Festivals.--The Khuangchoi, Chong, Pawl-kut are observed. In place of the Mim-kut they celebrate a feast called Nao-lam-kut, which takes place in the autumn. For two nights all the men and women must keep awake, and they are provided with boiled yams and zu to help them in doing so. On the third day some men dress themselves up as women and others as Chins, colouring their faces with charcoal. They then visit every house in which a child has been born since the last Nao-lam-kut and treat the inmates to a dance, receiving presents of dyed cotton thread, women's cloths, &c., and much zu. Compare the account of the Fanai She-doi, p. 136 et seq. below. Koihrui-an-chhat (They Break the Koi Creeper).--A party of young men, being supplied with hard-boiled eggs and fowl's flesh, go off into the jungle equipped with bows and arrows. On the third day they return with the heads of some animals--for choice those of the "tangkawng," a large lizard--and also a long piece of the creeper from which the Koi beans (v. Chap. II, para. 18) are obtained. They are received with all the honours paid to warriors returning from a successful raid, and a tug of war with the creeper takes place between the young men and the maidens. The heads of the animals are then placed in the centre of the village, and dancing, singing, and drinking go on round them all night, no young man or girl being allowed to go inside a house till daybreak, when the whole party adjourns to the house of a member of the Chonghoiyi-hring family--i.e., a descendant of one born at Chonghoiyi--and after further libations they disperse. It is quite clear that this feast commemorates the victory of Lalmanga over Ngaia--compare the account of the reception of a raiding party given in Part I., Chap. III, para. 9. The use of bows and arrows is an interesting survival. The tug of war with the creeper is found among the Old Kuki clans as one of the incidents of the spring festival, and in the Manipuri chronicle we find references to such amusements being indulged in. The Ngente evidently combined the play, intended to keep green the memories of their ancestor, with the usual ceremonies of the spring festival. [9] The Ngente do not practise the Khal sacrifices. Language.--In the Linguistic Survey Dr. Grierson gives a translation of the parable of the Prodigal Son in the Ngente dialect supplied him by Mr. Drake-Brockman, and sums up his description of the dialect as follows:--"But in all essential points both (i.e., Ngente and Lushei) agree, and the difference is much smaller than between dialects in connected languages." [Paotu.] A very insignificant clan, of which I have found only one family. The clan formerly lived on a hill north of the Tao peak, to the east of the Koladyne, and were probably driven out by the Chins at the same time as the Kawlhring.