The Sema Nagas

ISBN: 9781331920199 出版年：2016 页码：577 J H Hutton Forgotten Books

The Sema tribe with which this monograph deals is one of the many Naga tribes inhabiting the hills between Assam and Burma. This area has been subjected to emigration from at least three directions — from the north-east, whence came the Tai races; from the north-west, whence came the Singphos, Kacharis, and Garos, among others, and from the south, as the Angami Nagas at any rate came to their present country from that direction, while a migration from the south northwards on the part of the Thado Kukis and Lusheis has barely ceased even now. The Semas, like other Naga tribes, probably contain elements from all these migra tions. The account of the Semas given in this book has been compiled at Mokokchung and at Kohima in the Naga Hills, during an eight years' acquaintance with them, during which I have learnt to speak the language fairly fluently and have been brought into contact with the life of the individual, the family, and the community more or less continuously and from many angles. For there is hardly any point of tribal custom which is not sooner or later somehow drawn into one of the innumerable disputes which the local Officer in the Naga Hills is called upon to settle, and it is my experiences in this way which constitute my credentials in writing this volume.