20 
[No. 1, 
S. E. Peal — Visit to the Ndga Hills. 
cause is a general one. One Rajah or tribe has been grossly insulted by 
another. In such cases a chang may be surprised and burnt by a com- 
bination of several villages. In other cases a single village of one tribe 
is at war with another village of a different tribe, without involving the 
other villages in hostilities. Bor Muton may be at war with Unu, and not 
involve Kiiluns or Longhong. Or again what is a common form, the young 
and untattooed men of three or four villages of say two distinct tribes may 
combine and, headed by a few older men, quietly traverse the jungles to a 
more distant tribe and village and, suddenly attack the people in their 
cultivation, the object being simply heads. 
Returning to the Banparas, I may say that with regal’d to weapons, 
they use, like most Nagas, the ‘ jattie,’ or spear, and the ‘ dhao.’ They also 
use the cross-bow. # I see that Robinson lays great stress on their not 
having hows and arrows ; he considers its total disuse a very singular 
circumstance, and draws rather weighty conclusions from it. It is not, 
I hear, of recent date. In the use of the jattee they seem clumsy and 
bad shots ; I have tried batches of several tribes at a mark for prizes, 
but found them unable to reach 80 yards. Nor could they touch a sack of 
straw for half an hour at 60 yards (whore I volunteered to go and be shot at), 
but at 40 yards one did succeed. 
Captain Norton says in his book on * Projectiles,’ that he could once 
throw a spear 170 yards, and saw the wife of an Australian chief throw one 
120 yards ; hence the Nagas do not seem very formidable on this score. They 
use their jatties for close work, usually from ambush, and never attack in 
the open. 
The dh&o is used as a hatchet or mace, and held by both hands. One 
blow is usually enough, if fairly given in a fight, as they can cut with tre- 
mendous force. The jungle is so thick and common, that their warfare is 
wholly by ambush and surprise, and this gives the dhao great advantages. 
The bow is chiefly used for game and pigs. 
They have a shield, or ‘ plior,’ made of buffalo or boar skin, and often 
ornamented by goat’s hair dyed scarlet, or by cowries. It figures in their war 
dances, but I suspect is not much used elsewhere, unless in a premeditated 
onslaught. 
Like most savages, the Naga seems to aim at making himself look as 
hideous as possible, and their decorations at times of festivity have solely 
that object. Their head gear seems generally to have some bunches of hair 
fastened to long light stems so as to jerk about while moving. It is the hair 
of the man or woman who has been killed, and in all cases, I think, is human 
hair, if not of an enemy. But there seems no one particular head gear which 
* ‘ Hap’ in Naga. 
