Language:

The languages of the Naga tribes have been grouped under various heads by different philologists. Professor Max Miller classifies them as “Lohitic,” a fanciful and inappropriate name from one of the affluents of the Brahmaputra. This classification, except in a _ geographical sense or for temporary convenience, should not be maintained. Mr. Hodgson classifies them as “Tamulian,” or aboriginal. He adds—"‘I incline to the opinion that the aborigines of the SubHimalayas, as far east as the river Dhunsiri of Assam, belong to the Tibetan stock and east of that river to the Chinese stock.” I presume that Mr. Hodgson was not then aware that Naga tribes exist both to the east and west of the Dhunsiri.

Captain Forbes has designated these languages “Tibeto-Burman”’ and has shown that a close affinity exists between the Naga tribes and the hill tribes of Arracan, whom he has linked with the Chepangs and Kusundas of Nepal, and with the Abors, Mishmis, Garos, Khasias, Kukis, and Singphos of Assam. Whereas R B. Macabre, in his seminal work, “OUTLINE GRAMMAR OF THE ANGAMI NAGA LANGUAGE,” published in 1887, writes that to him, the most reasonable language family of the Nagas is that of ‘“Indo-Chinese.” Later, other contributors to the discussion on the Angami language included Rivenburg (1905), Grierson (1903), Supplee (1930), and Haralu (1933), as well as several significant works by the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society in the early 20th century. J.H. Hutton writes that one point in the Angami vocabulary is worthy of notice. Whereas other Nagas readily borrow new words from Assamese or Hindustani and assimilate them into their tongue (this is particularly noticeable in Serna), the Angami invents a word of purely Angami form. Thus, an Angami speaks of a steamboat as mi-ro, literally “fire-boat.” At the same time, the Serna, who on the Angami principle could perfectly well coin the word ‘ami-shukay’ would never dream of using anything but jahaz, even when speaking in his tongue to other Sernas. Similarly, while the Angami always refer to a gun as Misi (meaning “fire-stick”), the ordinary word used by the Serna is alika, which means the cross-bow used by his Chang and Sangtam neighbours, or masheho, which seems to be borrowed from the Angami word.

R. Sekhose, probably the first native Angami to write on the language, says: ‘Angami language is a very peculiar language. A word may mean many different things, which can only be distinguished by High and low tones’ (Angami Dictionary with English Equivalent words, 1984). Sekhose has also published significant works, including Angami Idiomatic Expressions (1967) and Angami Naga Folklore (1970). Angami is written using the Roman script, along with the conventions adopted by the Angami Language Committee in 1939. The tone is not marked in the Angami orthography. Angami is not only spoken and understood by the Angami people but also by the Chakhesang, Zeliang, Pochuri and Rengama people who live in the Kohima district. Today, Angami Naga is offered as a subject at Nagaland University, Kohima, up to the Ph.D. level. Ura Academy is an institution established for the development and propagation of the Angami language located in Kohima, Nagaland.

Social Organisation:

Although the village may be regarded as the unit of the political and religious sides of Angami life, the fundamental unit of the social side is the clan. So distinct is the clan from the village that it forms almost a separate village, often fortified within the village, inside its boundaries, and not infrequently at variance, nearly amounting to war with other clans in the same village. This rivalry or antagonism between clans within the village has coloured the entire Angami life. Although it is often considered that clans form a distinct section in their society, they tend to split up into component clans, a process that has progressed significantly further in parts of the Eastern Angami country than in the Khonoma and Kohima groups. As far as Angami traditions are concerned, this tendency has always been evident. The Angami people are believed to be descended from two men, sometimes described as brothers or cousins, who emerged from the earth. The place is not currently known to the Angamis, but if found, the prints of the hands, knees, and feet of the two ancestors will be visible in front of the hole they left when they emerged. The Memi point to the great stone at Maikel in the Manipur State as the place where this happened. From the elder of these two sprang the division of the Angami known as the Kepezoma (Kepepoma), and from the younger, the other, the Kepepfuma (Kepepvnma). The Kepezoma or Kepepoma call their father “apo” and their mother “ago,” while the Kepepfuma or Kepepvuma call their fathers “apvu” and their mothers “apfu.”

