Language:

The Ao language, which Sir George Grierson places in the central subgroup of Naga languages, is, apart from the differences in pronunciation found in various villages, divided into several distinct dialects, of which the chief are Chongli, Mongsen, Changki, Yacham and Longla. Of these dialects, Chongli and Mongsen are by far the most important. Of the two main dialects, Chongli is the dominant and shows signs of gradually becoming the tribe's language. Most Mongsen-speaking individuals know Chongli, while comparatively few persons whose natural dialect is Chongli can speak or understand Mongsen. The spread of the Chongli dialect has received great impetus from the work of the Mission. The Nagas had no books or letters; in making books for the Ao tribe of Nagas, the English or Roman alphabet has been used. By the system in vogue for Romanising the languages of India proper, the letter a corresponds with the first Sanskrit vowel and is presumed to have the sound of short ‘u’ like u in but. The Chongli dialect has been fully described in Dr Clark’s dictionary, which is a most valuable and scholarly work, reflecting the intimate knowledge of the language which its writer possessed.

Social Organisation and Family:

The Ao Nagas are divided into eight subdivisions: (1) Lungkhumro, (2) Chami, (3) Alam, (4) Puman, (5) Paocen, (6) Lungcha, (7) Usamuk and (8) Lumto. The family among the Ao Nagas consists of the father, the mother, and their children. This group forms the household together, but practically, they share the typical house only during meal times. The children, about ten years old or even younger, do not sleep under the parental roof; the boys sleep apart in separate houses, while the girls, in small groups, sleep in homes or widows' houses. The temporary taboos imposed upon it show that the household is considered a unit, which affects this group and none other. The little circle is broken by marriage, when the sons establish their own homes, and the daughters, by the law of exogamy, go to other sibs or agnatic groups. The family, however, is not of prime importance, because the social organisation is based on the exogamous sib system. According to Ao tradition, six men issued forth from a rock at Lungtrok (literally, six stones), the traditional cradle of the human race, and became the progenitors of six patrilineal, exogamous sibs, called kidongs. Some of these sibs have, at present, several subdivisions, and some of the groups have different names in different villages. The kin (house, tree, or sib) is the most crucial division, for it sets the boundaries within which no intermarriages may occur. It is also of considerable importance in other social activities. In this group, descent is traced only in the male line, for, by their exogamic laws, females pass over to other sibs when they marry. The members of this group feel closely bound together, almost like family members. One man commonly calls another of the same kidong his brother, even though the relationship may be remote. When hunting dangerous game or when in battle array, the members of the same kidong are grouped. Members of a kidong may be found in several villages, widely separated, and when a man visits another town, he is entertained by his kin, if there are any in that village. Each sib has a distinctive pattern of petticoat for its women, a badge that shows the sib of origin, and it continues to be worn even after marriage. The Aos are divided into two moieties, the Mongsen and Chongli. Their religion is the same, though there are slight differences in customs, but the dialects differ so widely that they are almost different languages. Among the Aos, the largest unit is the village, which is bound together by social, political, and religious ties. Theoretically, the village is a unit in everything; if anybody fails to attend a village function, he is punished. Thus, these small, homogeneous communities have little room for individualistic tendencies. All the men of the village must attend when the path to the rice field is repaired, and they must contribute their quota of work for the upkeep of the paths leading to the water reservoirs. All the villagers must attend specific religious festivals or gennas, which are observed to secure bountiful harvests and ward off calamities from the village. The latter caused a considerable amount of trouble in later years when the Christian converts refused to take part.

