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The Lhota Nagas

Chapter 22: Games.
By J. P. Mills
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Archaeology & Anthropology

About This Book

The author provides an ethnographic account of a Naga hill tribe, documenting settlement patterns, defensive works such as ridgetop sites, ditches, palisades and night gates, village-naming practices tied to landscape and incidents, paths and bridge construction linking villages, and the internal layout of long-street villages with communal ritual stones and household arrangements. The book describes social life including pig and cattle rearing, domestic sanitation practices, ceremonial observances for the dead, mechanisms of inter-village warfare and alliances, and material culture such as tools, bridges and housing, based on several years' residence and local informants.

[Contents]

Games.

Wrestling and running are not much indulged in, but both high jump (untsongeyen) and long jump (eyenda) are popular. For the former the competitors run straight at the jump and clear it with their feet together, the “scissor” style of jumping being unknown. A good jumper can clear a reed the height of his own chin. For the long jump a flat stone is put in position to take off from, and the mark which counts is that made by the jumper’s feet in landing, whether he falls backwards or not. For the “jump-and-kick” [83](nshü) the jumper makes a standing jump and while in the air kicks with both feet together at some mark such as a leaf stuck on the end of an upright spear. It is quite common for a man to be able to kick a mark as high above his head as he can reach with his hand. A variety of this (choa­nshü) is one in which the jumper takes a standing jump from one leg and kicks the mark with the foot from which he jumped—a most difficult feat. Putting the weight (olungeyen) is done either with one hand in the English manner or with both hands from above the head.

A game called khurocho in which sides are taken is played with seeds like big flat chestnuts obtained from the large bean-like pods of the sword bean (khuro). These seeds are also the Lhota substitute for soap. The game is played at sowing time on coming back to the village in the evening. There are generally three or four players a side, though there may be as many as seven or eight. A number of seeds equal to the number of players on each side are set up on edge in a row with their edges touching. About three yards from them and parallel to them a line called epfu37 is scratched on the ground. A yard behind epfu another line called esi is marked, and behind that at intervals of a yard two more lines called sichemo and sikao. Each side has an innings in turn, while the other side puts back the seeds which are knocked out of place. Each member of the side which is in throws at the line in turn with another seed and tries to knock away every seed in the line. The first throws from epfu, and if some member succeeds in knocking away all the seeds in the line, the side moves back to esi and throws from there, and so on to sikao, from which it works back to sichemo, esi and epfu and begins again, till it happens that no one in the side succeeds in knocking away all the seeds, when the side is out and the other side comes in. A seed is not counted as knocked out unless it is knocked at least a cubit from the line of seeds. The thrower may stride forward as far as he likes provided his back foot is on the line from which his side is throwing. This [84]game appears to resemble that known among the Manipuris as kang.38

A game also called khurocho, but entirely different though the same seeds are used, is played in Yimpang and seems to be peculiar to that village.39 The players are usually two a side. The seeds are laid in pairs one on the top of another in two converging lines meeting in an apex about two yards from the mark at which the spinner squats. The player holds a seed in the palm of his left hand and with a flick of his right forefinger spins it at the lines of seeds. The object is to knock as many of the top seeds off as possible. If a bottom seed of a pair is knocked out of place it counts as a miss. One side uses one line and the other the other for scoring their points, which is done with a bit of wood laid between the pairs to mark the number of top seeds knocked off by that side. It does not matter from which line they are knocked off, though the spinner must hit one or both of the two pairs nearest him, and not break the line in the middle. Whichever side is able to move its mark up from the bottom to the top of a line first wins.

Tops (phiro) shaped like double cones are made of hard wood. The string is wound round one cone and the end held in the fingers. The top is then thrown either underhand or overhand and the string jerked back while it is still in the air. The object is to knock over someone else’s top which is already spinning. Tops are spun at and just after sowing time. The Changs attach some special significance to top-spinning. All indulge in the sport at and just after sowing, but a man who spins a top at any other time is fined by his fellow-villagers. Lhotas inflict no fine, but the custom is that tops should be spun only at the time mentioned. Another game, if game it can be called, is a competition to see who can eat most fat pork and salt. Toys are unknown, though little boys carry miniature bamboo spears in imitation of their fathers, and little girls [85]carry sticks or stones wrapped in a cloth on their backs as mother carries the baby. Notches are often cut on the edges of the beds in the champo, and little boys play a game (ekhirandhapen) in which they say, “bom, bom,” as they touch each notch, beginning at the end of the line, the object being to see how far you can get without taking a fresh breath.