Now, some Angamis believe that the two “kelhus” divisions of Kepezoma and Kepepfuma were originally exogamous, with members marrying into one another. It is admitted, however, that at the time of the entry of the Angamis into their present country (the first Angami village to settle north of the Mao gap is universally believed to have been Kezakenoma, to which all Angami villages trace their origin), the Pezoma kelhu had split into Thevoma and Satsiima, the two being admitted as independent communities on the same footing, for exogamous purposes, as the Pepfiima kelhu Thekronoma (or Cherama). The exogamous clans into which these two splits are categorised are those that have been mentioned as forming the units of Angami society.

These “thino” to use the Angami word, all trace their descent to some acestor, a member of one of the kelhu, and though going under different names in different places do not forget their relationship with collateral clans in neighbouring, or even very distant, villages. Moreover, these “thino’’ were, until comparatively recently, undoubtedly exogamous units. However, their place is being rapidly taken by the kindred, and though, despite the strong disapprobation of the elders of the clan, who prophesy barren marriages or idiot and diseased children; as a result, marriages even within the kindred are not nowadays unknown.

It has been stated that the kelhu is thought to have been the original exogamous division of the Angamis. It is believed that the next stage was to allow intermarriage between members of the same kelhu if they were of different villages. This, of course, maybe mere conjecture on the part of one or two intelligent Angamis. But while the thino may still be regarded as ordinarily implying an exogamous group, it must be recognised that the exogamy of the thino is giving place to that of its subdivision the “putsa.” The “putsa” which is the “kindred,” is a more coherent body than the “thino,” and the relative positions in which the individual stands towards the kindred and towards the clan are well illustrated by the few formalities and duties that accompany adoption. Kelhu, thino and putsa are all patrilineal and patronymic. They show no traces of Totemism. Relationship has been spoken of hitherto as being a blood tie merely, but it can also be set up by adoption, though the practice is generally held to be decidedly objectionable.

Religion:

The traditional religion of the Angami was often described as Animism. The God in Angami tradition is believed to give everything when God is pleased. Initially, they felt that a creator exists. However, the creator's name is unknown. Therefore, they named the creator ‘terhuomia,’ which means ‘spirit.’ Of the spirits revered by the Angami, there are a number, both of persons and kinds. Nor are their qualities by any means so malicious as they have been painted. The missionaries, in their blindness, teach the Angami to convert to regard all terhoma as evil, and mission-taught Nagas are in the habit of translating the generic terhoma into English or Assamese as “Satan.'’ All of these “satans,” as they call them, are, however, very far from having those qualities which we traditionally associate with the Devil, and the qualities of some of them are benevolent. Chief of all of these is Kepenopfu, usually spoken of with the possessive suffix Ukepenopfu. This spirit is sometimes referred to as a creator, but this term is more closely associated with the creator of living beings than with the creator of the universe. The word kepenopfu means “birth spirit.” Kepenopfu, indeed, is the ancestress (or ancestor) of humans. Since the two ancestors of the terhoma and tigers were of one birth with the ancestor of man, Kepenopfu might also be regarded as the ancestress of all spirits and the larger cats. Then, there is a much-feared spirit called Rutzeh, the evil one. He is the giver of sudden death. If a man dies unexpectedly, blood issuing from his mouth and nostrils, no illness having preceded it, his death is ascribed to Rutzeh. Maweno is the Angami goddess of fruitfulness. She keeps pebbles and paddy in her bag. If a man meets her and asks for anything, she gives him one gift, never two, a pebble or a grain or two of paddy. If she gives it to him for his fields, he will have good crops, if for his cattle, many calves. Telepfu, on the other hand, is a mischievous being. She carries people away — men, women, or children — and hides them. She does not kill them but renders them senseless, though if their relations succeed in finding them again, they recover consciousness. Ayepi is a sort of fairy that lives in men’s houses and brings them prosperity. Few men see her, but sometimes her tracks are seen like little human footprints in the stored paddy or on the dusty floor.

