1855.] Notes on Northern Cacliar. 615 



and industry being the great desiderata in a wife, the former giving 

 promise of numerous offspring, and both being indispensable to one 

 who is, unassisted, to perform all the menial duties of a household, 

 as well as give assistance in the field. The Naga woman is quite a 

 model of labour and industry. At all hours of the day she may be 

 seen busily employed in domestic duties, weaving cloth, pounding 

 rice, washing clothes, carrying water, making grog, or tending 

 children, while her husband and the men generally lie idly basking 

 in the sun, deeming it effeminate to put their hands to any work 

 save the cultivation of their fields, or the repairing of their houses. 



The Nagas bury their dead at the very doors of their houses, 

 in a coffin formed of the hollow trunk of a tree : after filling 

 in the earth, a large stone is rolled over the top of the grave to 

 mark the spot, and the streets of most Naga villages are conse- 

 quently choke full of these rough unhewn tombstones, marking 

 the resting-places of their forefathers. Perhaps the idea of living 

 thus in the neighbourhood of their ancestors may be one cause of 

 their attachment to the sites of their villages. They display great 

 affection in tending the graves of the recently departed ; the spot 

 is at first invariably fenced in, and flowers are often scattered over 

 it, and the survivors love to sit upon the stone that covers those 

 once so dear to them. When a warrior dies, his spear and dhao are 

 buried with him, and it is the custom to bury with every one any 

 article to which he or she may have been particularly attached during 

 life. I have never heard of avarice invading the sanctity of the 

 tomb in consequence of this custom, although dbaos and spears are 

 greatly prized by the tribe. 



The Nagas are extremely fond of dancing, more so than any of 

 the other tribes, whom also they excel in the exercise. Men and 

 women dance both together and separately. The men have a 

 war-dance with spears and hatchets, in which all the circum- 

 stances of battle are acted, the advance, the retreat, the wielding 

 of weapons, and defence with the shield, accompanied by terrific 

 howls and war whoops, which has, when well enacted, a very imposing 

 effect. The dance in which the men and women unite, seems to 

 be purposeless and monotonous, displaying neither grace nor agility, 

 and so are some of the dances danced by the women alone, one of 



4 M 



