[111] I have always heard the relationship stated as between the Sema
Wotsami and the Lhota Shetri. In any case I am inclined to think the
relationship between respective clans of different tribes an artificial
growth no doubt derived from the considerable diffusion of common blood
among the Naga tribes. If it were genuine the Wotsami clan of Semas
should be associated with the Othui rather than the Nguli or Shetri
clans. Vide infra, Part V.: Story of “How men were turned into
Gibbons.” Up to a certain point there is no doubt a real connection, as
the Ao Pongen or Pongrr, like the Sema Chishilimi, claim a patrician
descent distinct from that of other clans, while the corresponding Ang
clan among the Konyaks still retains its distinct patrician position. I
believe the Changs’ refusal to intermarry with a corresponding Ao clan
is probably no older than the absorption by the Changs of a number of
Ao villages at a comparatively recent date, when they also adopted the
practice of exposure of the dead. At the present time they expose or
bury as they feel inclined, but Colonel Woods, who toured in their
country in 1900, states specifically that they bury their dead and
makes no mention at all of exposure, though this was certainly
practised at that time by the neighbouring Ao, Phom and Konyak villages
also visited by Colonel Woods.—J. H. H.
[112] Cf. The Angami Nagas, Part III., “The Exogamous System,” and
Appendix III. under “Lhota.”—J. H. H.
[113] The Semas, who do the same, regard such marriages with favour
rather than disfavour, I think.—J. H. H.
[114] Cf. Sema chochomi.—J. H. H.
[115] This is what is normally done by the Semas.—J. H. H.
[116] A serious quarrel between villages resulting in bloodshed entails
a similar prohibition. For instance, Pungkitung once killed a number of
Lungsa men, and Lungsa retaliated in kind. To this day members of the
two villages cannot eat together, and a Lhota of another village who
has accepted hospitality in either Lungsa or Pungkitung cannot on the
same day take food from the hands of a man of the other village. This
bar does not, however, prevent the inhabitants of the two villages from
intermarrying freely.
[117] One “khel” of Rephyim is supposed to have died out because the
head-taking ceremony was once performed there with a Lhota head.
[118] So too the Kachins (Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States,
I. i. p. 432) and the Northern Brè (ibid. p. 533).—J. H. H.
[119] Yampongo of Phiro, a man of great note in his time. He died of a
burst blood-vessel when leading home a mithan captured in the
operations against the Kukis in 1918, and he was over sixty at the
time.—J. H. H.