[3] So, too, in the Khasi Hills the Khasis live in permanent villages, while Bhois and Lynngams are more or less migratory (Gurdon, op. cit., p. 34). [↑]
[4] In prescribing rewards for the learning of languages the Local Government has assumed a similarity of language between the tribes classed as “Naga” by giving a reduced reward for passing a test in a second Naga language after one has already been learnt, but in point of fact the linguistic test breaks down as badly as the migration test, for Sir George Grierson, in classifying the languages of the area, groups some Nagas with Kacharis, Mikirs and others in the Naga-Bodo group, some with Thado and other Kuki languages in the Naga-Kuki group, and others in different groups, and it would really be far more logical to base the examinations on these groups than on the false supposition based on the present use of the term “Naga,” which is really as inaccurate as the reputed divisions of the Hill tribes of Burma into “Tame Chins, Wild Chins and Ka-chins.” [↑]
[5] Nāga is a corruption of the Assamese Năga (pronounced “Nŏga”), probably meaning “a mountaineer” from Sanskrit Năg, a “mountain” or “inaccessible place.” [↑]
[6] Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, I. i. ch. vii. (N.B., pp. 331 and 387). [↑]
[7] Mr. T. P. M. O’Callaghan tells me that the Linghi sept of Mishmis came from the south; so, too, the Sotia clan of the Miri tribe is reported by Mr. R. C. R. Cumming as claiming a southern origin, though in both cases the rest of the tribe came from the north. The Apar Tanengs are also believed to have come from the south, and they, unlike their neighbours, practise the cultivation of irrigated rice with a certain amount of terracing. [↑]
[8] Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, I. i. p. 191 and ch. vi. passim. [↑]
[9] The origin of the Kuki-Lushai-Chin family is a matter of some doubt (see Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, I. i. p. 451 sq.), but apparently they came originally from the north and are probably related to the Burmese and to the Singpho-Kachin group. [↑]
[11] Census of India, 1911. Part I. ch. ix. The Bodo race seems to have been widely intermingled with the Munda and Mon-Khmêr families, and though the latter is spoken of as an Austric race, it seems clear enough that the Bodos came into Assam from the north, and it may perhaps be questioned whether the Munda Mon-Khmêr races are not equally Turanian in origin, an origin which has also been claimed for the Polynesians and Melanesians in the Pacific. Vide Dr. George Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 16, 17, 369, 370 (Macmillan, 1910). [↑]
[12] There are in Yacham and also in some Konyak villages to the east apparently definite traditions of an immigration from a place called Maibang of a clan which still preserves as heirlooms certain peculiar types of spiked armlets of bronze. “Maibang” is a Kachari place name = “Much paddy.” Besides the Kachari capital of that name in the North Cachar Hills, there is said to have been a Maibang village on the outer Lhota range. [↑]