NAGA HILLS are in the S.E. corner of Assam, between lat. 25° 13' and 26° 32' N., and long. 93° and 94° 13' E. It is a mountainous border-land between the settled district of Now gong, in the Brahmaputra valley, and the Feu datory State of Munipur. It is inhabited by tribes termed Naga, who, in 1875, treacherously murdered Lieutenant Holcombe and his followers, and in 1879 killed Mr. Hainaut, the deputy-com missioner.
In 1870 the numbers of the races in the hills were estimated at 82,444, viz. Assamese, 705; Aitanya, 355 ; Cachari, 3505 ; Mikir, 90 ; Kuki, 2524 ; and Naga, 66,535. The several Naga families dwell in one house.
They are a large number of virtually independ ent tribes of the Indo-Chinese race, and speaking different dialects, who occupy the hill country from the northern' boundary of Cachar to the banks of the Dihang river, in the extreme east of Assam. The British portion is occupied by the Angami Naga, the Kacha, and the Rongina Naga. The last are a small and inoffensive elan, engaged in traffic. The other Nagas are brave and martial, but vindictive and treacherous. The Angami, from 1854 to 1865, made 19 raids into the plains, and killed 236 people.
The dress of the Angami Naga consists of a blue or black kilt, prettily ornamented with cowrie shells ; and a coarse brown cloth made of the bark of the nettle plant is loosely thrown over the shoulders. The warrior wears a collar round the neck, reaching to the waist, made of goat's hair, dyed red, intermixed with long flowing locks of hair of the persons he has killed, and orna mented with cowrie shells. The relations of a murdered person instantly, if possible, spear the murderer, without reference to the council of elders, unless the delinquent take refuge in another village, when he may escape for years ; but years after he may be surprised and killed. If a man's wife is seduced, the husband will surely spear the seducer on the first opportunity. The Angami Naga imagine there are good and evil spirits residing in their hills. To one they offer- up sacrifices of cows and mithun ; to another, dogs ; and to a third, cocks and spirituous liquor. At sixteen years of ago a youth puts on ivory or wooden armlets or red-coloured cane collars round his neck, puts brass ear-rings in his ears, and wears the black kilt. If a man has killed another in war, he wears three or four rows of cowries round the kilt, and ties up his hair with a cotton band. He is entitled, also, to wear one feather of the dhune .bird stuck in his hair, one feather being added for every man he has killed, and these feathers are also fastened to their shields. They also coloured plaited cane leggings, wear the war sword, spear, shield, and choonga or tube for carrying panjies. They also attach to the to of the shield two pieces of wood in the shape of buffalo horns, with locks of hair of human beings killed in action hanging from the centre.
Colonel Dalton says (p. 39) it was the custom of some of the Naga clans to allow matrimony to those only who had their faces elaborately tattooed. To this rite of disfiguration they are not admitted till they have taken a human scalp or a skull, or shared in some of their expediticins.
Scalps need not be trophies of honourable war fare, nor even be taken from the bodies of declared enemies. A skull may bo acquired by the blackest treachery, but so long as the victim, was not a member of the clan, it is accepted.
The Naga do not consume milk, and cattle are not used for tilling the ground, but are kept chiefly for sacrifices and feasts. They eat every kind of flesh. That of the elephant is highly esteemed ; they are not averse to tiger's flesh. Their houses are gable-ended, and about 30 or 40 feet long by 12 or 16 feet wide. Each house is divided off into one or two rooms ; the pigs, fowls, wife, and children are all huddled together with the grain in large bamboo baskets five feet. high, and four feet in diameter, in the same room. In a large building called Rangkee or the Daka chang, all the boys of the village reside until they are married. The building is about 60 feet long, and 20 high, with gable-ends. The inside of the house consists of one large room, in the centre of which a wood fire is kept burning on the ground, and wooden stools are arranged in rows for the boys to sleep upon. At one end a small room is partitioned off for the accommodation of an elderly man, who is superintendent of the estab lishment. ' The Hilokee (a building of similar dimensions and construction with the Rangkee) is devoted entirely to the use or residence of the girls of the village, who live in it altogether, in the same manner as the boys, until the day of their marriage. The damsels are all decently attired. A large sheet with coloured stripes is worn round the waist, extending to the knees ; a blue cloth is folded over the breast under the arms ; a pro fusion of glass bead necklaces adorn their necks, with a number of brass ear-rings of all sizes- An old woman superintends the establishment, and the utmost order prevails in both the Rangkee and the Hilokee. The boys and girls take their meals with their parents, work for them during the day, and at night retire to their respective asylums. All the youths see the girls during the day without the smallest restraint, and they select their own wives, and are married by the consent of their parents. The Naga of Cachar have several graceful dances, in which the sexes mingle.
The Tun-khul or Luhiipa, a Naga tribe of the N.E. frontier, shave the sides of their heads, leaving only a ridge of hair on the top about five inches broad, with a small knotted pig-tail behind. On the eldest son of a family marrying, he takes possession of the entire property, houses, fields, etc., of his parents, who quit their home, and they are thus displaced by successive sons' settlements. The men have only a narrow piece of cloth round the waist, one end of which hangs in front, and they dispense with it when engaged in any hard work. The men also put the prepuce and gland iu a ring of deer horn or ivory. It is removed for micturition and at night, but worn from puberty till death, and they appear and work and sit in women's presence with this sole covering. —Dr. Brown ; Fytche, ii. p. 350; Butler's Assam; TVilson • Mr. Hodgson iB. As. S. J., 1865 ; Lathani's Ethn. ; Rep. Brit. Ass. ; Dalton's Ethn.