Man, Past and Present - Agustus Henry Keane, A. Hingston Quiggin, Alfred Court Haddon (most popular novels txt) 📗

although "for one Naga who clearly marks these tonal distinctions twenty fail to do so[405]." It follows that it is mainly spoken without tones, and although said to be "distinctly monosyllabic" it really abounds in polysyllables, such as merenama, orphan, kehutsaporimo, nowhere, dukriwache, to kill, etc. There are also numerous verbal formative elements given by McCabe himself, so that Angami must clearly be included in the agglutinating order. To this order also belongs beyond all doubt the Kuki-Lushai of the neighbouring North Kachar Hills and parts of Nagaland itself, the common speech in fact of the Rangkhols, Jansens, Lushai, Roeysand other hill peoples, collectively called Kuki by the lowlanders, and Dzo by themselves[406]. The highly agglutinating character of this language is evident from the numerous conjugations given by Soppitt[407], for some of which he has no names, but which may be called Acceleratives, Retardatives, Complementatives, and so on. Thus with the root, ahong, come, and infix jam, slow, is formed the retardative nang ahongjamrangmoh, "will-you-come-slowly?" (rang, future, moh, interrogative particle)[408].

The Kuki, the Naga and the Manipuri, none of which claim to be the original occupants of the country, have a tradition of a common ancestor, who had three sons who became the progenitors of the tribes. The Kuki are found almost everywhere throughout Manipur. "We are like the birds of the air," said a Kuki to T. C. Hodson, "we make our nests here this year, and who knows where we shall build next year[409]?" The following description is given of the Naga tribes, Tangkhuls, Maoand Maram Nagas (Angami Nagas), Kolya, or Mayang Khong group, Kabuis, Quoirengs, Chirus and Marrings. "Differences of stature, dress, coiffure and weapons make it easy to distinguish between the members of these tribes. In colour they are all brown with but little variety, though some of the Tangkhuls who earn their living by salt making seem to be darker. Among them all, as among the Manipuris, there are persons who have a tinge of colour in their cheeks when still young. The nose also varies, for there are cases where it is almost straight, while in the majority of individuals it is flattened at the nostril. Here and there one may see noses which in profile are almost Roman. The eyes are usually brown, though black eyes are sometimes found to occur. The jaw is generally clean, not heavy, and the hair is of some variety, as there are many persons whose hair is decidedly curly, and in most there is a wave. Beards are very uncommon, and hair on the face is very rare, so much so that the few who possess a moustache are known as khoi-hao-bas (Meithei words, meaning moustache grower). I am informed that the ladies do not like hirsute men, and that the men therefore pull out any stray hairs. The cheekbones are often prominent and the slope of the eye is not very marked[410]." The stature is moderate varying from the slender lightly built Marrings to the tall sturdy finely proportioned Maos. The women are all much shorter than the men, but strongly built with a muscular development of which the men would not be ashamed. The land is thickly peopled with local deities and at Maram the case is recorded of a Rain Deity who was once a man of the village specially cunning in rain making. Among the points of special interest in this region are the stone monuments still erected in honour of the dead, and the custom of head-hunting, connected with simple blood feud, with agrarian rites, with funerary rites and eschatological belief, and in some cases no more than a social duty[411].

Through these Naga and Kuki aborigines we pass without any break of continuity from the Bhotiya populations of the Himalayan slopes to those of Indo-China. Here also, as indeed in nearly all semi-civilised lands, peoples at various grades of culture are found dwelling for ages side by side--rude and savage groups on the uplands or in the more dense wooded tracts, settled communities with a large measure of political unity (in fact nations and peoples in the strict sense of those terms) on the lowlands, and especially along the rich alluvial riverine plains of this well watered region. The common theory is that the wild tribes represent the true aborigines driven to the hills and woodlands by civilised invaders from India and other lands, who are now represented by the settled communities.

Whether such movements and dislocations have elsewhere taken place we need not here stop to inquire; indeed their probability, and in some instances their certainty may be frankly admitted. But I cannot think that the theory expresses the true relations in most parts of Farther India. Here the civilised peoples, and ex hypothesi the intruders, are the Manipuri, Burmese, Arakanese, and the nearly extinct or absorbed Talaings or Mons in the west; the Siamese, Shans or Laos, and Khamti in the centre; the Annamese (Tonkinese and Cochin-Chinese), Cambojans, and the almost extinct Champas in the east. Nearly all of these I hold to be quite as indigenous as the hillmen, the only difference being that, thanks to their more favourable environment, they emerged at an early date from the savage state and thus became more receptive to foreign civilising influences, mostly Hindu, but also Chinese (in Annam). All are either partly or mainly of Mongolic or Indonesian type, and all speak toned Indo-Chinese languages, except the Cambojans and Champas, whose linguistic relations are with the Oceanic peoples, who are not here in question. The cultivated languages are no doubt full of Sanskrit or Prakrit terms in the west and centre, and of Chinese in the east, and all, except Annamese, which uses a Chinese ideographic system, are written with alphabets derived through the square Pali characters from the Devanagari. It is also true that the vast monuments of Burma, Siam, and Camboja all betray Hindu influences, many of the temples being covered with Brahmanical or Buddhist sculptures and inscriptions. But precisely analogous phenomena are reproduced in Java, Sumatra, and other Malaysian lands, as well as in Japan and partly in China itself. Are we then to conclude that there have been Hindu invasions and settlements in all these regions, the most populous on the globe?

