Note 9 — LAWS AND CUSTOMS

In the case of disputes within the village both sides are summoned before the elders, and what sounds like the prelude to a free fight takes place. Both the parties, all the witnesses, and most of the spectators talk at once at the top of their voices. However, after much shaking of fists and stamping, and solemn affirmations from the one side that they will never pay such a big fine, and from the other that they will never accept such a small one, a settlement is arrived at. Each side goes in company with the elders to the other’s house and drinks “madhu” and promises not to quarrel again. This is regarded as binding. In the old days if one party would not pay the fine agreed on, the other party simply went and looted his property and took it. Nowadays cases which cannot be settled in the village are dealt with in court. Before the Hills were administered, murder was punished either by turning the murderer out of the village or by taking the whole of his property and dividing it among the rest of the village other than the clan of the murdered man, who could not touch any of it. In no case could any relations of the murdered man ever eat with the murderer. If they did their teeth would fall out. Nor would the descendants of either side eat together. This breach can never be healed, and there are still families who cannot eat together.9 For adultery the guilty man had to hand over to the husband’s and woman’s families all his clothes and personal ornaments and a cow or a large pig. The husband could not himself take any of this fine, for it was the price of his wife’s immorality. A clear distinction is drawn between adultery by a man of the husband’s clan and adultery by a man of another clan. The former offence is often condoned on the guilty party promising not to repeat it, but a fine is invariably demanded for the latter offence. A thief had to return the goods in full, or their equivalent, to the owner, and pay a large pig or a cow to his clan. If he could not pay up he was sold as a slave. No punishments other than fining or selling into slavery or expulsion from the village were inflicted on fellow-villagers. But a man of another village who broke a village emung was put in the stocks and had to be ransomed by his friends. Naga justice was decidedly crude. The elders accepted “presents” freely from both sides and then favoured the most influential party. There once lived a famous judge in the Ao village of Ungma who openly amassed a considerable fortune from “presents.” Yet people came to him from all over the Ao country, and he died universally respected and is still regarded by the Aos as a model judge. His reputation chiefly rests on the fact that none of his decisions were ever questioned! Hardly believing that this could be due to their justice, the writer inquired the reason, and found that Ungma had sworn that whosoever questioned the decisions of their beloved judge, his village should be raided. Ungma being the biggest Ao village, this threat effectively stifled criticism. Troublesome children are sometimes punished by being whipped across the stomach with nettles, or by having a nettle put in their ears instead of a flower.