Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/575



few tales I propose to read to you to-night were written down for me in their native language and also in English by the boys of the Ukhrul Mission School. Before I give you the tales I had better tell you something about the Tangkhuls and where they live. Their habitat is the range of hills separating the valleys of Manipur and the Chindwin. Manipur is a small independent state—a perfect comic opera state; but if I once start on the humours and joys of life in that very beautiful corner of the world I shall never get on the Tangkhuls. As to who the Tangkhuls are it is more difficult to say. Sir G. Grierson classes their language, or I should say languages, for there are many dialects which differ greatly, as one of the Naga-Kuki sub-group of the Naga group; but to the ordinary man who visits Manipur the Tangkhuls would be remembered by their method of haircutting: yet all Tangkhuls do not conform in this matter. Then there is the wearing of the ring, but that is not universal among Tangkhuls, and it is worn by some who are not recognised as Tangkhuls. Yet among the people themselves there is never any doubt as to who are Tangkhuls.

Although each of the many tribes in this happy hunting-ground of the student of ethnology and folk-lore declares itself separate and distinct from every other, and though each has its individual peculiarities and mentality, which a governor must study and take into account if he wish to