Note 12 — INTRODUCTION

First of all we have the Naga traditions of origin themselves, indicating, as one would expect to find, almost all the points of the compass. From Tamlu northwards there are the various Konyak tribes, whose traditions of origin at least include an ascription of their origin to the hills to the north and to migration from the plains in the west or north-west as well, though others, perhaps with Singpho affinities, reached their present country from the north-east, while one or two Konyak villages, indistinguishable from the Konyaks generally in culture, claim an origin from the country to the south of them at present occupied by Aos. Like the Konyaks, the Aos claim a part origin from the plains to the north-west, though the bulk of the tribe claims an autochthonous source at Chongliemdi.12 The Khoirao again, or some of them, for the Khoirao Naga villages are hardly uniform enough to be described as forming a tribe, claim a western origin from the plains of Assam, and this in particular is the case with Ngari and perhaps one or two neighbouring villages, who have been less affected by Memi Angami culture than the others, and of whose connection with the Semas there can be no doubt. The Semas trace their origin to the south, and may certainly be connected through the two villages called “Swemi” (one of which is still Sema though surrounded by Angamis) with the Khoiraos of Ngari and so with a western origin;13 while a connection is to be traced between the Sema with this western origin, and the Kacharis, Garos, Lynngams and Bhois. The same probably applies to the Kezami-Angamis, though the infusion of Angami blood and culture has swamped the Sema characteristics. It is to be noted that Grierson classes the Khoirao language as Naga-Bodo, and Kacharis, while allowing Nagas, or at any rate Kacha Nagas, to eat and sleep in the porches of their houses, refuse to allow Kukis inside them at all, giving as their reason for this that the Kacharis and the Nagas were originally descended from two brothers, whereas the Kuki is an alien entirely. Possibly there may also be some connection between certain elements of these Bodo tribes and the Manö and Southern Brè tribes of the Karens in Burma. At the same time the Semas have absorbed numerous villages of Sangtams who trace their origin to the south or south-east, the Southern Sangtams putting it ultimately in Burma.