During the historic period a few Hinduized Dravidians, especially Telingas (Telugus) of the Coromandel coast, have from time to time emigrated to Indo-China (Pegu), where the name survives amongst the "Talaings," that is, the Mons, by whom they were absorbed, just as the Mons themselves are now being absorbed by the Burmese. Others of the same connection have gained a footing here and there in Malaysia, especially the Malacca coastlands, where they are called "Klings[412]," i.e. Telings, Telingas.

But beyond these partial movements, without any kind of influence on the general ethnical relations, I know of no Hindu (some have even used the term "Aryan," and have brought Aryans to Camboja) invasions except those of a moral order--the invasions of the zealous Hindu missionaries, both Brahman and Buddhist, which, however, amply suffice to account for all the above indicated points of contact between the Indian, the Indo-Chinese, and the Malayan populations.

That the civilised lowlanders and rude highlanders are generally of the same aboriginal stocks is well seen in the Manipur district with its fertile alluvial plains and encircling Naga and Lushai Hills on the north and south. The Hinduized Manipuri of the plains, that is, the politically dominant Meithis, as they call themselves, are considered by George Watt to be "a mixed race between the Kukies and the Nagas[413]." The Meithis are described as possessing in general the facial characteristics of Mongolian type, but with great diversity of feature. "It is not uncommon to meet with girls with brownish-black hair, brown eyes, fair complexions, straight noses and rosy cheeks[414]." In spite of the veneer of civilisation acquired by the Meithis, the old order of things has by no means passed away. "The maiba, the doctor and priest of the animistic system, still finds a livelihood despite the competition on the one hand of the Brahmin, and on the other of the hospital Assistant. Nevertheless the maibasfrequently adapt their methods to the altered circumstances in which they now find themselves, and realize that the combination of croton oil and a charm is more efficacious than the charm alone[415]."

"It is possible to discover at least four definite orders of spiritual beings who have crystallized out from the amorphous mass of animistic Deities. There are the Lam Lai, gods of the country-side who shade off into Nature Gods controlling the rain, the primal necessity of an agricultural community; the Umang Lai or Deities of the Forest Jungle; the Imung Lai, the Household Deities, Lords of the lives, the births and the deaths of individuals, and there are Tribal Ancestors, the ritual of whose worship is a strange compound of magic and Nature-worship. Beyond these Divine beings, who possess in some sort a majesty of orderly decent behaviour, there are spirits of the mountain passes, spirits of the lakes and rivers, vampires and all the horrid legion of witchcraft.... It is difficult to estimate the precise effect of Hinduism on the civilisation of the people, for to the outward observer they seem to have adopted only the festivals, the outward ritual, the caste marks and the exclusiveness of Hinduism, while all unmindful of its spirit and inward essentials. Colonel McCulloch remarked nearly fifty years ago that 'In fact their observances are only for appearance sake, not the promptings of the heart[416].'"

It is noteworthy that the Manipuri are also devoted to the game of polo, which R. C. Temple tells us they play much in the same way as do the Balti and Ladakhi at the opposite extremity of the Himalayas. Another remarkable link with the "Far West" is the term Khel, which has travelled all the way from Persia or Parthia through Afghanistan to Nagaland, where it retains the same meaning of clan or section of a village, and produces the same disintegrating effects as amongst the Afghans. In Angamiland each village is split into two or more Khels, and "it is no unusual state of affairs to find Khel A of one village at war with Khel B of another, while not at war with Khel B of its own village. The Khels are often completely separated by great walls, the people on either side living within a few yards of each other, yet having no dealings whatever. Each Khel has its own headman, but little respect is paid to the chief: each Khel maybe described as a small republic[417]." There appears to be no trace even of a jirga, or council of elders, by which some measure of cohesion is imparted to the Afghan Khel system.

From the Kuki-Nagas the transition is unbroken to the large group of Chins of the Chindwin valley, named from them, and thence northwards to the rude Kakhyens (Kachins) about the Irawadi headstreams and southwards to the numerous Karen tribes, who occupy the ethnical parting-line between Burma and Siam all the way down to Tenasserim.

For the first detailed account of the Chins we are indebted to S. Carey and H. N. Tuck[418], who accept B. Houghton's theory that these tribes, as well as the Kuki-Lushai, "originally lived in what we now know as Tibet, and are of one and the same stock; their form of government, method of cultivation, manners and customs, beliefs and traditions, all point to one origin." The term Chin, said to be a Burmese form of the Chinese jin, "men," is unknown to these aborigines, who call themselves Yo in the north and Lai in the south, while in Lower Burma they are Shu.

In truth there is no recognised collective name, and Shendu (Sindhu) often so applied is proper only to the once formidable Chittagong and Arakan frontier tribes, Klangklangs and Hakas, who with the Sokte, Tashons, Siyirs, and others are now reduced and administered from Falam. Each little group has its own