[To face p. 25
A LHOTA MORUNG
The interior of a champo is not attractive. It is dark, dirty, smoky, stuffy and full of fleas. Yet a Lhota talks of his happy champo-days much as an Englishman talks of his schooldays. The floor is sometimes levelled earth and sometimes a bamboo platform raised about two feet above the ground on posts. The walls are of bamboo. There is a door at each end and a passage about two feet [[26]]wide down the middle, in which fires are lit on cold nights, the smoke finding its way out as best it can in the absence of chimneys or windows. Where the floor is of bamboo four logs are laid down to form a square, the interior of which is filled in with earth rammed firmly down. On this the fire is made. On either side of the passage are cubicles with bamboo partitions, along the sides of which are sleeping benches of rough-hewn planks, or bamboo “machans.”
The time varies in different villages, but a champo is generally rebuilt every nine years. Almost invariably it falls in ruins before the time is up, but on no account must it be rebuilt till the due period has elapsed. The ceremonies connected with the rebuilding are interesting. The Puthi having announced that the rebuilding will take place in so many days, the boys of the champo collect bamboos, thatching grass, posts, tying-bark and whatever is needed. If a new carved post is required the best carver in the village gets to work on it. Every champo has land belonging to it. With the rice from this land a pig and a big cow are bought. These are killed on the day before the work of rebuilding is begun, and the carcases kept in a little hut specially built by the side of the champo. Next day is the first of five days’ emung,[3] which must be kept by the whole village. During these days no one may work in the fields, or weave cloth or make pots or bring into the village meat from a tiger’s kill. If a stranger enters the village he will probably be ill, and he cannot leave it till the five days’ emung are over. On this day the ceremonies begin. The Puthi formally begins the breaking down of the old champo, by pulling a piece of thatch off the roof and throwing it onto the ground. The Puthi’s attendant (Yenga) then removes the oha stones from in front of the humtse tachungo and lays them down a little distance from the champo. The roof is next carefully cut in two lengthways and laid on the ground in such a way that the two halves lean up against one another and form [[27]]a shelter. Under this the boys of the champo must sleep that night. The posts are pulled out and laid on the ground, the whole building is dismantled and the site cleaned and re-levelled. The work of rebuilding is then begun. This again the Puthi initiates by a formal act. Beginning with the humtse tachungo he digs a little hole with the butt of his spear at the places where the three carved posts are to be set up, and pours or spits a little “rohi madhu” into each hole. The posts are then put up, new ones being substituted for any which may have decayed, and the champo is rebuilt as quickly as possible. Before leaving the work for the night the Puthi places a little ginger sprinkled with “madhu” on two crossed leaves at the foot of the humtse tachungo in order to keep away evil spirits, to whom ginger is particularly obnoxious. Thatching alone is left till next day, which is a day of less work and more play. Everyone feasts and puts on his best clothes, the men wearing full dancing dress. The first bunch of thatch having been put in place by the Puthi, the braves of the village dance, some on the ground and some on the roof of the “morung,” all singing the pangashari, a slow chant in which the war-like deeds of the village in the past are recounted. This song goes on all the time the thatch is being put on. A similar dance on the roof is performed by the Konyaks of Namsang and Tamlu when a “morung” is rebuilt. The thatching being finished the oha stones are replaced by the Yenga at the foot of the humtse tachungo. All the men, led by the Puthi, then slowly dance in a rough column of fours formation round the village, ho-hoing as they go. The chant is called yanungshari. The carcases of the pig and cow are taken out of the little hut in which they have been kept and cut up and distributed to all males, the Puthi receiving as his share half the head of the cow split longitudinally. A feature of this, the second day of the ceremonies, is the dog-killing which takes place. Every champo in the village kills a small dog. That belonging to the champo which is being rebuilt is carefully fattened up beforehand and tied up in front of the Puthi’s house. When the time comes to kill this dog an admiring throng gathers round while the oldest man of the “khel” sits [[28]]by the dog and gives it a bone to keep it quiet. He then covers it with his cloth. Opposite to him stands the man reputed to be the finest warrior in the “khel,” and the following dialogue takes place. Warrior: “Move away.” Old man: “Will you take care?” Warrior: “I will take care.” Old man: “Do not hurt the dog.” Warrior: “I will kill it quickly.” At these words the old man uncovers the dog and moves aside. The warrior then attempts to split its skull exactly in two with one blow of his dao. When the dog falls about a dozen bucks and boys dance round and round it chanting, “He has killed it, he has killed it.” The head is cut off and brought to the champo, where it is carefully examined to see if it has been well and truly split. If the blow is found to have been a crooked one, the man who killed it is laughed at, told he is no warrior, but a boaster and a wind-bag. The head is then thrown away by the old man who attended at the killing.[4] In the evening a mock fight takes place between the young men and women of the village, both married and unmarried. The women pretend to try to push their way into the champo, while the young men keep them out. This mock fight is believed to increase the fertility of the women who take part in it. On the third day the slow dance round the village is repeated while the yanungshari is again sung. Most of the day is spent in feasting and drinking. On the fourth day the dance and chant are again repeated, but very few men put in an appearance, presumably because most of them have bad headaches after two days’ heavy drinking. The chief performers are a few hard-headed bucks and irrepressible small boys. On the fifth day, the last emung day, everyone rests.
