This book provides an in-depth examination of the Ao Naga tribe of Assam, exploring their rich cultural heritage, traditional customs, and social structures. It delves into their rituals, folklore, and the impact of modern influences on their community, offering a comprehensive snapshot of the Ao Naga's enduring legacy.
William Carlson Smith was an influential scholar known for his comprehensive studies on racial and ethnic relations. His work primarily focused on the socio-economic impacts of racial discrimination and integration strategies in diverse societies. Smith's research has been instrumental in shaping public policy and academic discourse on multiculturalism.
ACCORDING to the proverb, "It never rains but it pours," and though we have waited long for a monograph on the Ao Nagas, yet while Professor Smith's manuscript was first in my hands, the manuscripts of two other treatises passed, or were passing, through them. Each of the three contained material absent from the other two, and all were written from different points of view. The author of one was a Hindu doctor, of another a British official, of this, the third, an American sociologist, who had been a missionary in the Ao country. The first-mentioned of these three manuscripts, a short account of the Aos by Dr. Surendra Nath Majumdar, M.B., has, I hope, already been published in India during my absence on furlough.1 The longest of the three, a most exhaustive and authoritative account of the tribe by Mr. J. P. Mills, is just nearing completion as Professor Smith's monograph goes to press.
While it is to Mr. Mills' work that we shall ultimately turn for a detailed account of the customs and beliefs of the Ao tribe, the importance of Professor Smith's work is firstly the comparative point of view from which he has approached his subject, and more particularly in his treatment of the sociological problem which the acculturation of the Ao tribe presents. Although up to now no one of the monographs published by the Government of Assam has attempted to throw much light on the subject of acculturation, there can be no question but that the greatest service which an anthropological study of a "backward" tribe can perform for the people studied is to aid officials and educationalists in the measures to be taken and to be avoided when the tribe in question has to be brought into any scheme of modern administration.
The cynical view that in any case it matters little what is done, since an uncultured people is sure to perish when brought into sudden and intimate contact with civilization, is scarcely more disastrous than the view that whatever is regarded as good by or for the human product of the latter-day West must ipso facto be good for a pre-literate folk accustomed to totally different conditions of life, and must therefore be thrust upon them as quickly as possible. Captain Hobart, in a witty paper on "Psychology and Ethnology," 1 which is full of value to the practical anthropologist, touches on the evils wrought by the two schools of thought, which he describes as the "damn' nigger" school and the "little brown brother" school, and the latter school he regards as the "more insidious because it is kinder in intention." Any treatment of the question, therefore, which is likely to help us to guard against causing unforeseen evils, of which we cannot know, by our groping attempts to remedy those we think we see, is of the greatest value to us, and still more to the tribes whom we are trying to benefit. It is in this respect, as it seems to me, that Professor Smith's monograph is of most value. We are too apt to blunder in like fools where we should tread, if at all, in an angelic fear of the results our most cautious ministrations may produce, and this volume contains 2 materials to show us something of the nature of a problem the very existence of which has in the past been all too little recognized.
IT was the writer's privilege to spend some time in the Naga Hills District of Assam, where he was connected with the Mission Training School for the Ao Nagas at Impur. Practically all of his first year's residence was devoted to language study in preparation for school work. It was not long before it became evident to him that in learning an Oriental language it was not sufficient to learn the meanings of disconnected words from a dictionary; neither would some well-formed sentences suffice. Since language is essentially an instrumentality for the expression of thought, it becomes necessary to go back of the vehicle to the idea which the word seeks to convey. We must know some-thing about the social experiences which have given a meaning to the particular form; in short, in learning a Naga language it is necessary to try to "think Naga."
The best way to learn a language like this is through a study of the customs, traditions, superstitions and beliefs of the people; these are the real things which seek to express themselves, and without an understanding of these the words cannot convey their real import.
A knowledge of native customs and beliefs throws light upon many expressions which otherwise would be dark sayings. Aksu is a tax levied on the people of a village. When we analyse the word, it means "dead hog," and we wonder what might be the relationship existing between a tax and a "dead hog." But when we learn that it is customary for a village to provide a feast of pork for visitors who come from other villages, and that each household in the village is assessed to defray the expenses, then the meaning becomes clear. Motongtaker is the word for cholera.
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