A village is usually separated into three divisions called mepu for the convenience of administration. In each section, there is an ariju, the building and repairing of which falls to the men in each division, as well as other duties for which the whole village would be too unwieldy. All the members of this section must share in these functions or be punished. In matters of this kind, the individual will be made subservient to the good of the entire group. However, the individual seems more important in many things than the village. The Ao villages are democratic, and one man is as good as any other. Some headmen have some influence, but practically no authority; they cannot even keep the commission received from the Government for collecting the house tax and performing other duties. The headmen cannot order out coolies to do any work, but, of course, they can use their influence in inducing them to comply. Among the Aos, there is no tribal organisation of any kind, although the geographic boundaries of the tribe are rather distinctly marked. It is difficult to find any one unifying principle on which the tribe might be said to depend; yet it is not difficult to recognise people not of their fold. Their physical appearance is somewhat different from their neighbours, even though they are of the same stock.

J.P. Mills, in his book “The Ao Nagas,” while discussing the social organisations of the Ao Nagas, writes that, a man does not usually speak of himself as belonging to such and such a “khel” of a village, but to such and such a “morung” of which a “khel” may contain two or three. They are organised on the clan system, boys of one or perhaps two clans occupying the same "morung.” Should most of a boy’s friends happen to be members of another clan, he may leave the rest of his clan and join his friend’s “morung,” but he is supposed to help his ancestral “morung” when necessary, though he cannot be fined for not doing so. New boys enter the “morung” in the autumn, when the village fences are renewed. Of the two hearths in the "morung”, the new boys use the inner one for their first period of three years, the one nearer the door being reserved for the senior clashes. Men who are now middle-aged say that when they first entered the “morung”, they were very severely disciplined, not to say bullied.

There is also an age group system relevant to the Ao Naga societies. The organisation of the village is based on two primary principles. First, the village is divided into age groups, and they are assigned various communal duties. Secondly, the control of affairs lies with a council, whose election method and office tenure vary in the different language groups; there is nothing corresponding to a hereditary chieftainship. Like all Naga societies, the real political unit of the village is the “khel”, based on language, the two dominant being the Mongsen and Chongli khel. The most striking feature of the Chongli system is that at the end of every generation, all the councillors of a "khel” vacate office and a new body takes their place. Every Chongli village has a standardised generation of so many years, usually between twenty-five and thirty. When the time comes to vacate the office, there is almost always a violent quarrel. The office holders, reluctant to relinquish their power and shares of meat, argue that their time is not up yet, while the younger generation is eager to take their place. This entire system in the Ao villages of the traditional governance system is often known as Putu Menden. But presently, the traditional governance body of Putu Menden has witnessed varying levels of exogenous impositions, the latest of which are in the form of the Village Councils and the VDBs. This is coupled with the introduction of electoral politics, which allows for interference by political parties in village affairs, above all in the election of the Village Council Chairman, which is a highly coveted position, but devoid of the sacredness traditionally associated for a leader in the village governance. The traditional governance institution of the Putu Menden, which was once deeply rooted in the cultural philosophy and the traditional practices of the Ao, is being severely weakened by such changes. Thus, it is worth pondering whether traditional village governance should be separated from the state developmental agencies to preserve its traditional values and system.

Religion:

The religion of the Ao is not a moral code It is a system of ceremonies, and, strive as he may to do that which is lawful and right m the moral sphere, he will not prosper if he omits the sacrifices due to the deities around him who, unappeased, are ever ready to blight his crops and bring illness upon him and his clan. The Aos have a general idea of a good deity, but he does not interfere on their behalf, so they pay no attention to him. The sacrifices are made only to those who might harm. They also strongly believe in fate, their destiny assigned to each one at birth. They worship no idols or embodiments of ideas in material form. The nearest approximation to this is to be found in the belief that certain spirits take up their abode in material objects, chiefly in stones, but they worship the spirit abiding there and not the rock. There is much make-believe in the religious rites and sacrifices of the Aos. When a man carries a fowl to the place of sacrifice, he groans under it as if it were a tremendously heavy load. When a vital sacrifice is made, several hunted tiny packages are made of liver, small bits of meat, and other dainties, on the plan of a good meal. All this is done to impress the heavenly hosts with the importance of the offerings. In all offerings, the bulk of the consecrated gift is eaten by the worshipper, while the gods receive the shells of the eggs, a few feathers, and the feet of the fowls, with some tiny bits of meat.