The Head-tree. Perhaps the most conspicuous object in a Lhota village is the head-tree, mingetung, generally a magnificent specimen of ningetung (a tree of the Ficus family). It is usually situated on a mound well in the middle of the village. Against its branches were leant the long bamboos from which were hung the heads of enemies taken in war, and at its [[29]]roots are kept the mysterious oha stones. These are counted and a fence is put round the tree whenever the oyantsoa “genna” is performed. The fortune of the village is regarded as in a way dependent on the mingetung. So sacred is it that in some villages it cannot be photographed. To break a twig off it would entail the performance of the oyantsoa “genna” (village renewing “genna”), which must also be performed if the mingetung dies or a branch falls. The place of the mingetung can never be changed. That at Lungla has been blown down. A small tree close by is being used instead till a new mingetung can be induced to grow on the old site, a vain hope, as the old site is a mound of shale without so much as a blade of grass on it. When a new village is founded a site is always selected on which there is a tree suitable for use as a mingetung. Under the new tree must be put a twig stolen from the mingetung of the parent village, though the parent village makes every effort to prevent this theft, as it entails the performance of the oyantsoa “genna” and is very likely to bring bad luck to the parent village. A curious belief is prevalent in Phiro. Skulls which had fallen from their strings were often picked up and jammed into interstices in the bole of the head-tree. At Phiro the mingetung is growing round and gradually covering these old skulls. This is regarded as a sign that the days of head-hunting are gone, never to return.[5]
Water supply. Springs issuing from the side of the hill below the village supply Lhotas with their water. Sometimes it is drawn from a muddy pool of unappetizing greenish water, but often there is a good flow into a basin dammed up with rough masonry. Small fish have been put into the Niroyo basin, and are carefully preserved in order that they may keep the water clear of scum. At almost all springs there is a small dam, and over it a low fence so that women who draw water stand below and not in the supply from which they draw. Unlike the Ao, the Lhota does not fancy water after the village have washed their feet in it. When the [[30]]path from the fields does not happen to pass near a stream, water is often led to it in bamboo pipes from a long distance in order that men coming up after the day’s work may have a drink and a wash.
The Lhota House.
Description. A Lhota house varies in size from the wretched hovel of some old widow to the house of a rich man which may measure thirty feet long by eighteen feet broad—a limit far exceeded, however, by Aos, Semas and Angamis. To build a fine house as a show of wealth a Lhota would regard as great waste of money, and a Lhota likes to waste nothing. The walls are of bamboo and the roof of thatch (lishu) or palm-leaf (oko, Levistonia assamica). The front of all but the poorest houses is semicircular, with a door in the middle of the semicircle. The roof of the front semicircular room (mpongki) slopes up to the roof of the main building like the roof of the semicircular apse of a church. The upper roof-tree of the main building is carried forward over the roof of the mpongki with a slight upward slope, and is decorated with a little mock roof of thatch forming a sort of flying gable. In the middle of the mpongki is a bamboo post, which is carried through the roof of the apse to meet the projecting roof-tree of the main building. The interior of a Lhota house strikes a stranger as very cramped and uncomfortable. Unless one is very careful one bumps one’s head at every step. There is none of the spaciousness which one notices in the house of a rich Sema or Ao. Where the ground is suitable and bamboos are plentiful there is a machan (khantsung) for sitting out at the back. Sometimes the whole floor of the house is simply levelled earth, as in a Sema or Angami house. More usually, however, a step made of a short, thick log leads up from the mpongki to the doorway of the main building, the floor of which is raised above the ground on short posts and made of stout bamboo matting on a framework of whole bamboos, the matting in turn being covered with a layer of beaten earth to keep the draught from coming up from below. The floor of the sitting-out platform at the back is of bamboo without [[31]]any covering of earth. The pattern of the floor of this platform varies according to whether the owner of the house has or has not dragged a stone. In the former case a mat of split bamboos interlaced in a simple chequer pattern is laid over a foundation of whole bamboos laid at right angles to the back wall of the house. In the latter case the place of the mat is taken by split bamboos laid at right angles to the bamboo foundation.
