiefs in those villages which possess them, though in the case of the Konyak chief the heir to the chieftainship has to be of Ang blood by both parents, contrary to the prevailing exogamous system. In the Rengma tribe we have again two linguistic groups, as among the Aos, existing side by side sometimes in the same village, and called Inseni-Kotsenu and Tseminyu respectively. Of these two groups the latter apparently are again divided into two parts distinguished by the use of different terms for “mother” (avyo and apfsü).[33] The Angamis are again divided into two groups commonly known as Thevoma and Thekronoma (or Cheroma) or Solhima, using the words azo and apfu respectively for “mother,” although the former term only is in use among the numerous Chakrima sub-tribe of Angamis, though the distinction between the Thekronoma, called by them Solhima, and the Thevoma is recognized. These two divisions of the Angamis may be spoken of as Pezoma and Pepfüma respectively according to the terms they use for “mother.” The Pezoma group appears to be also subdivided into Sachema and Thevoma, two divisions of more or less equal status, though the former is actually the senior. Nowadays, however, the Sachema group, which is very small indeed numerically as compared with Thevoma, has been [[xxxii]]virtually lost sight of, and “Thevoma” includes the whole of the Pezoma. It should be added that according to tradition the Thekrono division was originally the elder, but was cheated of its birthright by the first ancestor of the Thevo division. The word Solhima, used ordinarily by a large part of the Angami tribe for the Thekronoma division, means “alien” or “stranger.”[34] In the Memi group of the Angamis we have again a third division, called Cherhechima in some villages, which is regarded as socially inferior to such an extent that the other Memi will not intermarry with it. This division seems also to be regarded as the source of some unlucky emanation which has an evil influence on any who fall under it, though the neighbouring Tengima, Dzunokehena and Kezami Angamis have no objection at all to intermarrying with the Cherhechima. The Lhotas seem to be divided like the Angami into two phratries using oyo for “mother,” with a third using opfu, and, as in the case of the Angamis, the use of the distinct terms does not extend throughout the whole tribe, but seems to be dying out.[35] [[xxxiii]]

Turning to the polity of the village, different tribes have very different customs. Among the Semas a system of hereditary chiefs exists, each chief having an almost feudal position as lord of the manor of his village, a system which seems to have obtained among the Kacharis, as the remnants of it are still perceptible among the remote Kachari villages of the south-west of the Naga Hills. The Changs have a system of chiefs very like that of the Semas, and both may be compared in this respect to the Thado Kukis, though among the latter the system is more elaborately developed. The Konyaks too have hereditary chiefs in the Thendu section of the tribe, though not in the Thenkoh division, but among the Konyaks the priestly side of the chieftainship seems more prominent than among the other Naga tribes with chiefs.[36] On the other hand, the Ao and Tangkhul villages are governed by bodies of elders representing the principal kindreds in the village, while the Angami, Rengma and Lhota and apparently Sangtam villages are run on lines of democracy, a democracy so extreme in the case of the Angami that, in view of his peculiar independence of character, it is difficult to comprehend how his villages held together at all before they were subject to the British Government. The Angami has, however, hereditary priests, office descending in the line of the first founder of the village in question.

In the eschatology of the different tribes there is, on the one hand, a belief apparently universally accepted which regards the souls of the dead as inhabiting butterflies or other insects after death. Concurrently with this we find a belief in an existence in a future world in which the shades of the dead go on living just as they did in this world. Most tribes place this world underground and indicate [[xxxiv]]some mountain[37]—usually one formed as it were in a succession of rises vaguely suggesting steps from a distance—as the path by which this under-world is approached. The Angamis, however, believe that the souls of the dead who have conformed to the best (Angami) standard of life spend their future existence in the sky in the company of the ancestress or creatrix of all life. Other tribes, though believing in the existence of a sky world, or at any rate of sky spirits, do not locate the home of the dead there. Along with these a third belief is also to be found, as among the Semas, according to which the spirits of the good dead go to the East and those of the unsatisfactory dead to the West.

Among other points worth notice are the fact that lycanthropy practised by the Semas and other tribes to the north of the Angami country is never resorted to by Angamis, though they know of the existence in the belief and even believe in the common origin of the tiger and man.[38] Similarly the Khasis seem to have heard the theory from the Garos, but do not claim ever to practise it themselves.

In folk-lore some stories seem common to nearly all tribes and to the Kacharis too, while the story of the girl who comes out of an orange and the stories of fighting stones and the belief that the human race is becoming gradually smaller and will so continue till it is small enough to climb up a chili plant, are common both to Nagas and to the Khasis.[39] [[xxxv]]On the other hand, there seem to be certain groups of stories which are not common to the Angamis in the south and to the Changs and their neighbours in the north.

Linguistic considerations are notoriously dangerous in their application to ethnography, but even here it is impossible to pass over without remark the very decided cleavage between the vocabularies and numerals of the languages classified by Sir George Grierson as Western and Central Naga, and the vocabularies and numerals of the Konyaks and Changs to the north-east, though the Aos have words characteristic of both groups. This north-eastern group seems in fact to approach quite appreciably nearer to the Kuki and Bodo languages of the southern tribes than to the languages of the Central Naga tribes in between the two.

Emphasis has sometimes been laid upon an affection for old sites, or an aversion to migration, as characteristic of Nagas, distinguishing them from the migratory Kuki, who, like the Hill Kachari, moves his village by preference, whereas the Naga only moves his under compulsion. This, however, as has already been pointed out, cannot by any means be applied to all tribes at present designated Naga.

A perhaps trivial point is the belief that neglect of washing causes illness, and the concomitant habit of personal cleanliness which is so much more marked in the Angami tribe than among its neighbours to the north, though the Lhota seems to have it in a greater degree than the Rengma, Sema, or Ao; the Angami dwelling, on the other hand, is frequently filthy as compared to those of the other tribes mentioned, principally owing to his habit of keeping his cattle in the front room.