Note 14 — INTRODUCTION

Their immediate origin several tribes place in the south. The Rengmas thus migrated from the Kezami-Angami country, throwing out the Naked Rengmas eastwards to Melomi, and ultimately sending the bigger portion of the tribe westwards to the Mikir Hills. Tangkhuls point to the south or to the east, Lhotas to the south with Rengmas and Angamis, though there is one element in the Lhota country that points very definitely to the snows of the Himalayas seen far to the north-west as the home of their ancestors. All Naga tribes also have legends of clans descended from indigenous women out of caves or wild men caught in the jungle and tamed, whose descendants are now no longer distinguishable except by this tradition from the rest of the tribe. Thus there are many Lhota clans usually described as descended from jungle “spirits”14 captured by men of their tribe; the Phoms have a clan descended from a woman with a child who emerged from a cave when they occupied the country; the Angamis of Kohima have a clan descended from a far-distant ancestor “of the wood-cutting generation” who was caught in the forest and tamed by one of the earliest Angami occupants of Kohima village.