The Angami conception of godhead being such as it is, we should hardly expect to find any definite code of morals dependent upon it; morals, of course, there are, even a code of morals, but the sanction on which it rests is social, not religious. Theft, for instance, is also considered a form of homicide. At the same time, grave offences, when perpetrated by an individual against another of his community, are proper, if not praiseworthy, actions when perpetrated against a member of another community. At the same time, there is a vague idea in Angami's eschatology of a distinction between the sheep and the goats. In contrast, the former go to heaven, located somewhere in the sky, to dwell with Ukepenopfu, while the latter descend beneath the earth, where they pass through seven existences.

The worship an Angami village renders to its deities, if one can call it worship, is directed by certain officials, who, although in some cases of no social importance, perform functions that, from the Angami point of view, are extremely important to the community. The worship is often referred to as gennas by JH Hutton. The most important of these, at any rate, in most villages, is the Kemovo. Kemovo must be an occupant of one of the original house sites in the village and is usually a direct descendant of the founder of the town or the founder of the village's clan, for whom they act as Kemovo. The Kemovo directs all public ceremonies and determines the days for them. As the office is hereditary, he is also the repository of the genealogical and historical traditions of his village, clan, and kindred. The Zhevo is indispensable to the personal gennas performed by the Angami, and he directs these gennas much as the Kemovo directs the gennas of the community. He goes to the house of any person conducting a genna and blesses the man and tastes before anyone else the liquor and the meat used and receives from the person doing the genna a large piece of raw meat and some of the blood of the animal killed.

The principal gennas, which the Angami Nagas celebrate, as listed by Hutton, are: Sekrengi, Gnongi, Thekrangi, Tsungi, Thezukepu, Likwengi, Thewuukukwu, Titho, Lideh, Tekedeh, and Terhengi. The order in which these gennas are observed, moreover, is not the same in all villages,and as two gennas are often coupled together in their observance and differently coupled by different villages, it is difficult to give a lucid statement of the calendar. The order given is that in which the gennas are observed in Khonoma, or at any rate approximately so. The Sekrengi is put first because it seems natural to fall into that place; Angami's opinion, however, is divided on this point between the Gnongi, Sekrengi, and Terhengi gennas as the first genna of the year.

The Sekrengi genna, which has for its object the prevention of illness during the coming year, begins, as all genes do, by taking a little rice and pretending to cook it by holding it for a moment at the fire. It is then wrapped in a plantain leaf and, together with a similar miniature leaf cup of rice beer, tied to the central post of the partition wall between the two main rooms of an Angami house. This, on the first day of the genna, is followed by a visit on the part of all men to the village spring, where they wash themselves, their weapons, tools and clothes in fresh water, the spring having been watched on the eve of the genna by boys, no doubt to prevent defilement. On returning, every male who is old enough to do so kills an unblemished cock, but must kill it by throttling it with his hands alone. The position of the legs at death is watched, and if the right leg is passed over the left and excreta passed, the omen is good. If, however, the omen is terrible, another and another cock is killed until one dies with its legs in the correct position. The strangling of cocks and the Sekrengi genna generally is the occasion on which male children leave the “women’s side.” In Jotsoma and Khonoma the boy old enough to strangle a cock may no longer sleep on his mother’s bed, and if he does not sleep on a third bed will sleep on his father’s. In the Kohima group, the boy must leave his parents’ bedroom entirely and sleep in the outer portion of the house. He begins to associate with the other boys of the village rather than with his mother.

During the whole of the first two days of the Sekrengi genna all men are kenna (under a kind of prohibition which is also a social custom.) They must eat separately, and the women may not approach them or draw water for them as they do on other days. On the fourth day of the genna, the young men put on a ceremonial dress and go to the jungle, from which they fetch in pith, sticks, and wood, from which they make gigantic reproductions in the traditional colours and types of the most prominent kind of bead necklaces worn by men. The Thekrangi genna is marked by dancing and singing on the part of the young men, boys, and girls who are unmarried or married but who have no children. This is followed by a procession around the courtyard of the house, the men carrying maithan horns of rice beer and the girls carrying leaf cups. In contrast, the procession is headed by a man holding a veteran’s spear, covered with tresses of human hair, but deprived of its iron head, for which a point of rolled plantain leaf is substituted, for fear of someone is getting injured if the iron head were retained. In the rear of the procession, one of the young men carries a pair of shield horns adorned with human tresses that are worn on warriors’ shields.

