Naga people

“ Destroyed, however, they were not, as it was under a Naga dynasty that ascended the throne of Magadha, in 691, that Buddha was born, B.C. 623, and the Nagas were the people whose conversion placed Buddhism on a secure basis in India, and led to its ultimate adoption by Asoka (B.C. 250) as the religion of the State. [7]
Although Buddhism was first taught by a prince of the Solar race, and consequently of purely Aryan blood, and though its first disciples were Brahmans, it had as little affinity with the religion of the Vedas as Christianity had with the Pentateuch, and its fate was the same. ”

“ Each tribe seems ever jealous of its neighbour; and cruel hostilities, ending in the most tragical manner—even to the extermination of a tribe and the total destruction of its cattle, stores, and property—are often the result of their mutual animosity. The form of the Naga government is democratical; each clan seems to be ruled by a president and two subordinates or deputies, who form the executive. The president is called Khonbao, and the deputies Sundekae and Khonsae: the one prime minister, and the latter a chief over twenty houses. ”

“ Most Nagas for instance reap with a reaping-hook, but the Sema, like the Manö and Southern Brè (Karens) of Burma,27 and like the Garos,28 use their hand only, stripping the grain from the stalk straight into the basket, a most painful method if it does save threshing.
The use of terraced cultivation forms a very marked point of distinction between Naga tribes. ”

“ The principal of these, in point of numbers, are the Nagas, who inhabit the hills and forests along the eastern and south-eastern frontier of Assam. They reside partly in the British district of the Naga hills and partly in independent territory under the political control of the deputy-commissioner of the adjoining districts. They cultivate rice, cotton, yams and Indian corn, and prepare salt from the brine springs in their hills. The different tribes of Nagas are independent of and unconnected with one another, and are often at war with each other. ”

“ Both Nagas (snakes) and Garudas (eagles or secretary birds) were included in northern India among the gods and demons who worshipped Buddha. The Nagas understood the language of birds. They gave charms to human beings so that they might share this knowledge. In European and Arabian stories folk-heroes acquire the language of birds, or of all animals, after eating the hearts of dragons. A Naga king causes an Indian king to understand what animals say.11
“The jewel that grants all desires” is possessed by the Indian Nagas, as it is by Chinese and Japanese dragons. ”

“ All Naga tribes also have legends of clans descended from indigenous women out of caves or wild men caught in the jungle and tamed, whose descendants are now no longer distinguishable except by this tradition from the rest of the tribe. ”

“ He refers also to a town in Gandhara in Northern India, which in consequence of an earthquake “sank a distance of 400 yojanas to Naga-nadu.” [8] From these allusions it is evident that the Tamil poets of this period had a very hazy idea of the ancient Nagas and their country. They believed, in fact, that the Nagas inhabited Pâthâla or the lower world, far below the surface of the earth. Of contemporary Naga tribes and kingdoms they give a more satisfactory account. ”

“ And then we further find that "petty disputes and disagreements about property are settled by a council of elders, the litigants voluntarily submitting to their arbitration. But, correctly speaking, there is not the shadow of a constituted authority in the Naga community, and, wonderful as it may seem, this want of government does not lead to any marked degree of anarchy and confusion." Similarly among such peoples, remote in type, as many of the warlike tribes of North America. Speaking of these Indians in general, Schoolcraft says that "they all wish to govern, and not to be governed. ”

“ There are withal Nagas in the sea who control winds and tides, and one of the Naga kings is Sagara, who is a Neptune in [70] Japan. The Nagas are also “Lords of the Earth”, and send drought and disease when offended or neglected. Ea, the sea-god of the early Babylonians, was known also as Enki, “The Lord of the Earth”.
In Buddhist art the Naga is shown in three forms: (1) as a human being with a snake on or poised over the head, reminding one of the Egyptian kings or queens who wear the uræus symbol on their foreheads; (2) as half human and half snake (the “mermaid form”) ”

