Most sufferers prefer the
disease to the cure. For soreness of the eyes the leaves of the
mongsentung are crushed up and held to the face so that the fumes reach
the eye. For a sprain of any kind the great remedy is to draw blood. In
the case of slight sprains the affected place is scratched and made to
bleed and a leech put on to suck. For more serious sprains or
contusions the swelling is cupped. The instrument used is a serow horn.
The base is smoothed down so that it will lie closely against the skin,
and a small hole is bored near the tip of the horn, round which a thin,
slightly withered leaf is wrapped. The skin is pricked with a splinter
of bamboo and the horn being placed in position the blood is sucked up
into it by the hole near the top. The thin leaf allows the air to be
sucked from the interior of the horn, but acts as an efficient valve
when the operator stops to take breath. This method of cupping is used
for sprains, bruises and dropsy, in fact in any case where it is
desired to reduce a swelling. In cases of snake-bite the limb affected
is first tightly bound above the bite. An infusion of the bark of a
tree called nungatsung is rubbed on the legs as a protection against
leech-bites.
Drugs.
Home-grown tobacco is cured by drying the leaves in the sun for three
or four days. They are then stamped and rolled with the feet and again
dried. The result is a coarse-smoking tobacco, very hot to the tongue
and difficult to keep alight. Hence the popularity of cheap cigarettes
among boys nowadays. The short pipe (tsintsanmukukhu) is simply a short
section of bamboo with a small bamboo tube stuck in the side of it, a
few lines being sometimes scratched on the bowl by way of
ornamentation. The big pipe (murimukukhu) is a more elaborate affair,
with a bowl cut out of soft black stone and set in a wooden base
forming one piece with the stem, which is bored with a hot iron and
ends in a small bamboo mouth-piece. From the bowl a small bamboo tube
some four inches long runs down through the wooden base into a section
of bamboo about five inches long. This is detachable and is kept full
of water when the pipe is in action. All the smoke is drawn through the
water, which becomes nothing but very dirty diluted nicotine. This foul
liquid is carefully kept and sipped now and again as a pick-me-up. If
he does not take his big pipe with him when he goes down to his fields
a man will often take a little gourd of this stuff. Though they are in
such close touch with the plains, opium eating is unknown in Lhota
villages, a great contrast with the Aos and Konyaks. Betel nut is
chewed with “pan” and lime in the villages near the plains. Lime used
to be made locally from the ground-up shells of freshwater snails, but
is now bought in the plains.