The Aos have several gods. The most common are Lungkijingba, chief of heaven; Lizaha, chief of earth; Mojing, chief in the realm of departed spirits; and many others not so named. Tsungrem is the general term for deity, of which there are several; for instance, kimung tsungrem (house site deity), ki-tsung tsungrem (house deity), and arem taungrem (jungle deity). The first part of the term for deity, tsung, is used in words that connote the idea of divine, heavenly, or supernatural, as shown in such words as tsung-ru (divine favour) and tsung-pret (deity flash or lightning). As the swarms of spirits that inhabited the everyday world of the Aos were often harmful, elaborate ceremonies were required to keep them at bay. Moreover, these spirits were closely identified with the topography of the Ao country.

William Carlson Smith, writes that, Lungkijingha (stone house deity) is the great god, the highest of all the gods, and is supposed to live high up in the sky, because of which he is sometimes called Anung tsungrem (“god of the aerial expanse He is the one who Axes the destiny of all men. He is represented as sitting upon the dome of his stone house as on a throne, where he pulls to pieces certain leaves, pronouncing on each piece a fate or destiny. The spirits of men come, and each picks up a piece of leaf, and the fate pronounced upon it becomes his lot in life. But, as the missionary-sociologist William Smith noted in 1925, this god was considered so remote that his effective contact was limited to other deities and did not extend to humans. The Ao villagers did not even make offerings to this high god.

Less remote in Ao cosmology was Lizaba, considered the creator of the earth and the deity in control of the rains, and consequently of the food supply for the dry rice-growing Aos. He also commanded sickness and disease. Living closer to human society, Lizaba seems to have been more clearly defined than Lungkijingba, and accordingly, most village offerings and sacrifices were made to him. Village priests directed such rituals called putirs, who were chosen ‘by public opinion’ from among the eldest males of each clan in an Ao village. They were compensated for their services at village feasts. While putirs dealt with the town, another class of specialists, arasentsurs, communicated with the spirit world on behalf of individuals, especially to exorcise malevolent spirits. As E. W. Clark noted in 1911, ‘Lizaba was accredited to have been the world maker. But the Aos never travelled much beyond their own country and their horizon was supposed to embrace all there was of the world, so though Lizaba has the credit of being world maker, all he did (by tradition) was to level the surface of the plain of the Assam Valley.’ Similarly, the Aos’ ancestors were thought to have come out of the earth at six stones located at a particular spur on the right bank of the Dikhu River. At the same time, the path to paradise was identified with a specific long ridge that sloped from west to east. In sum, the precontact Ao cosmology was characterised by a vaguely conceived, seldom approached, and generally otiose high god (Lungkijingba), below whom were many well-defined, frequently approached, and territorially identified spirits that watched over and participated in the Aos’ immediate microcosm.

Clark, further writes that since Lizaba is the one who has the most intimate dealings with men, a village worships him at least once a year, in addition to which individuals make their offerings at special times. Near the gates of each village there are one or two altars for this worship. These altars are formed of two rows of stakes driven into the ground, crossing each other to form the letter X. The offerings are placed on the ground at the foot of these stakes, on the side nearest the path leading into the village. At these altars none but the village priests may officiate. Bringing to the altar two fowls, a pig, a quantity of boiled rice and some cooking pots, and carrying each one separately, they groan loudly to impress Lizdba with the importance of the offering he is about to receive. To begin with, some leaves are torn up, and about sixty of the pieces are arranged at the altar, on each of which is laid a little of the rice, six small pieces of fowl liver or gizzard. Beside each leaf plate is placed a little rice beer in a leaf cup. Then other leaves are placed over these little heaps, and the same performance occurs with the meat and the fowl, rice and rice beer. After the fowl offering has been made, the pig is killed by piercing the heart with a bamboo knife. Then the priest invokes Lizdba, asking him to accept the animal's life or spirit, after which the offering is made exactly as with the fowl. When this has been completed, the head priest offers a prayer, imploring that good fortune may come to the village in every way. No food is touched until the sacrifice has been finished, lest the gods should be offended, but immediately after this, the priests have a bountiful feast, and the next morning, they have another feast at the same place. If anything remains after this second feast, it is left. The cooking pots and the baskets in which the pig and the fowls were carried are hung on the altar. The whole village observes the day of this sacrifice as a rest day, while the priests are taboo for six days. The following day, each family brings an egg to the field, which is offered to the deity. They say no one will touch anything placed on Lizaba's altar, not even the village pigs. It is considered a favourable omen if the crows eat the offerings. The most elaborate sacrifice is called Lizaba kulum.

