Food.
Rice is the staple food, but some relish, even if it be only jungle leaves boiled with chilies and salt, is always eaten with it. Meat is preferred if obtainable, but the Lhota will eat most things at a pinch. His diet includes the meat of all domestic animals and most wild animals and birds, fish, both fresh and dried, bee and hornet grubs, large spiders, a kind of beetle, white ants, cultivated plants and innumerable jungle leaves and berries. Certain things are forbidden, but villages near the plains are much less particular in this respect than those on the inner ranges. The general reason why certain animals and birds are not eaten is either that they are obviously unclean or because they are thought likely to impart their properties to the eater or to his children. Generally speaking old people can eat things which young people cannot, because it does not much matter what happens to them and in any case they will have no more children. Tigers and leopards are absolutely forbidden to all because they eat men. Leopard cats can be eaten by old people who no longer cultivate. Were a young man to eat it he would get poor crops. Wild dog [[75]]if eaten causes a raging thirst. Phiyosao of Akuk ate only a little of the skin of one, but he had to leave the village school because he could never sit through a lesson without going out for a drink. Whoever eats or even kills an otter will never be able to get his fields to burn properly.[33] None but very old people may touch, much less eat, either the big or little flying squirrel (Petaurista yunnanensis and Pteromys aboniger). Anyone who does so will frequently be guilty of indecent behaviour with the opposite sex of his own clan. Several kinds of birds are forbidden. The Large Streaked Spiderhunter (Arachnothera magna) is only eaten by very old people “because it is such a very funny-looking bird, and has such a very long beak.” The local species of minivet (Pericrocotus brevirostris) is forbidden to all because the cocks are supposed to have got their scarlet markings from being splashed with human blood. The Velvet-fronted Blue Nuthatch (Sitta frontalis) goes about in little flocks and is such a confiding little bird that if one is killed the rest of the flock will wait near till they are killed too. Therefore if a man were to eat one, one death in his household would be followed by a series of deaths. A solitary old man or woman can, of course, eat this bird with impunity. The Whitecapped Redstart (Chimarrhornis leucocephalus) and Whiteheaded Babbler (Gampsorhynchus rufulus) are not eaten because they would cause the eater to become grey-headed. Parrots and crow-tits (Parodoxornis) are not eaten because of the shape of their beaks. The eater’s children would be everlastingly pinching their friends. Scimitar babblers (Pomatorhinus) if eaten would make the eater unable to remember his dreams and so deprive him of an important guide in life. The clan of anyone who ate a sun-bird (Æthopyga) would dwindle in numbers, for sun-birds used to be as big as fowls, but are now the smallest of all birds. Swiftlets and swallows are [[76]]never still. The children of anyone who ate the flesh of these birds would be idle and always wanting to run about and play. The flesh of the Tree or House Sparrow is said to cause the itch. The Red-headed Trogon (Harpactes erythrocephalus) is not eaten because it is supposed to have got its brilliant colouring from human blood. Owlets (Scops) are not eaten owing to the extraordinary belief that they hatch their eggs by lying on their backs on them. The nightjar when disturbed only flies a short way and then settles on the ground again as if inviting one to follow. In this way it used to lead men on and on like a will-o’-the-wisp till they found themselves in an ambush and were killed. Therefore nightjars are not eaten. The Green Magpie (Cissa chinensis) is not eaten owing to a supposed habit of sitting on the bamboo erections built over graves. The loud laughing cry of the Himalayan White-crested Laughing Thrush (Garrulax leucolophas) is particularly sudden and startling. Were a man to eat its flesh he would become nervous in the jungle and would jump whenever a twig or a leaf dropped near him. The cry of the Long-tailed Broadbill (Psarisomus dalhousiæ) is a sign of rain, and whoever eats its flesh will always have bad weather when he goes to work in his fields. The hoopoe is such a curious bird that to eat it might mean disaster to the clan. Hawks are continually dropping excreta. Whoever ate one would spit continually.