H.— ANTHROPOLOGY i79 



It is Interesting to observe that in South America the canoe gong 

 appears to have developed independently from a hollow tree. Nor- 

 denskiold bases this conclusion partly on the fact that these signalling 

 gongs are beaten with a rubber-covered mallet to which, he says, nothing 

 similar is known outside America.^^* He comes to the conclusion that 

 the invention of slit gongs arose from a practice of sending out signals 

 by beating on hollow trees in the forest ; that this led to carrying such 

 hollow trees home to villages, and then to beating instead on canoes or 

 wooden troughs. He quotes Faraba to the effect that the Amahuaca 

 Indians of Peru occasionally signalled by striking with a heavy mallet 

 upon the flat root of the Alatea tree after having stripped the bark from 

 it but without cutting it oH.-^^ He goes on to describe ' a large wooden 

 gong . . . suspended by one end whilst the other rests on the floor of 

 the pile beam house: It is beaten with two wooden mallets.' Again, 

 ' the resemblance between a gong of this kind and a canoe is so great that 

 it is quite reasonable to suppose that the Indians formerly used as gongs 

 their canoes which are often drawn up underneath the floor of their pile 

 houses, or laid on stagings.' ^le It is, of course, possible that the canoe 

 gong of the Naga hills has similarly developed from a tree trunk, but 

 since we find no example of signalling by hammering on trees we are 

 perhaps entitled to argue that the process in Assam has been the other 

 way and that the smaller slit gongs, or the hollow tree trunks, used by 

 some villages are degenerate forms of the original gong which started as 

 a canoe, and it is possibly significant that in the Kachin story of the great 

 flood the two survivors escape drowning in ' a large oval-shaped drum.' ^i? 

 On the other hand, it must be admitted that a simple form of slit gong 

 occurs in Yunnan,^^^ as it does in Malaya and in Borneo,^!^ suggesting 

 either marginal degenerations from a developed type in Assam, or 

 possibly simple types from which the Assam one might have been 

 elaborated. The real argument, therefore, for the canoe gong's being a 

 survival from a real canoe rests on its associations with head-hunting and 

 a typical canoe culture. 



Now the Naga canoe gong is closely associated with the men's house, 

 and generally, if not kept in it, it is kept in an annexe. It is in some 

 respects treated almost as an idol and tremendous effort is expended on 



21* A similar rubber mallet, however, is reported to be widely used in Africa, 

 and it seems just possible that the idea may have been taken to S. America by 

 negro slaves. 



'"s Nordenskiold, 44, 45. "i* Nordenskiold, 46. 



21' Hanson, The Kachins, 112. 



218 'In the beginning of the first moon they have a feast. A large tree is 

 scooped out which is called a " trough " ; both men and women take a bamboo 

 and strike it ; the sound is like a drum. Then they play.' Chinese account of 

 the Pei Chong-Kia, aborigines of Kweichau in Yunnan, quoted by Colquhoun in 

 Across Chryse, II, p. 308. 



2i» Evans, Among Primitive Peoples in Borneo, 133 ; Ling Roth, Nations of 

 Sarawak and British N. Borneo, II, cxcvii, 263. He quotes Schwaner to the 

 effect that the Orang Ot, a very primitive hunting tribe, beat violently on a 

 hollowed stem to assemble the whole tribe. He also gives the name for the slit 

 gong in Dutch Borneo as tenkuang, which is almost identical with one of the Naga 

 names — tingkhong. 



