Note 44 — INTRODUCTION

To return to the Lhotas, this tribe is divided into three phratries—the Tompyaktserre, the Izumontserre and the Mipongsandre, meaning respectively “Forehead-clearing men,”44 “Scattered men” and “Fire-smoke-conquering men.” The expression “Forehead-clearing men” I do not attempt to explain,45 but the phratry corresponds to the Angami Kepepfüma, which I have taken to represent the weaker but more civilized section of the southern immigrants. Among the Lhotas it is to be noticed that this phratry is the superior. Among the Angamis it is the inferior, with the tradition, however, that it was once the elder. Its women are addressed by their children as Apfü (Angami) or Apfu (Lhota). The Lhotas, however, have no terraced cultivation. The clans of the “Scattered-men” phratry use oyo for mother in some cases, opfu in others, but oyo predominating on the whole; but the name suggests a tribe of very different habits to the community-loving Naga, and would better suit a people like the Kacharis or Garos, living in small moving settlements and perpetually shifting from one place to another, a few houses at a time. In the “Fire-smoke-conquering-men,” so called from the villages they burnt in warfare, one may see the influence of the more barbarous element of the (? southern) invaders, and the bulk of this phratry uses ayo for “mother” like the Kepezoma of the Angamis.46