1875.] J. Butler — Rough Notes on the Angami Nagas. 315 



day. One marked peculiarity in their intestine feuds is, that we very sel- 

 dom find the whole of one village at war with the whole of another vil- 

 lage, hut almost invariably clan is pitted against clan. Thus I have 

 often seen a village split up into two hostile camps, one clan at deadly 

 feud with another, whilst a third lives between them in a state of neutrality, 

 and at perfect peace with both. 



On the subject of religion and a future state, the Angami appears to 

 have no definite ideas. Some have told me that they believe that if they 

 have (according to their lights be it remembered) led good and worthy lives 

 upon this earth, and abstained from all coarse food, and especially have 

 abstained from eating flesh, after death their spirits would fly away into 

 the realms above, and there become stars, but that otherwise their bodies 

 would have to pass through seven stages of spirit-life, and eventually become 

 transformed into bees ; others again, on my questioning them, have replied 

 with a puzzled and surprised air, as if they had never given the matter a 

 thought before, that " after death we are buried in the earth and our bodies 

 " rot there, and there is an end ; who knows more ?" Still from the fact that 

 they invariably bury the deceased's best clothes, his spear and dao, together 

 with much grain, liquor, and a fowl, with the body, I think we may safely 

 infer, that they certainly have some vague idea of a life hereafter, the 

 thought of which, however, does not trouble them much. It is at quitting 

 the actual pleasure of living, which he has experienced, that a Niiga shud- 

 ders, and not the problematical torments to be met in a hell hereafter, of 

 which he knows nothing. And as to religion, such as it is, it may be put 

 down as simply the result of that great characteristic, common to all 

 savages, " fear". All his religious rites and ceremonies, his prayers, incanta- 

 tions, and sacrifices, are due to a trembling belief that he can thus 

 avert some impending evil. But he is utterly unable to appreciate our 

 feeling of awe, reverence, and affection towards an Omnipotent God. I have 

 known a Chief, on the occasion of the death of his favourite son from an 

 attack of fever contracted whilst out shooting Gural* in the neighbour- 

 hood of his village, don his full war-costume, rush out to the spot, and 

 there commence yelling out his war-cry, hurling defiance at the deity who 

 he supposed had struck down his son, bidding him come out and show him- 

 self, impiously cursing him for his cowardice in not disclosing himself. 

 Intense superstition is of course only the natural corollary to this kind of 

 belief in a god in every hill and valley, a devil in every grove and stream. 

 Undertakings of any importance, such as the starting of a war-party, the 

 commencing of a journey, the first sowing out, or gathering in, of the crops, 

 &c, are never begun without the previous consultation of certain omens, by 

 which they pretend to be able to foretell, whether a successful termination 

 * A species of wild goat. 

 Q Q 



