ABORS AND GALONGS. 45 



he correctly named the ordinary waist belt (uk) asked as a test question the above may 



be correct. 



Each community has its own hunting area, as it has its agricultural area, clearly 

 „ . * ^. , . denned by natural features. With the exceptions of 



Hunting and Fishing. „ , L 



tigers that are trapped and birds that are snared, all 

 animals are not only trapped but are hunted by large parties armed with bows and 

 arrows, and the quarry is systematically driven. The arrow ordinarily used for hunting is 

 a slip of bamboo ; barbed arrows worth on an average the equivalent to 4 annas apiece) 

 are too scarce to be generally expended in hunting. Dogs are regularly used in hunting, 

 and are highly valued in consequence. The Dan* as more especially take the greatest 

 care of their dogs. One Gam up theKamlatoldme that after three years' training they 

 are considered " as intelligent as men." The Abor breed of dog is black and white, 

 the Dana red and white. Tigers alone of all the denizens of the jungle are not eaten. 

 All game, when the day's sport is over, is layed out on short stakes run into the ground 

 close together for the purpose. Here the game is distributed before being taken into 

 the village and used as food. When an animal is killed with poisoned arrows only the 

 flesh round the wound is cut out. The rest of the animal may be safely eaten. Birds 

 are taken in a noose bow-trap ; those that I have come across ready set in the jungle were 

 baited with bunches of ripe corn; berries are also used: animals, especially wild pig, 

 are taken in pits four to six feet deep with sharp stakes at the bottom, on which the 

 beasts are impaled. The mouth of the trap is covered with branches and leaves. An- 

 other form is the spear trap, which is let off by a pull on the cane rope set across the 

 game track. This type of trap is more common amongst the Daflas, but is most ordi- 

 narily used by the Nagas, who find it a very effective weapon in inter- village warfare. 

 One that I saw in the Dana hills was fitted with a wooden haft about 3 ft. 6 ins. long 

 to which was attached a broad head of poisonous bamboo well hardened and sharpened 

 in the fire. Another trap, used especially for rats, consists of a flat stone supported 

 on sticks over a bait ; the stone falls and crushes the animal. 



The Abor colonists in the Plains and the Pasials at the gorge of the Dihang make 

 and use casting nets, but the ordinary methods of fishing, as pursued up the Siemen 

 valley and at the mouths of the smaller tributaries of the Dihang and other rivers in 

 the Dana, Galong, Abor and Mishmi hills, consist of dams either of plantain stems or 

 of well-made hurdle- work built across the stream ; conical baskets from 2 ft. 6 ins. to 

 4 ft. across at the mouth are fixed into these dams, mouths upstream. 1 The fish are 

 driven into the baskets by the rush of water. The ' ' beats ' ' belonging to the differ- 

 ent villages in the Siemen valley were found to be marked off by piles of stones. Huts 

 for the use of fishing parties are quite common on the banks of the rivers. 



I was shown a most entertaining way in which the Minyong Abors catch prawns. 

 The bait consists of the fat white larvae to be found in fallen plantain stems ; search 

 is then made for a plant whose fibrous leaf is called by the Abors ko-i. Not only does 



' The baskets, higher up the valleys, are used without the dams. They are hung out in the water on cane lines at 

 the end of big bamboos. 



