14 S. E. Peal— Report on a visit to tlie [No. 1, 



ble from log to log and walk along large and small tree-stems at all angles 

 of inclination, the ground being as a rule completely hidden under a thick 

 mass of creepers, foliage, and smaller lopped branches, all drying so as 

 to be ready for being set fire to about March. 



How the leading men kept the path under such circumstances was 

 wonderful, for no trace of a track of any sort was visible. In some forest 

 beyond we met a Tkak Naga and his young wife, who were rather taken 

 aback on seeing our party. A palaver ensued as to which of the two 

 villages we should go to, and during it we suddenly saw a long string of 

 Nagas advance in single file, and, the path being very narrow and in dense 

 undergrowth, they had to pass us closely. As they went by many spoke 

 to our guide, and some stopped and gave him some tobacco, asking who 

 we were and where we were going, many- had flint guns, and all carried 

 the Khampti dao. Generally, they passed me hurriedly and seemed more 

 comfortable when they had got by, then turned round, and stared. Those 

 who had loads carried them in a conical basket (the Naga hura) by a 

 strap over the forehead ; more than half had spears, and all wore the little 

 cane crinoline and small strip of cloth passed between the legs which 

 forces the testes into the abdomen, a usual custom among these Nagas 

 (East). They were not tattooed, and hence looked much paler in the face 

 than do the tribes who live further west. I found they had all been 

 summoned by a Singphu Chief to assist in building him a new house. 



After passing through another Jhiim we reached Tkak, a village 

 consisting of ten houses on a spur facing the Nambong valley, where the 

 guide made arrangements for us to stay in the outer end of the head- 

 man's house. After an hour's rest, the carriers went back to the boats 

 for the other things, and the whole party came up. While they were away 

 I had breakfast. It was no easy matter communicating with these folks, 

 as the only language they knew besides their own was a little Singphu. 

 Lah, the guide, and Miing, the boatman, hovever, were generally somewhere 

 at hand to interpret. 



The village was evidently not more than five or six years old, as I saw 

 the stumps of the forest trees everywhere about, and often the stems as 

 large logs. The houses were not arranged on any plan, but just built 

 where the owner had a fancy, on a fragment of level eked out by posts, 

 not over 30 or 40 yards apart, no two houses consequently were on the 

 same level or faced the same way. They were more or less on the same 

 pattern as are all the houses of the hill tribes in or about Assam except 

 those of the Garos and Khasias, i e n a long bamboo shed, with floor raised 

 on posts some 4 or 5 feet. 



It is singular how this custom survives even among people who have 

 left the hills and been resident in the plains for some 500 or 600 years, as 



