Such are the more outstanding facts of the case, and it is almost superfluous to state the more obvious conclusions to be drawn from them, that no Naga tribe is of pure blood, but the area which they inhabit has been the scene of a series of immigrations from north-east, north-west and south, and that the different stocks introduced in this way [[xxxvi]]have entered into their composition.[40] Indeed, in view of the struggles that have taken place for the fertile plains of Burma to the east and India to the west, it is inevitable that some elements of the races worsted in these struggles should have been pushed up into the hills. In particular the line of the Dikhu and the Ti-Ho rivers would seem to mark more or less the point of contact between movements southward from the north and northward from the south, roughly marking as it does, except indeed for the Ao tribe, the line south of which dead are always buried,[41] and also the marked cleavage between the languages of the Western Nagas and of the North-eastern Nagas, the latter bearing more resemblance perhaps to those of the Kukis in the south than to those of their immediate neighbours. The immigration of Singpho elements from the north and Tai elements from the east are absolutely clear.
The other conclusions I would suggest are some of them frankly speculative, but are perhaps not at variance with current views on the history of Indonesia in general. I should deduce a stage at which some race of Kol-Mon-Annam or Mon-Khmêr affinities was in occupation, leaving traces of that occupation in certain implements, weapons and perhaps in some folk-tales. I should describe the immigration from the north-west or west as definitely Bodo in character, and ascribe to this origin the erection of Y-shaped posts[42] and the practice of reaping by hand, and the indications of the more recent existence of a matrilineal system. Beyond this, whatever the Singphos and Kacharis may be, an admixture of Tai blood from the east is beyond dispute. It is the nature of the immigration from the south which is most intriguing. No one who has had much to [[xxxvii]]do with the Angamis could fail to perceive the difference of disposition and character between them and the other Naga tribes, though it is very difficult to state in what it actually consists, and it is certainly not so great as to constitute an entire distinction between the Angamis and the rest of their fellow-Nagas. My own view is that the Angamis contain a very much greater proportion of blood bequeathed by a mixed body of immigrants from the south (some of them at any rate nearly related either in blood or culture or both to the Igorot of the Philippine Islands), who already consisted perhaps of two races of which the weaker and less numerous was a race of settled habits and developed civilization, while the stronger was of more barbarous but warlike type.[43] The inhabitants they found already in occupation would be either absorbed into one of the two divisions of this mixed tribe or make a third class where they survived in sufficient numbers, and to this source I would ascribe the social institutions of the Western Naga tribes. I would ascribe the elaborate system of terracing to the more civilized of the southern immigrants, and to these southern immigrants in general the use of elaborate stone-work in building and the erection of stone monoliths and perhaps the practice of burying their dead—the Angamis even bury the heads of their enemies—and also perhaps the use of ultra-democratic institutions. If these deductions be correct I should regard the Semas as having received chiefs from the more barbarous of the southerners, and in the Lhotas I should see the result of a more intimate contact of both southern elements with the tribe at present represented by the Sangtams, who seem to have at one time occupied much more of the Naga Hills than they do now that a large and still increasing proportion of their tribe has been absorbed by the more virile Sema. The Khoiraos, Kacha Nagas, Tangkhuls and Marami have all been much more strongly influenced by the culture [[xxxviii]]of these southern immigrants, than have the other tribes north of the Angami country, and have accepted their culture to varying degrees.
To return to the Lhotas, this tribe is divided into three phratries—the Tompyaktserre, the Izumontserre and the Mipongsandre, meaning respectively “Forehead-clearing men,”[44] “Scattered men” and “Fire-smoke-conquering men.” The expression “Forehead-clearing men” I do not attempt to explain,[45] but the phratry corresponds to the Angami Kepepfüma, which I have taken to represent the weaker but more civilized section of the southern immigrants. Among the Lhotas it is to be noticed that this phratry is the superior. Among the Angamis it is the inferior, with the tradition, however, that it was once the elder. Its women are addressed by their children as Apfü (Angami) or Apfu (Lhota). The Lhotas, however, have no terraced cultivation. The clans of the “Scattered-men” phratry use oyo for mother in some cases, opfu in others, but oyo predominating on the whole; but the name suggests a tribe of very different habits to the community-loving Naga, and would better suit a people like the Kacharis or Garos, living in small moving settlements and perpetually shifting from one place to another, a few houses at a time. In the “Fire-smoke-conquering-men,” so called from the villages they burnt in warfare, one may see the influence of the more barbarous element of the (? southern) invaders, and the bulk of this phratry uses ayo for “mother” like the Kepezoma of the Angamis.[46]
I therefore conclude that in most if not all Naga tribes traces are to be found of the Mon-Khmêr and Bodo races, the Tai race, and a fourth race of southern origin akin to [[xxxix]]some of the inhabitants of the Philippines and Borneo and other parts of Indonesia.
For the history of this corner of the earth is yet to be written, and, if ever it is done, it is to studies such as Mr. Mills has given us that future investigators will turn, for the tribes themselves will have vanished past all recognition. Has not the very mingetung of Phiro hidden its grim fruit in the folds of its own bark, lest the village forget that the days of the head-hunter are gone? Education and Litigation, doubtful apparitions, are usurping his place; the old beliefs wither under the shrivelling touch of Civilization, and the voice of the Missionary is heard in the land. The axe is laid to the root of Igdrasil; the Jötunn are climbing into Asgerd.
J. H. H.
Khoro,
April, 1921. [[xli]]
[1] See The Angami Nagas, Pt. V., “The Story of Hunchibili.” [↑]
[2] See Gurdon, The Khasis, p. 168, “The Story of U Loh Ryndi.” The version of this story with which I met in the Khasi Hills in 1911 substituted an orange for the fish. Another Khasi story derives the origin of the Jyrwa Nongsiet clan from a girl who came out of a bamboo shoot, but I cannot find it mentioned by Col. Gurdon, and it may be a Lynngam or Synteng clan. [↑]