Hutton says that the Thezukepu is, in some ways, perhaps the most interesting of all the Angami genna. It is not regarded as having the importance of the Gnongi, the Terhengi, or the Titho, but the first two of these, at any rate, are not marked by nearly such intriguing details as the Thezukepu, ‘‘the Sung Mouse.”The account of it given here is the genna as observed in Jotsoma. On the eve of the first day of the Genna, the young men of the village look for a sort of field mouse called “Zukrano.” They catch one alive and place it in a section of bamboo, then put it outside the house, which serves as the Morung. After the evening meal, the young men assemble at this house and choose one of their number who is to throw the mouse. The mouse is taken from the bamboo, and its ears are bored and cotton wool put in them as though it were a man. It is then placed in the hand of the man selected to throw it away; the young men gird up their loins, and the man living in the most outlying house of the village is called to but does not leave his house. The mouse-thrower, stripped naked, then runs as fast as he can through the village, from the bottom towards the top, and outside, and throwing the mouse away down the village path tells it to go to such and such a village, naming some remote village of the Eastern Angamis, Sernas or elsewhere. The thrower is accompanied meanwhile by a dozen or so other young men, who run along with him, snatching sticks from the fences and beating upon the ground, singing and shouting to frighten away the mice. The thrower runs back to the Morung house and jumps up upon the machan used for sleeping and is not allowed to step down to earth again for twenty-four hours. Meanwhile, from the time when the man in the furthest house of the village has been called, all the older men and the women staying in their houses stamp and shout as though driving the mice out of the town, and from the moment that the first sound of this stamping and shouting is heard no one may eat or drink again that night, and those in the middle of a meal must stop it. On the following day, the village is “penna,” and no one may pick vegetables. This day is called “Thezukepu.” The next day, a pig is sacrificed, called “Reddeh," to make the rice in the houses last longer. The gennas above enumerated relate to the agricultural year, or at any rate, with the agricultural interest of the community. Other communal genes there are, however, which, though of infrequent and irregular occurrence, cannot be entirely passed over. The most significant festival among the Angami Nagas is the Hornbill Festival, which includes participation in Sekrenyi, accompanied by the grand stone-pulling ceremony in the Kohima district of Nagaland.

Marriages:

The Angamis are known to be strictly monogamous and exogamous. The marriage by a man of two sisters concurrently is forbidden, and the second marriage is usually a non-ceremonial one. There are among all Angamis two forms of marriage, one celebrated with ceremony and formality, and one without, and although both forms are equally binding and the informal marriage confers no social stigma or disability on the wife or on her issue, the ceremonial form is preferred by persons aspiring to the respect of themselves and their fellows. It entails, however, a certain amount of expense, though that is little enough, and a certain amount of formality, which is sometimes perhaps irksome.

