Pottery. Though foreign articles are being used more and more Lhotas still make most of their own pots. They are round, and slightly contracted at the top, with a curved rim by which they can be lifted off the fire. The only ornamentation used is a string pattern which is applied by patting the pot while still wet with a flat piece of wood covered with coarse [[41]]string binding (khuzü). The clay is obtained from the banks of small streams. Two kinds are used, grey (linyikcho), which is the best, and red (linyocho), which is not so good. Only women can make pots, but the industry is not restricted to old women. The clay is broken up and kneaded on a stone with a little water. After being left over-night it is again moistened and kneaded. A round base is first made by hand. A wall of clay is built onto this and kneaded well onto the base with the left hand, the wall being supported on the outside by a small stick (phutamphen) held in the right hand. The pot is then shaped with the left hand and stick, and put to dry in the sun while other pots are being made.
After the pots have been dried in the house for three or four days a rough platform of wood is built on the ground outside the village. On this the pots are laid upside down and twigs and rubbish and rice straw piled on them and fired. In this kiln the pots are left till next morning, when they must be taken away before dawn. Certain precautions have to be observed. The woman making the pots must refrain from sexual intercourse, and must not eat any strong-smelling food, such as beef, goat’s flesh, dog’s flesh, dried fish or “stinking dal,” while she is so engaged, for to eat these things would cause the pots to “ring” badly. Anyone may watch the clay being kneaded, but no one must look on while the pot is being shaped, and only those helping the woman by carrying the pots or collecting fuel may be present at the burning. Were a man to see the pots being fired they would all crack. Nor must any dog come near, for should so much as a single hair of a dog touch a pot before it is finished the pot would have a hole at that very place.
Iron-work. The trade of a blacksmith is regarded by the Lhotas as a very unlucky one, and is restricted to the families members of which have been blacksmiths in the past. It is believed that no blacksmith lives long after he stops work. It is therefore not surprising that Lhota blacksmiths are few and far between. Nor is there much need for them. Villages near the plains buy all they require from Assamese smiths. [[42]]The Rengmas are great blacksmiths and make all the weapons and implements required by the Southern Lhotas of the inner ranges, while the Northern Lhotas are supplied in a similar way by the Aos. The few Lhota blacksmiths there are use foreign tools bought from the plains, though an indigenous type of bellows (yongphophen) is still in use in places. This consists of two sections of bamboo set up perpendicularly side by side in a clay base. Into each of these is fitted a piston bound all over with hen’s feathers with their thin ends down. The downward stroke of the piston being against the “grain” of the feathers and the upward stroke with the “grain,” quite an efficient valvular action results. These pistons are worked alternately by an assistant who holds one in each hand. At the bottom of each piston-case is a hole, to which is attached a bamboo tube (zendro). These tubes emerge together at the fire. Only soft iron is used. This is obtained from the plains in the form of old tea-garden hoes. Formerly iron is said to have been found and worked at Khoro Ghat on the edge of the plains, by a village of the Thangwe clan according to one tradition, or by Shans or Burmese according to another.[6] The finished article is tempered by being dipped in water. This tempering is not meant to be final. The purchaser after using the dao, or whatever the article may be, for a time, heats it in a fire of the slow-burning bark of a certain tree (lepokriphu) and tempers it in salt and water, or bamboo-pickle and water to his taste.
So impregnated with misfortune is the whole trade of the blacksmith that no house is ever built on the site of an old forge, though the forge is allowed to be built inside the village. To bring a piece of dross from a forge into a house would cause all the inmates to fall ill. With this in mind a woman in Yemkha in 1919 left a piece of dross as a parting present when she ran away from her husband. [[43]]
Basket-work. Living in a land where cane and bamboo are plentiful Lhotas are naturally expert basket-makers. Every man can make his own household baskets, but the manufacture of difficult things such as cane helmets (kiven) is generally left to experts. No woman is allowed to do any basket-work of any kind. For rough baskets strips of fresh bamboo are used. Cane is far more valuable and is reserved for articles which are meant to last a long time. It is left to season before being used. For rough work a chequer pattern is generally used, but for shields (otsung), cane helmets, and grain baskets a twill pattern is used. A pretty cross-warped pattern with wefts parallel to each other and passing over and under the same alternate warps is used for the outside of rain-shields (phuchyo), giving an open-work effect rather like the cane seat of a bedroom chair.
Wood-work. Rough planks are hacked out with a dao, a most wasteful method, as the whole thickness of a tree has to go to make each plank. Wooden dishes are cut out of single pieces of wood with an adze (ophü). They are then dried in the rough and rubbed smooth with stones and a curious rough-surfaced leaf called phukirongti (Clerodendrum serratum). Small “madhu” vats and very occasionally wooden shields are made in the same way. The posts of “morungs” (champo) are carved in relief with conventional representations of hornbills and mithan heads. The work is done with the dao and is as a rule very rough—far inferior to the carvings of Semas and Angamis, who in turn are much behind the Konyaks.
Nets. Nets like big landing-nets are made out of twisted strips of bark from the erhingya tree. They are fitted onto a circular frame to which a long handle is attached, and are used to land the stupefied fish which come to the top when a river is “poisoned.” They are made by men, never by women. The maker must remain chaste the previous night.
Beads. Among the few indigenous beads of the Naga Hills are the little black beads (eshe) made from the seeds of a species of wild plantain (sheyu) by the Lhotas. The industry is [[44]]confined to women and exists chiefly among the Southern Lhotas. The seeds are tough, and both ends of each seed have to be laboriously chewed off. They are astringent, and “bead chewing” becomes a perfect habit with some women. The seeds are then pierced with a bamboo needle and strung, and the strings rolled on a flat stone till the beads become cylindrical and a good polish has been obtained. They are used for necklaces and look exceedingly well against a brown skin.
Hides. No process of tanning is known. Skins which are required for shields or any other purpose are merely cleaned and dried in the sun.
Trade. There is no tradition of any old form of currency, such as beads, or gongs, though thin key-shaped pieces of iron (chabli) such as the Aos used to use as currency are occasionally owned as heirlooms. Trade was apparently always carried on by barter in the days before the British coinage came into use. Even nowadays cotton which is taken down to the plains is almost invariably bartered for salt. A peculiar custom obtains when mithan, ivory armlets and boar’s tushes are bought and sold. These articles are particularly liable to be infected with evil fortune, certain marks being regarded as unlucky, and so on. An old man is therefore always employed as an intermediary (lantse or thantsowe) between the parties, and he finally settles the price when the bargaining has gone on long enough. Any ill luck is believed to attach itself to him as nominal buyer, rather than to the real buyer, who pays him a commission of Re. 1 for a mithan, eight annas for an ivory armlet and four annas for a pair of boar’s tushes. If anything intimately connected with the person, such as a cloth or a dao, be sold the seller retains a thread from the cloth or scrapes a tiny shaving off the handle of the dao, for were he to sell the whole of something which was almost part of himself the buyer might be able to exercise some magical influence over him.[7] [[45]]