“ It was often very difficult to procure food for the men, and they had more than [270] once to go without dinner when they got in at night, though as a rule they had half-rations. We had managed to get a supply of rice from one of the Naga villages situated near the road.
The Nagas were for the most part friendly disposed towards us, but here and there they gathered together near their villages, which they had deserted for the meanwhile, and had a stray shot at us as we passed along. We never burned these villages, thinking they might be useful to the troops when they should return. ”

“ It is very difficult to arrive at anything like a correct understanding of the nature of the feuds between neighbouring tribes; for the Nagas have no written language, and their dialects vary considerably in different parts of the country. No general government exists over the whole tribe: they are divided into innumerable clans, independent of each other, and possessing no power beyond the limits of [153] their respective territories. ”

“ Beyond this, whatever the Singphos and Kacharis may be, an admixture of Tai blood from the east is beyond dispute. It is the nature of the immigration from the south which is most intriguing. No one who has had much to [xxxvii] do with the Angamis could fail to perceive the difference of disposition and character between them and the other Naga tribes, though it is very difficult to state in what it actually consists, and it is certainly not so great as to constitute an entire distinction between the Angamis and the rest of their fellow-Nagas. ”

“ From the Mahabharata we learn that there were Naga kingdoms between the Jumna and the Ganges about the 13th century B. C. When the kings of the Lunar race of Aryas wanted to found a second capital near the spot where Delhi stands at present, they had to dislodge the Nagas who occupied it. Arjuna, the hero of the poem, in his banishment, is said to have married first Ulipi, the daughter of a Naga king, then Chitrangadai, daughter of Chitravahana, the Naga king of Manipura. ”

“ These semi-barbarous tribes were conquered by the Nagas who were a very numerous and civilised race, and who at one time or other ruled a great portion of India, Ceylon and Burma. They were mentioned in the Ramayana, and the Naga capital, which probably lay in the heart of the Dekkan is described in that epic as follows :—
Near Bhogavati stands the place Where dwell the hosts of the serpent race, A broad-wayed city walled and barred Which watchful legions keep and guard. The fiercest of the serpent youth Each awful for his venomed tooth ”

“ Almost immediately after the last expedition, the Khetrees cut off the heads of eight men of the village of Bulatin; from which we may infer that their animosity continues unappeased, and that there is little hope of these savages being speedily brought to a sense of the advantages attending a reconciliation. Our intercession might be effectual for a time; but it is more than probable that it would be incompatible with a Naga’s sense of honour to forego his greatest delight—revenge. ”

“ Some camels were procured for the next morning, and I rode off with Abeken, Erbkam, and Maximilian Weidenbach at nine o’clock for Naga. So are the ruins of a city and several temples named, which lie in the eastern wilderness, at a distance of seven or eight hours from the Nile. From our landing-place, near the only palm group of the whole region, we only wanted half an hour to the village of Ben Naga, which lies in Wadi Teresîb. ”

“ Bhikshu is the name for a monk as “living by alms,” a mendicant. All bhikshus call themselves Sramans. Sometimes the two names are used together by our author.
(3) Naga is the Sanskrit name for the Chinese lung or dragon; often meaning a snake, especially the boa. “Chinese Buddhists,” says Eitel, p. 79, “when speaking of nagas as boa spirits, always represent them as enemies of mankind, but when viewing them as deities of rivers, lakes, or oceans, they describe them as piously inclined.” ”

“ The Nagas are another people found on this frontier, chiefly on the hills to the north: they are a wild, copper-coloured, uncouth jungle tribe, who have proved troublesome on the Assam frontier. Their features are more Tartar than those of the Munniporees, especially amongst the old men. They bury their dead under the threshold of their cottages. The men are all but naked, and stick plumes of hornbills’ feathers in their hair, which is bound with strips of bamboo: tufts of small feathers are passed through their ears, and worn as shoulder lappets. ”