The informal marriage consists merely of a man taking a girl to his house, where they remain kenna for one day. Where it takes place, it is usually the outcome of an intrigue between the two or is necessitated by the poverty of the parties. The ceremonial marriage is very much more formal. A man who intends to get married employs or gets his father to employ an old woman as a go-between with the girl’s parents. She makes all the arrangements and there is no intercourse between the parties. First omens are taken by strangling a fowl and watching the position assumed by its legs as it dies. If the right leg crosses over above the left the omen is good. Then both the man and the girl must note their dreams on the same night. Dreams of weeping, of excretion, or of the sexual act are bad, but if the man’s dreams have been good, the old woman goes and asks the girl what hers were like. If hers have also been good, the marriage price is discussed by the old woman with the girl’s parents. The marriage price consists normally of a spear, two pigs, and fifteen or sixteen fowls. The man will buy a spear, pigs, chickens, and keep them in his house, while the girl starts making rice beer in readiness for the ceremony. At this point in the proceedings there is frequently some delay, but when everything is satisfactorily and finally arranged, young men of the girl’s family and of her own age go on the day fixed to the bridegroom’s house and carry off, as though by force, the spear and the pigs and chickens, which they kill and eat at the bride’s house, and all the girl’s kindred go and eat and drink there. One basket is filled with small pieces of flesh ; one leg of pork is set aside ; and four or five gourds are filled with liquor and set aside. At dusk two men take this meat and drink and take their places in a procession which goes to the bridegroom’s house. This procession is thus composed ; First the bride, next one boy and three girls from among her companions, then the two men carrying meat and drink, and finally a number oi young men of the bride’s kindred and clan, singing. Inside the bridegroom’s house are the bridegroom and his parents, no one else. When the procession arrives the first seven persons mentioned as composing it go inside,but only the first five of these remain, and all talking must be in a whisper. First, the bridegroom eats of the meat and drink brought by the men, while the bride eats a little piece of liver and of rice, which she has brought with her, and drinks liquor brought by her in a little “lao” and poured into a small leaf cup likewise brought by her. Then the bridegroom’s parents eat and drink, and then the rest; after they have all eaten the bridegroom goes to the “morung” house and sits on the “machan.” Next the bridegroom’s kindred present the bride’s escort with a big fowl and give one fowl each to the two who brought the meat and drink, after which all go away to their houses except the one boy and three girls, who spend the night in the bridegroom’s house, the groom staying in the “morung.” Next morning one of the bridegroom’s kindred gives a fowl each to the boy and to the three girls. Then the bridegroom’s mother gives the bride liquor in a leaf cup, which she drinks up. The bride must not leave the house before sunrise, after which she takes a pitcher and fetches water and cooks for the household.

On this day, the household is henna, but on the following day, the bride and the bridegroom go to the fields and work together on the part given to them by the latter’s parents. They eat together in the fields. For the next three days, they are confined to their village and its lands, not allowed to visit other villages. However, after these three days, the ceremony is complete. There is usually, however, no consummation of the marriage for at least two or three months, and it is said that this is sometimes delayed for as long as a year “for shame,” during which time the bridegroom sleeps in the “morning.” In the Khonoma group, a delay of several months is typical. The marriage rites as performed by the Eastern Angamis are more elaborate.

The process of divorce is allowed and is common. The incompatibility of temperament is the chief reason. There is no ceremony. A woman, however, cannot leave her husband until more than five days after the marriage has elapsed. If she does so, her husband can keep all her property. Otherwise, the woman takes her property away with her unless she is unfaithful or decides to marry another man while under her husband’s roof, in which case she forfeits the property brought as dowry. Infidelity on the part of the man is not a ground for divorce. Still, if a man arranges to marry another woman before divorcing his wife, the latter is entitled to a cow and a dhuli of dhan as compensation. When a man wishes to take a second wife without having divorced his first wife, he must first obtain the latter’s permission. Divorced persons can marry, the ceremony being the same as that for the widowed persons.

An Average Angami Village Life as described by J.D. Hutton:

