Note 40 — INTRODUCTION

Such are the more outstanding facts of the case, and it is almost superfluous to state the more obvious conclusions to be drawn from them, that no Naga tribe is of pure blood, but the area which they inhabit has been the scene of a series of immigrations from north-east, north-west and south, and that the different stocks introduced in this way have entered into their composition.40 Indeed, in view of the struggles that have taken place for the fertile plains of Burma to the east and India to the west, it is inevitable that some elements of the races worsted in these struggles should have been pushed up into the hills. In particular the line of the Dikhu and the Ti-Ho rivers would seem to mark more or less the point of contact between movements southward from the north and northward from the south, roughly marking as it does, except indeed for the Ao tribe, the line south of which dead are always buried,41 and also the marked cleavage between the languages of the Western Nagas and of the North-eastern Nagas, the latter bearing more resemblance perhaps to those of the Kukis in the south than to those of their immediate neighbours. The immigration of Singpho elements from the north and Tai elements from the east are absolutely clear.