The Lhota Nagas are a tribe numbering some twenty thousand souls which occupies a piece of territory that may be roughly described as the drainage area of the Middle and Lower Doyang and its tributaries, down to the point where it emerges into the plains. Their land can show extremes of climate, from the high spurs of Wokha Hill, where frost is not unknown, to the malarious foot-hills bordering on the plains, where the heat radiated from the sandstone makes life almost unbearable in the hot weather. They call themselves Kyŏn, meaning simply “man,” the name Lhota, of which I have been unable to discover any derivation, being that by which they are known to Government. They have long been in contact with the Assamese. Many villages even possess grants of land in the plains given by the Ahom Rajas, on the understanding apparently that the Lhotas in return for the land would refrain from taking Assamese heads. This agreement was loyally kept, and villages such as Khoro, who had no hostile Naga neighbours whom they could raid, used to content themselves with waylaying and killing an occasional Mikir on his way to or from market in the plains. There is no record of any fighting between Lhotas and Assamese, save a raid in 1685 on some villages of the plains near the Doyang [[2]]by Nagas,[1] who were probably Lhotas: Akuk and Lakhuti claim to have met and defeated a force of Burmese at the time of the Burmese invasion of Assam.[2] The first recorded meeting between a European and Lhotas is that of Lieut. H. Bigge in 1841, who apparently did not like what little he saw of them. He calls them “a sullen race,” and says that they “are alike filthy in their persons and habits, and have a pompous mode of addressing one which might in some cases be interpreted as insolent.”[3] Evidently the gallant officer found the contrast between the suave, sleek plainsman and the easy-going, unwashen hillman rather startling. Captain Brodie, however, the first Englishman to visit the Lhota at home, was more fortunate. He marched along part of the Lakhuti range in 1844 and was given a most friendly reception.[4] In 1875 Captain Butler when in charge of a survey party was ambushed by the village of Pangti and mortally wounded. The truth of this disaster is as follows: Captain Butler arranged to march from Lakhuti to Pangti, and ordered the former village to supply men to carry his baggage. Lakhuti, which had old scores to wipe off against Pangti, decided to lay a trap for them, and sent a message asking them to attack the head of the column, while promising that they themselves would throw down their loads and attack the rear. Pangti fell into the snare and ambushed and speared Captain Butler. Lakhuti did nothing, and of course got off scot free, while Pangti was burnt. Naturally Pangti has never forgiven Lakhuti for this piece of treachery. In 1878 a stockade was established at Wokha and all the [[3]]Ndrung villages,[5] i.e. those on the left bank of the Doyang, were annexed. The rest of the tribe was annexed in 1889.
Origin and Migration.
The problem of the ultimate origin and composition of the Naga tribes still awaits solution. It will be sufficient if I give here the main Lhota traditions of their origin and early migrations. These are various and mutually inconsistent. One, but not the commonest, states that the Lhotas and plainsmen were once one people who migrated from a place called Lengka somewhere north or north-west of the Naga Hills, the exact site being unknown. They soon split up into two bodies, one of which became the plainsmen of the Brahmaputra valley and the other the Nagas of the hills. The curious long-hafted daos called yanthang, a few of which are still kept as highly-prized heirlooms, are specially connected with this tradition, and are said to have been given to the Nagas by their “brothers” of the plains. Some at any rate are not of Naga manufacture. One which was shown me at Okotso, for instance, was ornamented with brass bands. The usual tradition, however, gives the Lhotas an autochthonous origin, and is almost identical with that told by the Angamis of themselves. The story goes that three brothers, Limhachan, Izumontse and Rankhanda, the ancestors of the three phratries of the tribe, came out of a hole in the earth near the miraculous stone at Kezakenoma. If one load of rice were dried on this stone it became two loads. Owing, however, to the indecent behaviour of a man of the tribe the virtue went out of the stone,[6] and the Lhotas set out on [[4]]their migrations, taking with them a little piece of the stone, which is still preserved at Pangti. Yet another tradition says that the common ancestors of the Lhotas, Southern Sangtams, Semas and Rengmas, came from somewhere near Mao. The first to split off were the Southern Sangtams, with whom the Lhotas claim close affinities.[7] It is said, for instance, that many generations ago a Lhota from Lungitang, knowing that his forefather had left “brothers” south of the Tizu, somehow made his way through the Sema country and brought back with him a Southern Sangtam, whose last descendant, by name Ezanyimo, died at Wokha about ten years ago. Old men say that specimens of the round brass ornaments (pyabi) which Southern Sangtams wear on their “lengtas,” and of axe-shaped Sangtam daos, were preserved as heirlooms in some Lhota houses to within living memory. From Mao the tribe migrated slowly to Kohima, and from there, with the Angamis pressing them in the rear, reached the neighbourhood of Lozema, where the Semas are said to have split off. Thence they moved slowly on till they reached Themoketsa Hill, known to the Lhotas as Honohoyanto (fowl-throat-cutting-village). Here the mist begins to clear a little and most Lhotas claim to trace their descent back through nine or ten generations to some ancestor who lived at Honohoyanto. At this point the Rengmas split off and occupied their present country, while the Lhotas pressed on, one body through Phiro and Saki to the Lower Doyang, fighting the Angamis as they went, and another body to Wokha Hill, where a huge village called Lungcham is said to have been founded a little to the north of the present [[5]]site of Niroyo. So vast was the crowd of warriors that at feasts and “gennas” there was never enough “madhu” to go round, though each man was only given one cock’s spurful as his share. It was clear that they must split up or starve, so they began to move off and found villages, sometimes ousting the Aos, who were once in possession of almost the whole of the present Lhota country, and sometimes occupying vacant sites to which they were led by various omens. A common story, told to account for the founding of Lungsachung, Lotsü and several villages, runs as follows: A man had a sow which wandered off one day and could not be found. He tracked it for miles, till he found it lying under a big tree, where it had littered. He at once decided to found a new village on the spot, and the tree where the sow had littered became the head-tree.
