ABORS AND GALONGS. 17 



In spite of their reputation the Abors cannot be regarded as a warlike people, so 

 such tales of ancient cities and fights fought long ago as the village elders can drag 

 from the recesses of a rusty and reluctant memory, deal with the most desultory of 

 skirmishes followed by the construction of formidable stone-shoots and the blocking of 

 all the paths leading to the hostile village. The pomp and circumstance of war is 

 upheld by the construction of almost medieval fortifications on that side of the village 

 nearest the enemy. All this of course produces military and commercial stalemate, 

 until one side or the other becomes tired of the ' ' war ' ' , whereupon peace is declared 

 with all due ceremony at a mi than feast. Of this type of warfare the fight between 

 Kebang and Riga three generations ago and the recent hostilities between Pangkang 

 and Karko are good instances. 



It is not thought that any considerable movement of the population of the Abor 

 hills in recent times can be attributed to invasion or the fear of hostilities, but it is be- 

 lieved that the bulk of the people we call the plains Miris were driven out of the upper 

 Abor hills by the Abors of the Dihang valley some generations prior to the British 

 occupation of Assam. 1 I have been informed by Captain Hore that two Miri villages 

 still exist in the neighbourhood of the Siyom river, but that these last footholds of the 

 previous occupants of the country are being merged with the Abors by the peaceful 

 method of intermarriage. The people of Milang, 2 who speak a language entirely 

 different to that of the clans that surround them, are quite possibly the sole survivors 

 of a race that flourished, before the coming of the Abors, in the valley of the Dihang, 

 and the tongue that they speak may be a faint far-off rumour of ancient wars. 



Chapter II. — The Country and its People. 



The country is a labyrinth of mountains, generally precipitous and invariably 



covered with forest and bush iungle more or less thick. In 



Topography. J ° 



the deep valleys, rivers and streams rush towards the 

 main artery of what the Abors call the Si-ang and we know as the Dihang or, outside 

 that far-reaching system, flow direct into the Brahmaputra. Agriculture is carried 

 on by clearing the steep hillsides with infinite labour, for plateau-like spurs are rare, 

 and rich alluvial flats are rarer still. The Minyong fields cannot, so far as has been 

 gathered or observed, in any way compare with the Galong cultivation of the Sipu 

 Valley that supports the prosperous Memong communities of which Kombong is the 

 centre. Karko, however, has rich cultivation. 



1 The Tangam clan furnish a good example of migration in the making. They originally inhabited the country 

 on both banks of the Dihang from the gorge by which the river breaks through the main range as far down as the 

 29th parallel of latitude. The Membas crossed the pisses a century ago and settled about Marpung in what is now the 

 district of Pemakoichen and gradually dispossessed the Abors until the Tangam were entirely evicted from the best 

 land in the country. In the steep districts below the gorge on both banks and in the tracts to the north of the 

 Yangsang Chu on the left bank mixed Abor-Memba communities exist to this day, although the Tangam are gradually 

 deserting their upper holdings and migrating to Kuging which remains exclusively Tangam. While the Memba pursued 

 the method of peaceful penetration, Simong adopted more direct measures and the colonies of Ngamying and Jido were 

 founded thirty years ago on the ashes of old Tangam villages 



2 Villages of Milang Dalbuing Modi, now absorbed by Simong and the Padam : Modi being isolated retains its 

 language and customs almost unaltered by modern influences. 