[34] The Rufous-bellied Hawk Eagle (Lophotriorchis kieneri) is forbidden to all but old people who expect to have no more children, for sores appear on the heads of the eater’s children. The two species of Racket-tailed Drongo (Dissemurus paradiseus and Bhringa remifer) are only eaten by old people, for as they have two very long conspicuous tail-feathers, so whoever ate their flesh would only have two children. The Indian Roller, commonly called the Blue Jay, is only eaten by old people, for the children of the eater would be as noisy as the bird itself. Ashy Swallow-Shrikes (Artamus fuscus) have a habit of sitting on branches in rows, each bird touching its neighbour. [[77]]It is therefore eaten by none but very old people, for were any young man or woman to eat it he or she would never be able to sit alone, but would always want to go and sit cuddled up against one of the other sex, a habit full of possibilities of trouble. The flesh of the Great Indian Hornbill (Dichoceros bicornis) is absolutely forbidden to members of the Tompyaktserre phratry, and is very rarely eaten by members of other phratries. The bird has a croaking note, and were a man to whom its flesh is forbidden to eat it he would die of violent hiccoughs. Of reptiles the python is eaten by all in the villages near the plains, but elsewhere it is only eaten by old people. (Even villages near the plains never speak of it as “python” (ongam) when talking of it as an article of diet, but always call it by the politer name of sosiyo, “long meat.”) It is believed that black marks are liable to appear on the back of the eater, who will be semi-paralysed and only able to move his body slowly like a python. A Rephyim man called Lobenthang is supposed to have been affected in this way. Snakes other than the python are forbidden to all. Old women may eat the same things as old men, but there are a few kinds of meat which men may eat, but young and middle-aged women may not. These include serow, wild mithan, buffalo, bear, elephant, monkey, white-browed gibbon (“huluk”) and pangolin. Most of these are forbidden for no reason which is known now,[35] but gibbon is prohibited because these animals are supposed to have no more than a single young one once in nine years, and this peculiarity would assuredly pass to the eater. In some villages these prohibitions are only observed at the time of pregnancy. [[78]]
Rice is invariably cooked separately from the meat or whatever is to be eaten with it. Meat and vegetables are boiled together with a lavish allowance of chilies and salt. Practically all food is boiled, though maize is roasted and eaten cold and plantains are roasted in their skins. A very favourite relish is bamboo pickle (dhrüchong) made of the hearts of young bamboo shoots pounded up with water and then dried, and boiled again when required. Though the Lhota prefers his food fresh he will eat both meat and fish which is pretty far gone. The flesh, entrails, blood and skin of an animal are eaten—in fact, practically everything except the hair. The men who went to France with the Naga Labour Corps thought our method of cleaning an animal and throwing away the offal most wasteful. Meat is stored by cutting it into small pieces and smoking it over the fire. In this way it will keep for a year.
Drink.
To deprive a Lhota of his “madhu” (soko) would be like depriving a British workman of both his beer and tea. The Lhota only drinks water if he can get nothing else. He drinks “madhu” both at meals and between meals. It is made as follows. Rice is boiled in the ordinary way and spread on a mat to cool. A cake of yeast (vamhe) is then broken up and well mixed with it, and the rice put to ferment in a basket lined with leaves. Next day the liquor begins to run off and is collected in a bamboo “chunga.” This is zutsü (Assamese “rohi”), the most potent form of “madhu.” When new it is the colour of rather greenish water. If kept it will remain good for five or six months, gradually increasing in strength and turning a pale sherry colour. It is this form of “madhu” which is always offered to guests of importance. In some villages of the Northern Lhotas the rice is not put into a basket to ferment, but into a vat, a hollow section of bamboo being placed upright in it to collect the zutsü, which is allowed to drain off for three days. The fermented rice from which the zutsü has been drained off is put into a “madhu-sieve” (cham) and hot or sometimes cold water is [[79]]poured on to it. It is well kneaded, and the resulting brew is chemcho (Assamese “saka madhu”), the usual Lhota drink, and is of about the potency of light beer. Sometimes, especially among the Southern Lhotas, millet, giant millet or Job’s tears, or a mixture of maize and rice, is used instead of rice for making “madhu.” The yeast is made as follows. Rice is ground into flour and wetted and kneaded into dough. To this a little old yeast is added, and either the water from crushed phyushako bark, or from the crushed leaves of yimerhe or shingwo. The dough with this added is again well kneaded and divided into cakes about the size of penny buns. These dry of themselves and remain good for six or seven months.
