[To face p. 7.
Young married woman (of Okotso)
The style of hair-cutting resembles that of the Semas, Aos and other tribes. The back and sides of the head are shaved all round up to a point level with the top of the ears, the hair on the crown of the head being left long enough to reach to the top of the shaven portion.[12] When asked why they have adopted this style of hair-cutting they say that their forefathers used to wear their hair long, but took to cutting it in the present fashion because it kept getting into their eyes and catching in the jungle. The custom obtaining in the Southern Sangtam village of Phulangrr perhaps gives the clue to the real origin of the fashion. There no man is allowed to shave the back and sides of his head till he has killed an enemy in war. Till then he wears his hair cut more or less like a European. Little Lhota girls have their heads [[8]]completely shaved till they are about seven years old, when the hair is allowed to grow. Women wear their hair in an untidy bun on the nape of the neck, tied round with a bunch of strings of their own hair.
Baldness and grey hair are both uncommon and disliked, and old men sometimes hide their scanty locks under a wig of black goat’s hair on a bamboo frame. All children have the lobe of the ear pierced at the conclusion of the birth “genna.” At the first Ramo[13] “genna” he attends a boy has a hole pierced in the upper part of the helix. This is done with a pointed piece of bamboo, and no special ceremonies are attached to the operation. Among the Southern Lhotas, and occasionally among the Northern, another hole is pierced in the middle of the concha at the next Ramo. The holes in the helix and concha are for the cotton wool with which the ear is adorned and often become much distended in the case of elderly men.
Circumcision is not practised and neither sex is tattooed.
Dress.
Clothes. The one garment never discarded by a man in public is the rive, commonly spoken of in Naga-Assamese as “lengta.” This consists of a long narrow piece of stout cloth ending in a broad flap. In putting it on the narrow piece is wound once round the waist so that it joins at the back and forms a belt. It is then brought through between the legs from the back, and up through the belt, the broad flap being allowed to hang down in front. The result is a garment which is both serviceable and entirely decent. The flap is either white or dark blue, with horizontal red stripes, broad among the Northern Lhotas and narrow among the Southern. In the old days a dark blue rive could only be worn by a man who had done the head-taking “genna,” but this distinction is being rapidly dropped. A boy’s first garment, assumed without any ceremonies when about seven or eight years old, is the flap of one of his father’s discarded “lengtas” hung from a bit of string tied round his waist. [[9]]The skirt (sürham) worn by the women is about twenty-two inches deep. It is bound tightly round the waist and the overlapping top corner tucked in in front of the left hip. The edge which shows is often ornamented with iridescent beetle wings or bits of yellow orchid stalk. Among the Northern Lhotas the sürham is of dark blue cloth with narrow horizontal red stripes in threes, and a band of paler blue embroidered with red three inches broad running round the middle of the cloth. The skirts worn by Southern women have no red stripes, and the pale blue band is broader and nearer the top of the cloth. When about five or six years old a little girl puts on her first skirt (khondrosü). This is about ten inches deep, white with a dark blue border and a little red embroidery in the middle.
When working in the fields, or in the hot weather even when lounging about at home, a man usually wears nothing but his “lengta.” When visiting his friends, however, or to sit about in the shade, or for a journey he always wears a body-cloth measuring about four feet by five feet. Usually such a cloth is simply wrapped round the body under the right armpit and over the left shoulder. But for any occupation such as hunting, where both arms must be left free, and whenever a cloth is worn at any “genna,” it is tied on to the body as follows: The cloth is flung over the back, and the two top corners are brought round, one under the left arm and the other over the right shoulder, and tied across the chest. The two bottom corners are then brought up outside the cloth which is hanging over the back, and crossed and tied on the chest, one passing over the left shoulder and the other under the right arm.