[8] This is what is normally done by the Semas.—J. H. H. [↑]
[9] A serious quarrel between villages resulting in bloodshed entails a similar prohibition. For instance, Pungkitung once killed a number of Lungsa men, and Lungsa retaliated in kind. To this day members of the two villages cannot eat together, and a Lhota of another village who has accepted hospitality in either Lungsa or Pungkitung cannot on the same day take food from the hands of a man of the other village. This bar does not, however, prevent the inhabitants of the two villages from intermarrying freely. [↑]
[10] One “khel” of Rephyim is supposed to have died out because the head-taking ceremony was once performed there with a Lhota head. [↑]
[11] So too the Kachins (Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, I. i. p. 432) and the Northern Brè (ibid. p. 533).—J. H. H. [↑]
[12] Yampongo of Phiro, a man of great note in his time. He died of a burst blood-vessel when leading home a mithan captured in the operations against the Kukis in 1918, and he was over sixty at the time.—J. H. H. [↑]
[13] Compare the Sema song sung by returning warriors, “O Yemusali, O Yemali,” the meaning of which is not known to the Semas. The words are obviously the same as those in the Lhota song; and if, as seems possible, there has been a more intimate connection between the Lhotas and the Southern Sangtams than now appears, then the Semas may have acquired the phrase from the numerous Sangtams whom they have absorbed during the comparatively recent growth and extension of their (the Sema) tribe.—J. H. H. [↑]
[14] See p. 25. One Lhota from Pangti told me that orrülama were left by the returning warriors at each cross-roads they came to on their way home, the object being to guide the spirit of the slain enemy as it followed the head. The Changs believe that the spirits of dead enemies follow their heads some hours later, whimpering as they go. [↑]
[15] The Southern Sangtams put them into gourds and place them on the top of bamboo poles outside the “morung,” the head or gourd being transfixed vertically with a bit of wood like a spear.—J. H. H. [↑]
[16] So too the Sea Dyaks of Sarawak and some African tribes.—J. H. H. [↑]
[17] The practice of buying slaves or orphans for this purpose is perhaps worst among the unadministered Konyak villages, where it is a matter of common occurrence, and is probably normal when a chief’s son wishes to put on warrior’s dress and marry. His father buys a slave, who is tied up in the village, where the boy kills him in public.—J. H. H. [↑]