H.— ANTHROPOLOGY 169 



two of which were Mithun, that is the gayal, Bos frontalis, the domesticated 

 ' bison' of the Naga hills. 



To quote Brewster again, ' It is really almost dangerous to save life, 

 or do any great service to a native. It seems to give those so benefited 

 an unanswerable claim on the person conferring the service.®^ He then 

 proceeds to give instances of this ; a point of view from which many 

 officers in the Naga hills have suffered and no doubt continue to suffer. 

 He gives another instance of Fijian mentality which might well be found 

 in a Naga tribe. ' I remember hearing of a tribe . . . being much 

 exasperated by the sneers of their heathen neighbours, who sent over 

 to enquire if they had a plentiful supply of small mirrors or trade looking 

 glasses. Being asked the reason of their question the reply was, " Oh, 

 we thought you would like to practise before a glass how to put on a 

 sanctimonious look like the Wesleyan native minister." ' ^^ I am 

 reminded at once of the long faces of the Ao elders of Changki, unmoved 

 by Mr. Mills's joke, at which they laughed heartily afterwards in private, 

 but not in public as unbecoming to Christian sobriety. 



Waterhouse again refers to the rivalry between different clans in a 

 single village, and to cases of the most cruel treachery of one to another 

 with the help of strangers.®* One is reminded at once of numberless 

 instances in the Naga hills of which it will be enough to cite the well- 

 known incident reported by Carnegy in 1876, when a Kohima clan with 

 friends in Muzuma suggested that the latter should send a war party on 

 a particular day when they knew that the men of the Puchatsuma clan, 

 occupying the next quarter to their own in Kohima village, would all 

 be at the fields. The Muzuma party of 40 walked into the Puchatsuma 

 quarter and killed everyone they could find there — -one man, five women 

 and twenty children. The adjacent clans of Kohima, who did not like 

 Puchatsuma, stood looking on, and one of them remarked to Carnegy 

 that it was fine sport, just like killing fowls. It may be added that both 

 in Fiji ^^ and in the Naga hills stinginess seems to be abominated above 

 all other faults, while both areas seem to have in common a certain 

 sardonic use of metaphor which shows itself in such expressions as ' a 

 trussed frog ' or ' a long turtle ' for a human being as a comestible (Fiji), 



* floor rushes ' for wives to be killed and laid in a chief's grave (Fiji), 

 ' thatching ' for spearing a sleeping foe through his roof (Naga hills), 



* cultivation ' for a surprise raid for the heads of neighbours working 

 in their fields (Naga hills), or ' banana tree ' for a human victim (both 

 areas).®* 



In most of the above instances the comparison has been between 

 Fijian customs or beliefs and customs or beliefs in the Naga hills, which 

 can be put down as specifically Naga. But there are a number of other 

 parallels which are either shared by Nagas with other groups of which 

 they are quite as typical or which are found in Assam without being found 



°^ Brewster, 60. 



^^ Brewster, 66. 



'* Waterhouse, I, 53 sqq. ; II, 5 sqq. 



'^ Brewster, 51. 



" Fison, 100 ; Mills, II, 278, 279 m.* ; Hutton, II, 170. 



G 2 



