H.— ANTHROPOLOGY 163 



than to look at isolated customs without their context, and for this purpose 

 I have chosen three widely separated areas. The first of these at which 

 I wish to look is Fiji, where a very large number of points of culture are 

 to be found associated, suggesting an intimate relation with Assam. 

 Head-hunting customs may be taken first. Thomas Williams in his 

 journal mentions the preservation of enemy skulls in Fijian ' temples ' ^® 

 which offer a close parallel to the preservation of heads in a Naga morung. 

 He also mentions a practice practically identical with that of ' touching 

 meat ' in the Naga hills, when he gives an account of the ceremonies 

 gone through to confer honour upon Ratu Duadua ' on account of his 

 having had something to do with knocking a man's brains out, or striking 

 him with a club after someone else had killed him.' ^'^ That is just what 

 would be regarded as an adequate qualification for the assumption of a 

 hornbill's feather by a Naga warrior, and I have elsewhere mentioned 

 Colonel Woods's account of how his Naga clerk at Makwari was observed 

 to spear a dead enemy (shot by a sepoy) with his umbrella, after which 

 he assumed warrior's dress.^^ 



Williams also mentions the practice of human sacrifice at the time of 

 building a house or temple,^^ a practice which is still reported to take 

 place across the Assam frontier and which has probably taken place 

 inside it within my own experience of the Naga hills. The method thei'e 

 believed to be used, as in Polynesia, was to put the victim into the hole 

 made for the post and step the post on top of him, the object of the 

 ceremony being described as the provision of someone to hold up the 

 post.2o 



Brewster also mentions the necessity of a human sacrifice when build- 

 ing a club house in Fiji, and quotes one instance of a man being placed 

 under the house-post of a warrior, who afterwards took the name of 

 Nandu Rutama, meaning ' the man-post.' ^^ Brewster also mentions 

 that measles require blood, ^- a statement very reminiscent of a case in 

 the Naga hills where vaccination against small-pox was supplemented by 

 the taking of a head,'^ and he likewise mentions the existence in Fiji 

 of sacrosanct heralds who can go and come between warring villages 

 quite safely in virtue of their office,^* as they can do in the Naga hills. ^^ 

 It is also perhaps worth pointing out that the thatching of the ridge pole 

 of a Fijian club house must be done by a warrior,^^ as among the Sema 

 Nagas ^^ ; and there is conceivably some connection between the Fijian 

 practice of putting fingers in split bamboo into the thatch as symbols 

 of mourning ^* and the Lhota practice of covering their ridge pole with 

 bamboos split into five ends and always known as ' enemy hands.' ^^ 



Another parallel between the Naga hills and Fiji is to be found in the 

 practice of women turning out to welcome the returning warrior,^*^ a 



1' Williams, Thomas, I, 552 ; II, 222. i' Williams, Thomas, II, 374. 



" Hutton, I, 165. 19 WiUiams, I, 326, n. 



2" Cf. also Mills, I, 25 ; II, 76. " Brewster, 75 sq. 



" Ibid., 67. 23 Hutton, I, 160. 



^* Brewster, 72. ^^ E.g., Hutton, X, 27. 



=" Deane, 205. " Hutton, II, 45. 



"" Williams, II, 198. 29 Mjng^ I_ ^^ 



3" Williams, I, 310, 343 n., 403 ; II, 208. 