Before the Aos may begin to sow their rice in the spring, they have a day of worship called tenden mung. Ordinarily, in June, they have the jameja, or aren tsungrem ajaba mung, when they invoke the deity to give them good crops. Currently, the officiating priests take two fowls and a pig to Lizaba’s altar, where they make their offering and eat the fowls and one-half of the pig. They give the other half of the pig to the board of elders, who, in turn, provide them with half of a cow, which they have killed for the occasion. The priests and elders keep this a sacred rest day, and the village maintains the following day. No one is allowed to go to another town lest the bountiful harvest depart with the wayfarer. For three days, no grain will be sent to another village for a similar reason. The tsungrem mung, or asum nu mung, is a festival held at harvest time, in some places before and in others after harvest, as a sort of harvest festival. Ordinarily, this is a three-day festival, but it sometimes lasts longer.

Once each year, they have a religious festival called talen pusong. This is celebrated on the main path to the rice fields, where the branches lead to the individual fields. The priests build an altar resembling a Lizaba altar at the village gates, and here they offer parts of a cock and a pig, when a prayer is offered asking that abundant crops may be theirs, and that no harm may befall the villagers as they go back and forth to their fields. This done, the priests have their feast of pork and rice beer. While the priests have been performing these solemn rites, the village men have been clearing up the path.

There is an optional day of worship called iam jashi or aren jashi. Currently, a fowl, a pig, and a dog are offered, and appeals are made to the deity for good harvests, an abundance of meat to eat, success and glory in war, and general prosperity. In addition to all these, individuals make sacrifices in their rice fields, each of which has a small altar. Sacrifices are also made at the individual granaries so that the rice yield may be abundant; other sacrifices are made occasionally, as the occasion demands. All these religious festivals have practical ends in view: they are to secure bountiful crops, prosperity, and the blessings of good health.

In his essay “Comparative History as World History”, Richard Eaton discusses how the missionaries dealt with the Naga religion. For all their condemnation of Naga ritual and social life, the missionaries were extraordinarily accommodating toward Naga doctrine and cosmology, in which they and their Naga converts systematically sought points of entry for Christian terms and ideas. The terminological strategies adopted by foreign missionaries and their native assistants in the very earliest translations of scripture proved crucial for the success or failure of accommodating Christianity to indigenous religions. It was these native assistants/ pundits who worked to assimilate Christian ideas, names, and terms into the Nagas’ own linguistic and, hence, religious universe. One missionary who supervised several translation projects recalled that the Nagas resent introducing an outside word, as they are proud of their language and think it is deep enough. They can find the expressions necessary when working with these pundits.

