30 GEORGE D-S-DUNBAR ON 



of dyed hair, boars' tusks, the beaks and feathers of the horn bill, and serow horns 

 are all used to adorn his helmet. In decking his war helmet with tufts and long 

 tresses of hair dyed black and red that fall over his face, the Padam Abor is quite in 

 accord with Celestial ideas of the moral effect that a terrible appearance may be 

 expected to produce in an enemy's ranks. (Plate XXII.) 



Men who can afford to buy them wear short woollen coats that come down 

 either straight from Tibet or through the Dibang valley. These coats are generally 

 about 2' 6" in length, are open down the front and have short sleeves. Different 

 communities seem to affect distinctive patterns. The Southern Minyongs and Pasis 

 wear bluish coats marked with rather interesting designs in white, blue and red. 1 

 Another pattern noticed in other Minyong communities was reddish brown in colour 

 ornamented with inconspicuous bands of yellow. 1 Some of the Southern Galongs 

 wear rather longer coats made of whitish wool with red tabs on the collar. Among 

 the Northern Galongs white woollen coats are bought from the Boris. The Bomo 

 J an bo wear short dark blue coats of serge-like stuff not seen elsewhere. A loin cloth 

 with the few cane rings that help to support it completes the costume of the men, 

 unless the black or red cane rings worn on wrists and legs are included. 



Their ornaments consist of the blue or green porcelain beads that come from the 

 North, and strings of beads from Marwari shop-keepers are common near the plains. 

 These beads, if they are old, are regarded as heirlooms of considerable value. Brass 

 bracelets of local manufacture are universally worn.* The Padam clan wear heavy 

 metal earrings, but a cylinder of cane serves, as a rule, the needs of the Galongs and 

 Abors amongst whom ear ornaments are not so greatly in favour. When starting 

 off on a raid, or when going on a long journey, the hillmen carry ruksacks with a 

 watertight covering of sago-palm fibre dyed black. This covering is apparently in 

 imitation of bear skin which, though exceedingly rare, is sometimes found on the 

 ruksacks. This receptacle takes their food and such gear as they require. Pipe, 

 tobacco, quartz* and steel, pan (amongst the Southern hillmen) and lime are carried 

 in a satchel of deer or lizard skin. A dao and the little crooked knife in its basket 

 work sheath that hangs as a rule round the neck, are so necessary to the hillmen 's 

 existence that they cannot be looked upon as weapons. (Plate XVIII.) 



The women's costume consists in all of three pieces. These are the bey op, the 

 skirt and the breast cloth. As soon as they can walk the girls wear a disc or two 

 about the loins, or perhaps some metal charm, or a few shells. This, in a few years, 

 expands into the bey op, the girdle worn by every maid and woman from the Dibang 

 to the Subansiri until the birth of her first child. The bey op consists of locally-made 

 discs 6 fastened on to a band of cane, screw pine or a strip of hide. These discs vary 

 in size. The larger, averaging about 3f inches in diameter, are worn in the centre 

 of the girdle and the remainder graduated in diminishing size % towards the hips. 



I Plates XVI and XX. 2 This is a typically Mishmi pattern. 



3 The Karko people wear necklaces of hollow brass cylinders, like bits of pipe stem. 

 * Captain Porter (17th Rajputs) found large garnet crystals in use in one Bori village. 

 6 See Plates V and XIX. 