The Angami village is invariably built either on the summit of a hill, on a high saddle, or perhaps more frequently on the ridge of some spur running down from a high range. This site, though generally in a position highly defensible if not impregnable from the point of view of Naga warfare, has not been chosen with a knowledge of the weapons of civilisation, and could usually be easily commanded by firearms from some adjoining peak or ridge. The name given to the village is not infrequently ascribed to some local feature. Thus, Kwiinoma (Khonoma) are the men of the “Kwiino” trees, many of which are said to have been cleared from the site selected when the village was first built; Setikima is named after an ancient pipal tree, now dead, which crowned the peak of the hill on which the town stands, and great reverence is still paid to the successor of the original tree. Some villages owe their names to some incident in their history. The arrangement of the houses in an Angami village is irregular. Often, as in the Serna, and differing from the Lhota village, homes are built here and there, facing in every direction and at all levels to suit the lie of the land or the builders' preferences. There is, it is true, a theory that the Angami house faces, or should face, east, and on the assumption that it does so, the west is called “Kisatsa,” meaning the side behind the house. A noticeable feature of Angami villages is the presence of sitting-out places. These were originally, it may be supposed, lookouts from which a watcher might describe the approach of possible enemies, but they are, nowadays at any rate, frequently so constructed as to be useless for such a purpose. The most striking difference between the Angamis and their neighbours on the north is their cultivation of wet rice. While the Lhotas, Sernas, Aos, and trans-Dikhu and trans-Tizu tribes cultivate only by jhuming’’ (that is, by clearing land and growing crops on it for two years and then allowing it to return to jungle), the Angami has an elaborate system of terracing and irrigation by which he turns the steepest hillsides into flooded rice-fields. In dealing with his cultivation, this terraced cultivation and “jhuming’’ must be treated separately. All the Angamis, however, do not practise this wet cultivation, as the Chakroma Angamis living nearer to the plains have so much jhum land that they can live on this alone, and good jhum land, cleared once in twelve or fifteen years, say, is said to produce a better crop than the ‘‘panikhets ’’ or terraced fields. The rainfall in the Angami country is hefty, and many terraced fields can, if necessary, be flooded at almost any time of the year. These are usually the most valuable lands. On the other hand, of course, many fields cannot be flooded at will, and a spring drought or dry spring winds lasting longer than usual may cause a delay in flooding terraces, which considerably impairs crop yield. Water is, of course, regarded as property and very valuable property. The first person to dig a channel tapping into a new stream acquires the right to the water drawn from the water channel, to the exclusion of anyone else wishing to tap the stream higher up. However, there are specific large streams like the Siju, which are regarded as common property and in the water of which no right can be established. In addition to the main crop, whether rice or millet, other crops of an incidental nature are generally grown in small quantities and sprinkled here and there among the main crops. Little lines of Job’s tears, or occasional stalks of maise (when these do not constitute the principal crop), “menitessa,” beans, oil seeds, gourds, cucumbers, chillies, spinaches, mustard, “kachu,” etc., may be found scattered about, particularly near the field-houses or near the machans built on the hillside to scare the birds, and along the edges of the fields. Cotton and a species of jute are used to make coarse cloth in patches in some villages. Of what might be called natural crops, the principal is thatching grass, which is, in some villages with little jhum land, of great importance. It is protected from damage and encroachment but not otherwise cultivated and is usually village or clan property.

Food:

The staple food of the Angami may fairly be said to be rice, but meat plays a much more critical part in the Angami menu than it does in that of the rice-eating peoples of the plains. Meals are generally taken three times a day — in the early morning, at midday, and in the evening, but snacks are frequently taken in between, while zu is drunk all day long. When going to work, the midday meal is wrapped up in plantain leaf and eaten in the fields. Before a meal, a man frequently rinses his hands in water, but this is by no means invariably done.

There are very few sorts of meat that the Angami will not eat. J.D. Hutton writes that beef, pork, and chicken are, no doubt, his commonest meat foods, and these are supplemented by mithan and dog on occasion and even by cats, while all wild animals and birds are eaten, even crows. Kites and hawks are esteemed as a delicacy (their flesh is said to be ‘‘very sweet.”) The idea that the properties of animals eaten are liable to pass to the eater is the cause of specific flesh being genna to young men — for instance, the old men eat the flesh of a black forktail with a white head, but never touched by the young men for fear that they will become prematurely bald if they eat it. It is possible that the same idea partly underlies the prohibition of tigers’ and leopards’ flesh, which women may never eat.

