473 
clear, the sky at sunrise cloudless, and the Bhutan snows, 175 miles west, 
distinctly visible. After sunrise cumulus forms on the hill-tops, extending 
westward peak by peak till by noon all are clouded and rain begins. It 
may however rain constantly for several days; and, especially after thun¬ 
derstorms, several days may pass without rain. In September the rains 
cease, and then false sunsets, with the afterglows in the eastern sky and 
rays of coloured light converging to the East, are frequent phenomena. 
The tribes of this region are members of the Tibeto-Burman family. 
They speak languages belonging sometimes to separate groups of this 
family, and which, even when of the same group, are so distinct, that 
natives of villages but twenty miles apart can only communicate through 
an interpreter. The dialects in different villages where the same language 
is spoken may vary so widely as to render intercourse difficult^). The 
name Naga \naked (Assamess)^ is applied to all; those of the Patkoi range 
being the Abor \remote (AssameseJ\ Nagas ; the latter name Abor, or Bor- 
abor —very remote^ is given also to another group of tribes in the hills 
which connect the Patkoi with the Himalaya. The Nagas have no ende¬ 
mic collective race-name. The independent tribes of the Patkoi and 
Eastern Bareil are little known, the Western Bareil is peopled by several 
tribes, the Angami, Regma, Serna, Lhota, Arung,—under British rule ; the 
Kachha—partly British, partly subject to the protected kingdom of Mani¬ 
pur ; the Tangkal,—under Manipur. 
The most important and warlike tribe is the Angami, which furnishes 
40,000 of the total 95,000 at which the British Naga population is esti- 
mated^). It has no general tradition of origin. Villages have mostly 
sprung from older ones ; where a community forgets this the parent one 
may refresh its memory. Thus Konoma village says that its neighbour 
Mozama was originally one of its clans expelled for unruliness, owing its 
name to the fact, from themuze, murder. Those villages near the higher 
hills are largest, owing their power to position, and their wealth to the 
plunder of weaker neighbours. They are perhaps the oldest, for in some 
of them special traditions linger. It is believed in Kohima, that long 
1 ) Stewart; Jour. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, vol. xxiv, p. 658(1855) gives an 
Angami vocabulary. Dalton.- Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 71 et seq. (1872) 
.copies this. McCabe : Grammar and vocab. of the Angami Naga Lang. (1887) has 
given it again from original observation. Hence the writer only gives the few Naga 
words needed to render the text clear. 
2 ) Hunter ; Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. x, p. 147, and edit. 1886, says 35,000. 
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