320 J. Butler — Rough Notes on the Angami Nagaa, [No. 4, 



stone slides into position ; some leaves are then placed on the top and some 

 liquor poured over it. This done, a general feast follows, and the ceremony 

 is complete. 



The average Angami is a fine, hardy, athletic fellow, brave and war- 

 like, and, among themselves, as a rule, most truthful and honest. On the 

 other hand, he is blood-thirsty, treacherous, and revengeful to an almost 

 incredible degree. This, however, can scarcely be wondered at when we 

 recall what I have already related regarding revenge being considered a 

 most holy act, which they have been taught from childhood ever to revere 

 as one of their most sacred duties. The " blood-feud" of the Naga is what 

 the " vendetta" of the Corsican was, a thing to be handed down from 

 generation to generation, an everlasting and most baneful heir-loom, in- 

 volving in its relentless course the brutal murders of helpless old men and 

 women, innocent young girls and children, until, as often happens, mere 

 petty family quarrels, generally about land or water, being taken up by 

 their respective clansmen, break out into bitter civil wars which devastate 

 whole villages. This is no " word-painting" on my part, for I am here 

 speaking of actual facts and a most deplorable state of affairs which seems 

 to have existed from time immemorial, and is to be seen in full force up to 

 the present day, a terrible check not only to the increase of population, 

 but also a fatal barrier to all moral progress. I must confess it is not a 

 little disheartening to think how long and how arduously we have striven, 

 and yet how little we have done towards improving, civilizing, and weaning 

 from their accursed thirst for blood, this otherwise noble race. But it is 

 simply the old, old story, precept and example, the only means we have 

 heretofore employed, worthy tools though they be, are perfectly powerless 

 before the traditions of untold ages of anarchy and warfare. Thus we 

 even find Nagas, who have acted for years as Dobhashas (Interpreters) at 

 Samagiiting, others as Policemen in Naugaon, some as Sepoys in Dibru- 

 garh, and not a few who have been educated under the parental care of 

 kind missionaries, and have spent several years in the plains, where they 

 have been taught to read and write, and have doubtless had very carefully 

 inculcated into them the lessons of virtue and peace taught by our Chris- 

 tian religion, returning to their native hills not, as we should at first 

 suppose, to render us any assistance in our good work here of endeavouring 

 to secure peace, but rather on the contrary to indulge again and take part 

 in all the scenes of rapine and cruelty going on around them, until at last 

 it is difficult to say whether their evidently superficial, skin-deep education 

 has not rather tended to enable them to out-Herod Herod in their wily 

 plots of deep-laid treachery, or as they would call it " skilful strategy" ; 

 scratch the Dobhasha and you will find the Naga. 



In height, the Angami as a rule is somewhat taller than the average 