Marriage:

As marriages between the kindred descended from the same male stock are prohibited among the Hindus, so among the Nagas, marriages among descendants of the same line are tabooed. The maidens and youths of the line look upon each other as brothers and sisters. Marriages between the Lungkhumro and the Chami, Human, Alam, Paocen and Lumto are allowed. Marriages may occur between the Chami division and the Lungkhumro, Paocen and Alam, and similarly between the Alam and Lungkhumro, Chami, Puman, Lungcha, Lumto and Usamuk. Intermarriages are allowed between the Puman, Lungkhumro, Alam and Lumto divisions. Among the Ao Nagas, the young people courted themselves and made most of the arrangements. The marriageable ages of young men and virgins’ range between 20 and 25, and between 18 and 20 years, respectively. The married couples are sometimes of the same age. Courtship is allowed, and continues for six months to 3 years before marriage. In some cases, it is extended up to 5 years. After long-continued courtship, the marriage falls through if the pair do not find each other agreeable. Among the Ao Nagas, courtship is an invariable precedent of a marriage. During the period of courtship, the couple behave as husband and wife. Among the Assamese, this period of courtship is known as the mating period. In the event of a marriage not following a prolonged courtship, it is not regarded as disgraceful. When the couple parts with each other, they may select new mates as their lovers. 10 or 12 men court some maidens before choosing one as their life mate. Some meet only one young man, and they marry. Surendranath Majumder, in his book on the Ao Nagas, writes that courtship is carried on without the guardian's knowledge, but he comes to know about it in the case of a prolonged courtship. If the young man wants to marry, he will communicate his desire to his parents. At first, the young man’s father presents to the bride’s father 4 or 5 fish. This is the initial ceremony leading to the marriage. After the present of fish is made, the couple will not be allowed to woo fresh lovers. A fine is imposed if this rule is violated. If the pair intends to marry, they may do so even after paying the fine. Immediately after the presentation of fish, the bridegroom’s father will present to the bride’s father five baskets of paddy and a Dao of superior quality. The parties concerned will remain very neat and tidy the whole day and see no death in the village. The day is very auspicious for the marrying couple. Four or five days after the paddy has been presented, the bridegroom, with money presented to him by his father, and with the help of the villagers of his clan, will build his own house. Within three days after the construction of the house, he will arrange the furniture and requisites. On the fourth day, the bride’s mother, with 10 or 12 of her own clanswomen, will, in the bride's company, go to the newly constructed house of the bridegroom. The young man will be accompanied by his mother and their friends and relations. The fathers of the bride and the bridegroom are not allowed to go there. The assembled people will be treated with boiled rice, meat, madhu, or rice beer. After the feast, an old man of the bridegroom’s party will hold a fowl near the face of the bride-groom and chant some incantations and the same fowl will be held before the face of the bride to the accompaniment of charms, the purport of which is as follows:—“May you live long in peace and happiness, let your home be free from all annoyance and trouble, and may you see the face of children”. After the incantations, the fowl is killed outside the house, and its meat is taken by all except the bridal pair. They cannot go out of their house for the whole day. Most of the guests assembled passed the night in the bridegroom's house. The new couple will not stay together for seven days after the marriage. The day after the marriage they go together to gather fuel in the wood. Neither the bride nor the bridegroom can take a new mate within a month of their first marriage in the event of a dissolution by divorce, death or otherwise. The Aos are very strict about enforcing the rules of exogamous marriages. The village will have poor crops if a man marries within his sib. Because of such dire calamities, anyone committing such a social sin would be banished from his village.

Traditional Life:

Nagas traditional life revolves around the village and the village had been the highest political unit and the sameness of culture and shared among. Within this concept, the Aos have adopted their culture and livelihood to the natural environment's norms. Land is the most basic asset among the Ao-Naga community. Slash and burn agriculture method, popularly known as jhum or shifting cultivation (tekong lu or alu ayimba) is an old age farming practiced by the Ao-Naga since time immemorial. Traditionally, it is the chief form of agricultural practices among the village, which involves the customary laws to regulate the practice of its cultivation. Paddy (tsulu ayimba) is the main crop in the jhums, followed by maise, jobtears, millet and vegetables like chilli, tomato, green leaves, pumpkin, cucumber, etc. Cucumber from Aliba village of Mokokchung is the best in taste cucumber and has great demand not only in Nagaland but also in bordering region of Assam. Panikheti or TRC is practised in minimal areas, and terraces are small. Farmers are moving towards plantation crops, and tea, coffee, and betel nut plantations can be seen at different locations. Anushi, a fermented colocasia leaves product, is the speciality of the Ao tribe, and this is used for cooking with smoked pork and several other local dishes. Anushi is stored as cake or biscuit and kept for a year. Anushi of Longgang village is famous, and even in the market, it fetches a better price from others.

