Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/346

308 oaths upon a single person. The members of his family in ordinary matters, of his clan in more serious cases, and in extreme matters of the whole village, were rendered liable to the penalty invoked in the imprecation which forms so important and characteristic a part of the Nāga oath. I did but follow their own custom, often at their own suggestion.

I find that we may estimate the importance of any event that takes place in the midst of Nāga communities in terms of genna. First, I consider the social unit affected by the genna appropriate to the particular occasion, and then I reckon the duration and intensity of the genna in question. My method may not be strictly scientific, but it does at least employ a standard measure of the country. By this method we must place birth gennas rather low in the scale. It costs less to be born than to be buried all the world over. We can carry our classification of birth gennas to some degree of accuracy, for it is usual to hold a genna on the birth of the young of any domestic animal in the house. The scale has been worked out elaborately in one village, Mayong-khong, where I learnt that chickens got one day, kittens and puppies two days, pigs three days, and calves five days. Only the eldest child gets as much as a calf, while the second and other children only rank with the pigs. Elsewhere the scale is kinder to man, for at Maikel the eldest child gets a genna for a month, and the second one for fifteen days, while a calf gets five days, and puppies and pigs only have one day. It is often usual to vary the genna according to the sex of the child, allowing a day longer to a boy than to a girl. Only the parents are affected by the birth genna, a fact of some importance as proving that the community as a whole does not recognise any direct interest in the event. What is also of interest is that, as among the Tangkhuls, the father is genna for a longer time than the mother, and that the gennas are stricter in his case than for his wife. He may not work, and the solace of a pipe. is