ABORS AND GALONGS. 49 



seen ; they are primarily used as Alpine stocks in the more hilly country, and unlike 

 the shorter Naga spears are never thrown. The spear head is remarkably small and is 

 ornamented with a tuft of hair, dyed red. The spear shaft is usually 7 or 8 feet long. 

 A dao (generally discarded when the longer weapon is carried) and the short knife 

 complete the armament, unless a bundle of panjis, sometimes carried to obstruct the 

 path in front of a pursuing enemy, is included. Guns are so scarce that they cannot 

 be considered as a portion of the armament. Such guns that are to be found in the 

 more southern communities are obsolete British muskets, those belonging to the more 

 northern peoples are prong guns of Tibetan manufacture. 



The sword-cut-proof cane helmet is frequently covered with tufts of hair, dyed 

 ' . red, or black. In Riga it is the fashion amongst the 



Equipment. ' ° ° 



young bloods to adorn their helmets with one and 

 sometimes two, hornbill beaks embellishing them further with the feathers of jungle 

 fowl or pheasant, a grotesque effect remarkably like the crests of medieval chivalry on 

 the Continent of Europe. Sometimes the tufts of hair, as amongst the Panggis, 

 are so long as to fall to the shoulders ; deer skin coats, armlets of hide (especially 

 amongst the northern Daflas), large rectangular shields, generally of cane, sometimes 

 of hide, together with large ruksacks, (occasionally) covered with bearskin in the north 

 and black dyed fibre further south, complete the hill-man's equipment. In these 

 ruksacks are carried rations made up in packages of one day's rice. The meyari, the 

 disc with the bey op top of cymbal-like design, is worn on the back of the neck as 

 a protection against sword-cuts. 



The tribesmen do not mass after the manner of the jirgahs in the north-west. 



The cohesion given by a militant religion, and the ghazi 



Tsctics 



fanaticism kindled by the mulla hs, finds no counterpart here. 

 Xo one tribe can be expected to rise en wrasse ; still less probable is the bursting of 

 the frontier into that blaze of war not unknown beyond the Indus. To meet a com- 

 mon foe a certain number of villages may combine, but even then the defence of some 

 carefully prepared position by the young men of the communities involved never 

 quickens into co-ordinated attack. In other words, the hill-men will stand until the 

 assault is pressed home (or their rations are exhausted if no serious operations are in 

 progress), behind elaborate stockades built with immense labour, but may be relied on 

 when encountering a civilized enemy to confine their counter-attacks to very occasional 

 and disconnected rushes by swordsmen through his columns or to half-hearted 

 sniping with arrows. The selection of defensive positions and the siting of the works 

 with which they are crowned shows admirable judgment ; whilst the construction of 

 long lines of rock shoots and the immense stockades and palisades for which the Abors 

 in particular are famous is worthy of far more determined defenders. Panjis (short 

 sharp bamboo stakes) and traps similar to the pits andbow-traps used for big game may 

 be employed to strengthen the defences. A shell-proof stockade wall over 2,000 yards 

 long and ten feet high constructed of stout timber and stones, with a panji-sown ditch 

 in front of it and belts of panjis as an additional obstacle could only be taken after 

 almost prohibitive loss, were the position unturnable and the enemy a determined foe. 