Animal rearing (shiruru metsüba) is another major livelihood option, practised by Aos, and almost every household rears pigs and poultry. However, some families also rear cows, goats, and rabbits. Since its beginning, the Naga society has been self-reliant, so most of the youths were required to learn all the skills necessary to live in the villages. Weaving, carpentry, handicraft, pottery, woodcraft, blacksmithing and hunting were the significant livelihood opportunities traditionally learnt by youths from their elders. Weaving is done solely by women, and they use to weave traditional dress such as shawls, mekhala, loincloth, etc. However, certain other conventional items such as head gears, ear rings, and weapons like daos, spears, and shields are made and sold by males to generate income. Male traditionally performs woodwork, and they make excellent furniture, handicraft items, bamboo baskets, and sell them to earn their livelihood. Mokokchung is rich in minerals and coal, and certain village people earn their livelihood by mining coal. This has been a lucrative business activity in past. However, the government does not undertake any mining activity, but the rural people get involved and export to the nearby states. The coal mining activities had been mainly carried out in Changki, Mongchen, Molungkimong, Lakhuni, Anaki, Merangkong, etc., village areas, but in a very unscientific, unplanned, and uneconomical way. Such activities have now almost stopped as they were found to be detrimental to the environment and adversely affecting the topographical features of the region.

Food and Drinks:

William Carlson Smith writes, that the diet of the Ao Nagas is hemmed about by restrictions due, in the first place, to the natural limitations of the land in the production of food stuffs; next to the ignorance of the natives, who do not know how to develop what they already have; and, lastly, to the traditions and customs that have barred the use of certain valuable food products of the country. With the Ao Nagas, as with many other peoples of India, rice is the staple food, but there are a few things that an Ao will not eat. The garden vegetables are few and of an inferior quality. They have cucumbers, pumpkins, beans, peppers, a little corn, “Job’s tears”, millet, yams, and other coarse vegetables. There are several edible tubers throughout these hills, so that no one who can dig needs to starve, and in the event of a poor harvest, these tubers form a vital part of the diet. The young and tender shoots of the bamboo are greatly relished. These, when pounded into a pulp, supply the saccharine element. Several jungle roots and leaves are used as relishes with their frugal meals. Various jungle fruits are also used, mostly sour and bitter, although a few are delicious.

When it comes to the flesh-pot, there is somewhat greater variety. The Aos eat meat in some form or other whenever it is available. Beef and pork are the most common, no doubt because they are most readily procurable, and pork seems to be preferred over the two. When an ox is killed, they eat everything except the hair, hoofs, and horns. They eat fowl, goat, and bison, which are reserved for the big feasts. On certain occasions, roasting a dog is very acceptable. They eat certain big lizards, frogs and almost any kind of game. The Chongli branch of the tribe eats certain types of monkeys, while the Mongsen branch forgoes this luxury. The bag made a heavy load for the native who was with me, but the thought of the feast to come seemed to cheer him, and so with a broad smile, he carried his burden up the hill. At one time, my gun brought down a monkey, which was exchanged for thirty pounds of rice, the equivalent of a man's four- or five-day earnings. All the Aos refuse to eat the hoolock, or black gibbon. This is not determined by the quality or the taste of the flesh, but by various food taboos. The Aos are quite indifferent as to the stage of putrefaction any meat may have reached. Rosup is a traditional and signature dish of the Ao Naga Tribe. It is a dish made of mixed vegetables, dry fish, and bamboo shoots. It is a dry side dish loaded with the goodness of vegetables and flavours from fermented bamboo shoots and dry fish. It is full of nutrients as well. The Aos consume a large amount of rice beer, which is used both as food and drink. In preparing this, small yeast cakes are made of rice flour and certain jungle leaves that have been dried and pulverised. Rice beer, however, is a poor food, much inferior to boiled rice. This is very evident in the case of porters, for those who use the rice beer freely lack the endurance of the temperate zones or total abstainers.

