42 - GEORGE D-S-DUNBAR ON 



the villages jack-trees (Mishmi country excepted, so I am informed by Captain 

 Bethell), oranges, lemons and guavas are grown; and some care is taken of the 

 clumps of bamboo flourishing, as a rule, in the vicinity. Neither oranges or lemons 

 appear to be grown in or near the villages east of the Yamne. Those communities that 

 cultivate opium pick it in October. To scare birds away from the fields bamboo 

 poles are set up, to these are attached lines on which leaves are tied that swing freely 

 in the wind. Another way in which the crops are protected is by putting a line of 

 fresh plantain leaves round the edge of the fields to frighten the jungle-fowl. The 

 Mishmis use bird scares on lines not unlike the tin protectors put on telegraph wires 

 across grouse moors at home. 



Small houses are built in the " jhums " and in these the owners of the fields are 

 accustomed to spend the night during harvest, if the cultivation is far from the village. 

 Lines of women go across the fields, in harvest, and strip off the grain into conical 

 creels slung on the right thigh. The straw is afterwards cut and burnt. The 

 grain is collected in the ' ' jhum ' ' houses before it is taken into the granaries. The 

 hill-men are as a rule very improvident, and the 20 maunds of rice that each household 

 (on an average) has collected in its granary by the middle of December has almost 

 disappeared two months before the next harvest. Grain is pounded in cradles made 

 from the trunk of a tree ; fans of basket work are used for winnowing. Rice is the 

 staple Abor and Galong cereal, and millet and Indian corn that of the Mishmis. 1 



A considerable amount of tobacco is grown ; the leaves are picked, cut up and dried 

 in the fields. The country about Yemsing is believed to be a great tobacco-growing 

 district ; and the alluvial fiats along the Persen valley in the Dana country are largely 

 under tobacco. Opium is occasionally grown, but is not known in the districts to the 

 north. Tobacco either smoked in a silver or bamboo ' cob ' pipe or chewed, smoothes 

 the rugged path of life for man, woman and child alike throughout the hills. 



The wine of the country is known as apong and is brewed from millet seed. A 

 funnel is made with a bamboo frame and plantain leaf lining ; this is filled with millet 

 seed and hot water is poured on to the grain which is then fermented. The liquid is 

 ' ' cleared ' ' with rice charcoal by the Abors which destroys the rather attractive 

 light yellow colour of the liquor as made by the Daflas. The Mishmi wine is coffee 

 coloured and is made similarly to that of the Daflas. The millet is boiled, fermented and 

 soaked in warm water and the first brew (followed by several others) drained through 

 a sieve. The first brew is the best and strongest. Amongst the Mishmis and Daflas 

 it is generally drunk warm. All the hill tribes drink quantities of apong from baby- 

 hood on every possible occasion. It varies most noticeably in quality, and when 



1 Angong Abor cultivation is far more primitive than that of the Minyong and Karko people. Consequently rice 

 cannot be called their staple food. They subsist for half the year on anything they can get. The red pith of a palm 

 locally known as tasat is pounded up and strained a number of times in water. It forms a meal called tabe that is made 

 up into bread. They eke this out with such products of the jungle as fern leaves, edible roots and the cultivated jackfruit. 

 Tfiese Abors come well into the picture drawn by the Elizabethan balladist Sapardon of the " iiij score and ten in 

 Kynges Benche." 



" Som gnaw broun crustes of bred som burnish bouns like doggs. 

 ' Som wysh to fyll thyr gutts with catts ratts myse or froggs." 



