Contributions to the craniology of the people of the empire of India / by Sir Wm. Turner.

  • Turner, Wm. (William), Sir, 1832-1916.
Date:
1899-1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Contributions to the craniology of the people of the empire of India / by Sir Wm. Turner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Neither Niigas nor Kukis drink milk, which they look upon as an excrement.* Their native weapons are bows, spears and poisoned arrows ; the poison is said to be aconite. They are now using guns, and employ urine and feces in the manufacture of gun- powder. They are demon worshippers. They seem to have slaves, and in both the Ndga and Kuki villages there are head-men or village elders, though in theory all the men are equal. Both Nhgds and Kukis make very good coolies, but the Ndga is preferred, as he is both cheerful and enduring.” “ In the Nao;a houses the wall of the front room facino- the entrance is decorated with the heads and bones of the animals killed for food and in the chase. Heads or horns of the Sambre deer, mithan buffalo, pig, barking deer, bear, dog, porcupine, and capricorn were recognised. Outside the entrance of the house of a head-man a small o-rove of dead trees is sometimes seen. Each tree sio-nifies a bis; feast, the trees being set up as monuments of the head-man’s hospitality. They are also used incidentally for the growth of orchids. The Kukis do not set up monuments of dead trees, but they fix tro])hies of the skulls and horns of animals at the entrance to their houses.! A Kuki warrior therefore can point to the human skulls in his house as evidence of his cunning and bravery as a head hunter, and to the crania of the large mammals as testifying to his success in the chase and to his hospitality.” “ The Nagas shave the head, but leave a crest of hair in the middle of the crown from front to back, which ends in a lock hanging down behind. The Kukis do not shave the head. Neither they nor the Nfigas have hair on the face. The Tonkal Nagas wear a ring made of bone, or ivory, or porcelain, around the middle of the penis, and it appears to be a mark of bad manners to appear without the ring.” When the expedition occupied the Kuki village of Mougham some recent scalps were noticed on a tree near the chief’s house in the highest part of the village. On examining them more closely they were seen to consist not only of the scalp but of part of the skull, the top of which had been cut oft’ and the bone pierced with a spear. They were trophies of the raid on the Nhga village of Swemi. The Political Agent told Dr Wright that in the Naga villages the young men sleep together in a house of their own, but he is not sure if a similar arrangement is provided for the young women, though he thinks that it is so.| The skulls of the Tonkal Nao;as were all from adults, thoimh one was aojed, and in two specimens the upper wisdoms were not erupted. Six were without * Miss Mary H. Kingsley {Travels in West Africa, p. 451, London, 1897) states that the ITest Coast Africans have a horror of the idea of drinking milk, and hold it as a filthy habit. t In some of the Pacific Islands, as in the Solomon group, human skulls and those of pigs, dogs, and dugongs are preserved in and around the Tambu house, and the practice of preserving and decorating the skulls of relatives and enemies alongside of the skulls of animals prevails extensively in New Guinea. J The custom of providing a separate sleeping house in each village for all the unmarried girls and another for all the young men prevails generally amongst the races to the north-east and south of Assam (S. E. Peal in Journal Asiatic Soc., Bengal, vol. lii. part ii., 1883). A similar practice also exists amongst the Khonds, a hill tribe in the Indian peninsula (E. W. Frazer, Silent Gods and Sun-Steeped Lands, London, 1895). It is also the custom with some of the tribes in New Guinea and other islands in Polynesia.