Dress and Ornaments:

The Aos are the most picturesque in their attire. They extensively used war paint with cowrie shells, ivory or brass armlets, and giant white seashells to decorate their costumes. They used the tails and feathers of birds and fringes of gaily dyed hair to decorate their cane head-dresses and hunting implements. Among males, the main upper garment was usually in the form of different types of shawls, which were draped over the torso. The shawls were draped over both shoulders from the back, and one of the ends of the shawl was thrown over the left shoulder towards the back. The most popular being the Mangkoteptsu Shawl. It is one of the popular shawls of Ao. This shawl is a status symbol and can be used only by the rich men and warriors. It is also called Tsungkotepsu. It is made by joining three pieces/stripes of woven fabric. The two pieces on the side are in black and red stripes, and the centre piece is white. The design is painted on the white stripe in the centre using red and black coloured dye obtained from Tangko tree. The design comprised of human head, ancient currency, lion, tiger, elephant, and cock etc. Loin cloth or cowrie is the main lower garment of the Ao man. This is a kind of loin cloth. It is also referred to as apron. It is designed by studding several cowries on piece of cloth. Among the Ao, it is worn to cover only the front side of the body and reaches above the knee. This decorated form of a loincloth is commonly worn during the festivals. Plain loincloth without cowries is used for everyday wear. Naga women wore a bodice which was just a piece of a shawl used to cover the upper part of their body, covering the breasts. Some tribal women did not wear anything even to cover their breasts. Tukutsukresu is the bodice used by the Ao girl. It is regarded as a holy dress. The girls used this bodice for the first time just after attending puberty, when they feel uneasy due to the sudden onset of menstruation. They reported to their mother that they could not attend their daily work due to health problems and wore this bodice. This piece of cloth was made of either plain white, black, or blue colour. The Ao lower garment for women consists of a loin cloth nearly one and a quarter metre long and about two thirds of a metre wide. It is wrapped round the waist with the top outer corner tucked just in front of the left hip. Ngami su is a lower garment having black stripes woven on a red background. It was worn by old Ao Naga ladies. It is also called as fish tail skirt. It is one in which certain dark coloured threads are broken off at a specific place and short pieces of red thread are substituted, so that when the weaving is finished, the figure bears some resemblance to a fish tail in otherwise black cloth. The cloth, or blanket, of the Nagas, which is so generally used, is a beneficial article. It serves as bedding, for they wrap themselves up in it and go to sleep; it serves as a baby carriage, for the child is placed in it and tied on the back of the father, mother, brother, or little sister; and sometimes it serves as a market basket, for when one buys some articles for the carrying of which he has no basket he rolls them up in the ever-present blanket. They have some excellent articles which serve as umbrellas. They have a large circular hat, about three feet in diameter, made of palm leaves and bamboo strips. They have another of the same material about four feet long and two feet wide that is suspended over the back by a string passing over the head. These are not so convenient as the ordinary umbrella because they do not fold up, but some use a large palm leaf which folds up almost as well. The coiffure of an Ao woman and man are elaborate. The Ao women used to decorate their hair by coiling it into a large ornate ‘bun’ at the back of the head. False plaits twisted with coils of white cotton thread are attached to the bun with brass hair pins. Feathers may also be attached to the bun. The whole arrangement is supported on either side by enormous heavy brass earrings which are passed through the helix of the ear and kept in place by a string over the top of the head. However, the men keep their hair short and decorate it with headdresses made from cane tied with cotton threads and feathers.