I34 THE NON-LUSHEI CLANS CHAP.

dyed cotton thread, women's cloths, (Sec., and much zu.
Compare the account of the Fanai She~doi, p. 136 et seq. below.

Xoihrui-an-chhat (They Break the Koi Creeper).— A party of
young men, being supplied with hard-boiled eggs and fowl's
flesh, go off into the j ungle equipped with bows and arrows. On
the third day they return with the heads of some animals—for
choice those of the " tangkawng," a large lizard—and also a long
piece of the creeper from which the Koi beans (u Chap.
II, para. 18) are obtained. They are received with all the
honours paid to warriors returning from a successful raid, and a
tug of war with the creeper takes place between the young men
and the maidens. The heads of the animals are then placed in
the centre of the village, and dancing, singing, and drinking
go on round them all night, no young man or girl being
allowed to go inside a house till daybreak, when the whole
party adjourns to the house of a member of the Ohonghoiyi-hring
family—i.e., a descendant of one born at Ohonghoiyi—and after
further libations they disperse.

It is quite clear that this feast commemorates the victory of
Lalmanga over Ngaia—compare the account of the reception
of a raiding party given in Part I., Chap. Ill, para. 9. The
use of bows and arrows is an interesting survival.

The tug of war with the creeper is found among the Old
Kuki clans as one of the incidents of the spring festival, and in
the Manipuri chronicle we find references to such amusements
being indulged in. The Ngente evidently combined the play,
intended to keep green the memories of their ancestor, with
the usual ceremonies of the spring festival.1

The Ngente do not practise the Khal sacrifices.

Language.—In the Linguistic Survey Dr. Grierson gives a
translation of the parable of the Prodigal Son in the Ngente
dialect supplied him by Mr. Drake-Brockman, and sums up his
description of the dialect as follows:—" But in all essential
points both (i.e., Ngente and Lushei) agree, and the differ-
ence is much smaller than between dialects in connected
languages."

Paotu. A very insignificant clan, of which I have found only one
family. The clan formerly lived on a hill north of the Tao

1 Cf. "Manipur Festival," Folklore, Vol. XXI, No. I