April 13, 191 1] 



NATURE 



215 



most part of only tolerable interest and appositeness ; 

 the drawings which supplement the photographs are 

 exceedingly bad : one wonders that the publishers 

 could have inserted such. Amongst the more interest- 

 ing illustrations is that of a Sara-Kabba woman, with 

 her lips expanded artificially into something like a 

 duck's beak. This method of deforming the lips seems 

 to be a very old one amongst the negro race, and to 

 have existed in ancient times in the westernmost 

 parts of Nigeria. From the very heart of Africa, 

 where Dr. Kumm came across it, it extends sporadic- 

 ally to the region between the Albert Nyanza and the 

 Upper Congo; then, after another long gap in dis- 

 tance, reappears in parts of German East Africa, and 

 attains a notable development (described by Living- 



lUE NAGAS OF MANIPUR^ 

 'T'HE monograph before us, descriptive of the 

 -*• Nagas (included in the Tibeto-Burman group 

 of races), is issued by the Government, Eastern 

 Bengal, as one of the series which already includes 

 volumes on the Khasis, Meitheis, Mikirs, and Garos. 

 Mr. Hodson's survey extends only to the branch of 

 the tribe settled in Manipur, numbering about 100,000 

 out of a total population of 162,000 in British India. 



As regards social organisation, the clan, an aggre- 

 gation of households, forms the permanent political 

 unit, the tribe being only a group of clans with little 

 or no solidarity. The only tribal bond appears in the 

 enforcement of common taboos of food and seclusion, 

 and in the rule that a man must not marrv a woman 



Mao Nagas. From " The Naga Tribes of Manipur. 



Stone) in the regions between Lake Nyasa and the 

 coast. 



Dr. Kumm gives a chapter on the anthropology of the 

 Sudan tribes, which contains some new information, 

 and especially some interesting illustrations of the 

 many different methods of skin mutilation on the face 

 (cicatrisation). He writes, however, much too freely 

 about " Bantu," ascribing to the Bantu group of 

 African people many tribes which have absolutely 

 nothing to do with that language family. Although 

 the conventional " Bantu " physical type is associated 

 mostly with peoples of the Upper Congo of the lake 

 regions and of .South Africa who happen to speak 

 Bantu languages, it is also to be met with elsewhere 

 in West and .Central Africa amongst tribes quite out- 

 side the Bantu language field. It short, it is better to 

 drop the use of the term for any other but linguistic 

 classifications. 



H. H. Johnston. 



NO. 2163, VOL. 86] 



whose speech diflers from his own. This is due to 

 the inhospitable character of the land and to the 

 ferocity of its inhabitants, facts which also affect the 

 linguistics. As Dr. Grierson has shown, this type 

 of monosyllabic language, possessing no literature, 

 with a lloating pronunciation, and a number of 

 loosely used prefixes and suflixes, being necessarily 

 subject to rapid change, emigrants settled at a com- 

 parativelv short distance develop a dialect unintelli- 

 gible to members of the parent village. This absence 

 of tribal organisation adds greatly to the difliculty of 

 bringing these wild highlanders under control. 



The Nagas combine with a fairly advanced material 

 culture many barbaric practices. While part of their 

 farming is on the Jhum system, that is to say, the 

 periodical burning of patches of jungle and sowing 

 the seed in the ashes, they also possess terraced fields 



1 "The Na«a Tribe* of Manipur." By T. C. Hod^on Pp. xiii+zia. 

 (London : M.-irmillan and Co., Ltd. 19:1.) Price Ss. M. net. 



