A Sketch of Assam: With some account of the Hill TribesButler, John, Major
History
A Sketch of Assam: With some account of the Hill Tribes
Butler, John, Major
Assam (India) -- Description and travel; Assam (India) -- Social life and customs; Ethnology -- India -- Assam
"In the world I am the most powerful and courageous; there is none
equal to me. I am the greatest of all men. No one" (pointing to the
skulls of his enemies) "can perform such deeds. Like to the clouds that
thunder and hurl down fire-balls into the water to the destruction of
the fish,--like to the tiger who leaps out to seize the deer,--like to
the hawk who pounces down on the chickens and carries them off, do I
cut up every one, and carry off their heads; and with these weapons"
(dashing them together, to produce a clashing noise) "I have killed
such and such persons: yes, I have killed them. You know my name. The
greatest beast of the forest, the elephant, I first destroy, and after
that all other animals too insignificant to mention. Such a hero am I,
there is no one equal to me," &c. &c.
The same scene is enacted for three or four successive days; when
the heads being hacked and sufficiently danced about to satiate Naga
revenge, they are suspended from the branches of Nahor trees. After
this, the ceremony of tattooing the body is performed, and a most
severe operation it is. The burnt ashes of a pot are pricked into the
skin with the thorns of the cane: a great quantity of blood exudes,
and the body swells to a great size. Being previously thrown into
a state of stupid intoxication, the patient is left to welter in the
dirt and blood for three days, unconscious of his condition. After this
operation, the young sprouts of the Bhat-teeta tree being well pounded,
are smeared over the wounds, and in the course of twenty-five days
the patient is able to resume his avocations; upon which a number of
pigs and fowls are killed, and a great feast is given; the heads of
the enemies being brought down from the trees and strewed out upon
a platform before the populace in the court, or Raj Moorung. For a
whole month from the day of the massacre, the Nagas daily sing the
war song quoted above, and dance and manifest the greatest excitement
and delight.
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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