The mild form of rice beer called in Assamese “pita madhu,” which is so popular among the Angamis, is hardly made by the Lhotas except at harvest. A little unhusked rice is kept damp until it sprouts, and is then dried. Husked rice is ground into flour and put into a vat with hot water. Next day when it has become cold the dried sprouted rice is ground up and mixed with a little yeast and added to the water. This ferments and is ready for drinking next day. It is drunk diluted with water and is called etha soko.
Medicine.
Illness is generally ascribed to evil spirits (tsandhramo) or the wandering of the patient’s soul (omon), who accordingly calls in a medicine man (ratsen) to extract from his body the bit of earth or wood or hair which the evil spirit put there, or causes a ceremony to be performed to call back his soul. A few medicines are, however, known. Fat pork is eaten as an aperient. For an emetic, chicken dung and rat dung are whipped up with water and the mixture is drunk—probably as effective an emetic as any known to science. For diarrhœa the remedies are roasted goat’s hoof or the gall of either cow or pig. For stomach-ache and intestinal worms an infusion of the bark of nshitong (Stereospernum chelonoides) is drunk. For indigestion and stomach troubles [[80]]in general a little of the dried upper stomach of the porcupine is ground up and taken mixed with water, or a poultice of wild lemon leaves (tsoshü) or the crushed leaves of Maesa indica (tsandhrammozü, lit. “devil’s medicine”) is put over the affected part. For a cough the green pentagonal-shaped berries of the yenkuti tree are chewed, or a berry called riko is ground up and taken with “rohi madhu.” The yenkuti berry is also used as a tonic for weak children. Bat’s flesh is another tonic for children whose mothers cannot suckle them properly. For headache the leaf of the kizu tree (Bischoffia javanica) is laid on the forehead. For wounds the commonest remedy is a poultice of the ground-up bark of young shoots of the nungnung tree (Callicarpa arborea roxb., fam. Verbenaceæ). This has the effect of stopping bleeding. The mashed-up leaves of the pontengcho tree have the same effect. A bush called temphak (Rhus semialata) provides two medicines. The juice of the berries is a cure for stomach-ache, and a cooling lotion for use in cases of chicken pox and smallpox is prepared from the pounded leaves. The gall of the python is said to cure fever and intestinal troubles. A lotion made from Taraktogenos kurzii (hmhmti) bark is used to disinfect wounds. If maggots get into a wound in an animal a mash of pounded giant woodlouse (sharhi) is applied. Soot (live) is applied for skin diseases. For burns the ash of the leaves of the woropentung tree is applied. For dog-bite a whisker of the dog which bit the man is singed and put on the wound. Another example of the “hair of the dog” is the practice of drinking very hot “rohi madhu” as a remedy for drunkenness. To bring a boil to a head a little yeast (vamhe) is damped and rubbed over it. When ready it is lanced with a sharp splinter of bamboo. To get rid of warts a black-and-yellow beetle called potso tsiro (“god’s mithan”) is crushed on them. This causes them to fester and disappear. Goître is not common except in Are. When it occurs it is regarded as being due to drinking water from a spring near which plants with bulbous roots grow. The only known remedy is to run a red-hot umbrella wire through the goître, but this heroic measure is rarely employed. Most sufferers [[81]]prefer the disease to the cure. For soreness of the eyes the leaves of the mongsentung are crushed up and held to the face so that the fumes reach the eye. For a sprain of any kind the great remedy is to draw blood. In the case of slight sprains the affected place is scratched and made to bleed and a leech put on to suck. For more serious sprains or contusions the swelling is cupped. The instrument used is a serow horn. The base is smoothed down so that it will lie closely against the skin, and a small hole is bored near the tip of the horn, round which a thin, slightly withered leaf is wrapped. The skin is pricked with a splinter of bamboo and the horn being placed in position the blood is sucked up into it by the hole near the top. The thin leaf allows the air to be sucked from the interior of the horn, but acts as an efficient valve when the operator stops to take breath. This method of cupping is used for sprains, bruises and dropsy, in fact in any case where it is desired to reduce a swelling. In cases of snake-bite the limb affected is first tightly bound above the bite. An infusion of the bark of a tree called nungatsung is rubbed on the legs as a protection against leech-bites.