Ceremonies connected with the founding of a new village. But the days of expansion are over now, and in many a village abandoned house sites and “genna” stones all overgrown with jungle show how the tribe is shrinking. Yet attempts are still made from time to time to reoccupy the sites of old villages wiped out by malaria, and the ceremonies connected with the founding of a new village deserve to be described. Having selected a site with a good water supply and a tree suitable for a head-tree (mingetung), the would-be founder[8] cuts a branch from a bush on the site. If the cut is a clean one and no leaves fall the omen is good. If the branch is not cut through with one blow or leaves fall the omen is bad. The omens being good he and his fellow-colonists select a man to be priest (Puthi) of the new village, and while still retaining the old village as their headquarters, set to work to clear the jungle on the new site. Before doing so, however, the Puthi throws a cornelian bead into the spring which is to supply the new village with water, and prays that the young men and maidens of the village may be strong. After the jungle has been cut the founder makes [[6]]new fire with a fire-stick[9] (mi-hm). The Puthi then spears a small boar, which must not be singed in the fire, and cuts the throat of a cock, from the entrails of which he takes the omens. The pig is cut up, and the Puthi makes a little square of sticks on the ground. In the middle he puts an egg and on each side thirty tiny pieces of pork. All eat the rest of the pig, the pot in which the meat was boiled being turned upside down on the ground and left behind. The jungle having been burnt and a small “morung” constructed, houses are built. When the village is ready for occupation the colonists go to it from the old village in ceremonial dress and fully armed, taking with them a branch stolen from the mingetung of the old village. This they stick in the ground under the head-tree of the new village. To ensure a good water supply in their new home they must bring water in a freshly-cut section of bamboo from the spring of the old village and pour it into that of the new. If they are lucky enough to be able to steal them they also put under their mingetung and in their “morung” luck-stones (oha) from the old village, thereby ensuring good fortune for their new home. About a month later the ceremony of oyantsoa (village-making) is performed. This will be described later in connection with the institution of a new Puthi.[10]
Appearance.
In colour the Lhota varies from light to medium brown, the inhabitants of the low ranges tending to be darker than those of high villages. The complexion even of the fairest girls is sallow, and the almost rosy cheeks one sometimes sees among the Angamis, and more rarely among the Semas, are unknown in the Lhota country. The hair is as a rule [[7]]straight, though wavy and curly hair is often seen in the villages near the Ao border, in which there is almost certainly a considerable admixture of Ao blood.[11] The hair of a Lhota child is brown, with a distinct rusty tinge, becoming black in the adult. Young men usually pluck out the hairs of the chin with the nails of the thumb and forefinger, but middle-aged and elderly men sometimes have considerable beards, particularly near the plains, where types may occasionally be seen hardly distinguishable in outward appearance from Sylhet Mahommedans. The eyes are brown and slightly oblique in many individuals, the scantiness of the outer half of the eyebrows accentuating the Mongolian appearance of the face. Men average about five feet eight in height and women some three inches less. In build the Lhota is slight, but strong and wiry, though he has not the enormous calf development of the Angami. The hands and feet are small and well formed. The big toe is set rather far apart from the others, and a Lhota talking will often pick up a stone in his toes and tap the ground with it, just as a European might pick up a pencil in his fingers and fidget with it.
An elderly man of Lungitang wearing Lungpensü and big ear-pads