“ With regard to the start-point of the temple-builders who came down the river, there is no orientation evidence, for the reason that there is little or no information from the regions south of Naga. At Naga (lat. 16° 18′ N.) , Meroë (lat. 16° 55′ N.) , Gebel Barkal and Nuri (both in lat. 18° 30′ N.) , there is information of the most important kind, but beyond Naga there is a 347 gap; but since important structures were erected at the places named in early times (my inquiries suggest 3000-4000 B.C.) , it is probable that the peoples who built them stretched further towards the equator. ”

“ What is lacking is an authority which can impose commands on the in-group and extrude blood revenge from it. The Naga, in northeastern India, fifty years ago lived in villages in which, if two men quarreled, all the others took sides with one or the other and civil war ensued. The experience of these quarrels and of blood revenge produced "a reluctance to enter into quarrels which entailed consequences so disastrous, and hence a society living in general peace and honesty." ”

“ If any person is detected in committing the offence no mercy is shown: the Khonbao pronounces sentence of decapitation without a moment’s hesitation. The Nagas are remarkable for simplicity, candour, and integrity; even the comparatively small vice of lying, to which the natives of British India are so seriously and universally addicted, is unknown among them, and will probably continue so until they have been corrupted by their more enlightened neighbours, the Assamese, or by the advance of civilization, refined arts, and manners. ”

“ Turning to the polity of the village, different tribes have very different customs. Among the Semas a system of hereditary chiefs exists, each chief having an almost feudal position as lord of the manor of his village, a system which seems to have obtained among the Kacharis, as the remnants of it are still perceptible among the remote Kachari villages of the south-west of the Naga Hills. The Changs have a system of chiefs very like that of the Semas, and both may be compared in this respect to the Thado Kukis, though among the latter the system is more elaborately developed. ”

“ All villages are not entitled to the honour of retaining the heads of their enemies; they must be kept in the village of the Khonbao.
In some Naga villages it is the custom, for a man who has committed murder in cutting off the head of a foreigner, to be joined by ten or a dozen Nagas in submitting to the operation of tattooing; which in such cases is an indispensable ceremony. The tattooing is pricked round the calves of the legs in ten or twelve rings or circles interspersed with dots ”

“ Some at any rate are not of Naga manufacture. One which was shown me at Okotso, for instance, was ornamented with brass bands. The usual tradition, however, gives the Lhotas an autochthonous origin, and is almost identical with that told by the Angamis of themselves. The story goes that three brothers, Limhachan, Izumontse and Rankhanda, the ancestors of the three phratries of the tribe, came out of a hole in the earth near the miraculous stone at Kezakenoma. If one load of rice were dried on this stone it became two loads. ”

“ Only he will keep his money.
[207]
1 Naga folk-lore in general has much in common with that of other races of Mongolian affinities. Thus the Naga (Angami) and Kachari story of the origin of the domestication of certain animals as opposed to the rest is akin to the Lapp story given by Mr. Andrew Lang under the title of “The Elf Maiden,” in his Brown Fairy Book. The Angami story is to be found in The Angami Nagas, Part IV., the Terhengi Genna, and the Kachari version in Soppitt, Historical and Descriptive Account of the Kachari Tribes of the North Cachar Hills, p. 56. ”

“ The Angami is tall and well proportioned, the Tengima and Memi sub-tribes in particular having straight eyes and a [xxii] nose sometimes even aquiline,15 but in any case features that are far more regular than the very Mongolian-looking Sema, whose tendency is most decidedly towards a flat nose and oblique eyes, combined with a figure shorter and squatter than the Angamis. Another distinguishing mark of the Angami among Naga tribes is the huge calves he has on his legs. ”

“ When the white men had eaten their supper, they decided to profit by the friendliness of these peaceable villagers. To hold a palaver would be a difficult matter, since Sher Jang had to interpret Forrester to the Naga, and the Naga to translate to the village head-man. But the opportunity of gaining some clue to their destination was too good to be neglected. It was a strange scene in that forest glade, illuminated by the camp fires on opposite sides. The three white men sat in front of the tent, their followers ranging themselves on the wings. ”