Doyang, were annexed. The rest of the tribe was annexed in 1889.
Origin and Migration.
The problem of the ultimate origin and composition of the Naga tribes
still awaits solution. It will be sufficient if I give here the main
Lhota traditions of their origin and early migrations. These are
various and mutually inconsistent. One, but not the commonest, states
that the Lhotas and plainsmen were once one people who migrated from a
place called Lengka somewhere north or north-west of the Naga Hills,
the exact site being unknown. They soon split up into two bodies, one
of which became the plainsmen of the Brahmaputra valley and the other
the Nagas of the hills. The curious long-hafted daos called yanthang, a
few of which are still kept as highly-prized heirlooms, are specially
connected with this tradition, and are said to have been given to the
Nagas by their “brothers” of the plains. 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. Owing, however, to the indecent behaviour of
a man of the tribe the virtue went out of the stone, [52] and the
Lhotas set out on their migrations, taking with them a little piece of
the stone, which is still preserved at Pangti. Yet another tradition
says that the common ancestors of the Lhotas, Southern Sangtams, Semas
and Rengmas, came from somewhere near Mao. The first to split off were
the Southern Sangtams, with whom the Lhotas claim close affinities.
[53] It is said, for instance, that many generations ago a Lhota from
Lungitang, knowing that his forefather had left “brothers” south of the
Tizu, somehow made his way through the Sema country and brought back
with him a Southern Sangtam, whose last descendant, by name Ezanyimo,
died at Wokha about ten years ago. Old men say that specimens of the
round brass ornaments (pyabi) which Southern Sangtams wear on their
“lengtas,” and of axe-shaped Sangtam daos, were preserved as heirlooms
in some Lhota houses to within living memory. From Mao the tribe
migrated slowly to Kohima, and from there, with the Angamis pressing
them in the rear, reached the neighbourhood of Lozema, where the Semas
are said to have split off. Thence they moved slowly on till they
reached Themoketsa Hill, known to the Lhotas as Honohoyanto
(fowl-throat-cutting-village). Here the mist begins to clear a little
and most Lhotas claim to trace their descent back through nine or ten
generations to some ancestor who lived at Honohoyanto. At this point
the Rengmas split off and occupied their present country, while the