When cooking, meat and vegetables are usually cooked together, while the rice is cooked separately. Millet and Job’s tears, though forming the staple food of many Nagas in cold and high ranges, are seldom used by the Angami except for making rice beer. Chillies form an indispensable ingredient in every Angami meal and are cooked together with the meat and vegetables. Of the latter, the principal ones cultivated are beans of one or two different varieties, usually climbers, tomatoes, a variety of spinach, “karela,” and pumpkins, of which the young leaves as well as the fruit are eaten. Gourds are grown principally as utensils, but are also sometimes eaten. A very large number of wild plants are used as vegetables — various species of wild spinach, the leaves of the wild ‘‘karela,” wild yams, which are largely eaten in times of scarcity, though, thanks to the terraced rice fields, scarcity is seldom felt in the Angami country, wild turmeric, sorrel, nettle-tops, ginger, and many varieties of ferns and fungoids. The Naga palate delights in this sort of heat, and an Angami may often be seen chewing chillies or raw ginger root for pleasure. Pickled bamboo is also very popular. It is made by cutting up and pounding the young shoots of the bamboo. These are then steeped by being placed in a basket, weighted with stones, and drenched with water (which is drawn off and consumed as vinegar). Finally, they are spread out to dry. The pickling process is then complete, and the product can be cooked with curry or eaten raw. All day, between meals, when he is not at work in the fields or out hunting, the Angami eats appetisers and thirst-quenchers made from Naga beans roasted or boiled and mixed with salt and an inordinate number of chillies.

The most famous drink among the Angami Nagas is a variety of rice beer. it is almost the staple article of consumption, the staff of life, and might be reckoned more appropriately as food rather than drink, only if it were so classified there would scarcely be anything left that could be called drink, as the Angami only drinks water in the last resort.“ Modhu,” or rice beer (zu), is of three varieties, “ pita modhu,” called in Angami zu-thoh (= “liquor proper’’),“ rohi ” (dzii-zu), and “ Saka modhu ” (zn-tseh).

The Angamis, except perhaps the Chakroma, appear to have limited knowledge of poisons. However, some of the Dayang Valley Sernas and the Lhotas are familiar with certain poisonous plants, which jealous wives may sometimes use. The only narcotic known is tobacco. The leaf is half-dried, pounded, or stamped, and then dried again. It is typically chewed in Western Angami villages, while the eastern villages smoke it with water. Each man uses his pipe, though one man will pass his pipe to another for a pull or two. The bowl is made of a softish grey stone found in several localities, while the rest of the pipe is made of bamboo. The pipe is composed of four parts, with the bowl fitting snugly into a bamboo holder, which in turn fits tightly into a bamboo water vessel. The smoke is carried down from the bowl into the water by a bamboo tube. When the water is sufficiently foul, it is poured off into a bamboo phial, which is tucked into the waist belt. Sips of this abomination are taken from time to time when on the march or in the fields when smoking is out of the question. Plain pipes of bamboo consisting merely of a bowl and a stem in one piece are also used. Cheap cigarettes are prevalent everywhere.

Dress and Ornaments:

At the heart of the Angami man's traditional garb lies the Neitho, a masterfully woven garment that envelops the lower body with elegance. This ingenious creation, often embellished with cowrie shells, boasts an intricate system of symbolism, wherein the number of horizontal lines adorning the Neitho signifies the wearer's stature within the community. A Neitho adorned with four lines of cowrie shells, for instance, proudly proclaims the wearer's valour in battle. Complementing the Neitho is the Terha, a vibrant sash that wraps around the torso, its multi-coloured lozenge patterns a dazzling spectacle. This resplendent accessory is often paired with matching arm bands, crafted from red-dyed cane, and adorned with yellow orchid motifs, as well as armlets fashioned from ivory or animal bones. During the joyous celebrations of Sekrenyi, the harvest festival, Angami men don a ceremonial headdress of breathtaking beauty, replete with bamboo spikes, cockerel feathers, and colourful threads.

In stark contrast, the traditional attire of Angami women is a masterclass in understated elegance. The Loramhoushu, a pristine white wrap-around skirt, is secured at the waist by four black marginal bands adorned with delicate pink or red accents. Beneath this flowing garment, women wear the Neikhro, a modest undergarment that provides additional coverage. For everyday attire, Angami women favour the practical Lohe suit, its black fabric punctuated by vibrant red and green stripes.

The Angami people's reverence for their traditional attire is palpable, each element imbued with a profound significance that transcends mere aesthetics. As they adorn themselves in these resplendent garments, they not only honour their ancestors but also reaffirm their connection to a rich cultural heritage that continues to thrive in the face of an ever-changing world.