Among the Headhunters

by Robert Lyman

  So ended what Mills was to describe as “one of the most exciting battles there has ever been in the Naga hills.” He wrote in his report, “It was only the skill and coolness of Major Williams and his force that enabled us to make a safe withdrawal to Noklak without losing a man and after inflicting losses on the enemy, whom ground and cover enabled to charge to within 50 yards before they were stopped.” The Pangsha Nagas admitted to losing five killed in the battle. No attempt appears to have been made to evaluate this number: by the accounts of those who were there, the Pangsha estimate appears remarkably low and almost certainly a fabrication. It may have been concocted to minimize the extent of its military humiliation, a devastating blow for a once proud and seemingly invulnerable village chastened under the disciplined Lee-Enfield and Lewis fire of well-drilled sepoys. Hilaire Belloc had been right.

  Once safely behind the village’s formidable defenses the men were able to relax for the first time since setting out for Pangsha the morning before. Noklak men had greeted the returning force with the traditional cups of zu to celebrate the homecoming of warriors from battle. Perhaps, mused the Viennese anthropologist, they were quietly happy that their traditional rivals had been humbled so decisively. Smoke still straggled skyward from Pangsha, easily visible from Noklak on the far side of the valley. Mills was careful to observe that the women and children remained out of sight, a sure sign that Noklak didn’t fully trust its visitors. The locals were concerned, no doubt, that what had happened to Pangsha might well happen to them if they stepped out of line.

  With the adrenaline of the withdrawal rapidly subsiding, Fürer-Haimendorf and Mills took the opportunity to examine Noklak. It was, and remains, one of the largest villages in the eastern Naga Hills, a long, thin aggregation of houses sitting astride the entire ridge that forms the western valley through which runs the Langnyu River. It was densely packed, as though each stilted house were trying to force its way ahead of its fellows for the right to sit at the highest point of the ridge. It was the architectural expression of fear, the people wanting to be as far from the dangerous lowlands as they possibly could get, each straining for the protection of the high ground. What constituted the main street ran along the top of the hill. Unusually, the roofs were constructed mainly of slate rather than the more common woven banana leaf, although the morung in the center of the village, outside which was a large stone circle where the menfolk would gather to talk, was built of traditional woven material. The defenses—entirely unlike those of Pangsha—were formidable, with a double layer of outer wall built from thorny palm, in the middle of which was packed impenetrable brush. Fürer-Haimendorf observed that the thickest defenses were reserved for the area facing off against Panso. A narrow path wound its way between the two walls to allow access to the village, which at the point of entrance, opposite the morung, was guarded by a thick wooden gate common to most Naga villages.

  Sightseeing over, the men were guided to the temporary encampment prepared for the column, where the remainder of the expedition had been safely ensconced since the previous evening, awaiting the raiders’ return. Exhaustion set in as the adrenaline of the fight and the physical exertion entailed in running uphill for eight miles to reach the relative safety of Noklak hit home. Fürer-Haimendorf was so tired that he struggled to put one foot ahead of the other. They all took to their camp beds for a rest, out of the beating sun, with considerable gratitude.

  Late in the afternoon a flurry of activity was observed outside the stockade, and the guards brought some surprising news. At the gate were some men of Ponyo who wanted to parley. Ponyo was a village known to exist on the eastern slopes of the Patkoi Range, in Burma, but no white man had ever visited it.a It was known to be in cahoots with Pangsha and ruled the entire territory between the Patkois and the Chindwin. There were slight differences in dress and in appearance from those of the villagers living on the western side of the hills, which excited Fürer-Haimendorf’s anthropological instincts; for example, the men of Ponyo wore their hair tied at the back in a ponytail. It was not immediately clear why they had made their way to Noklak, but Mills invited them in to talk, welcoming them with zu. Perhaps they wanted to act as brokers between the government column and Pangsha?

  Ponyo’s location is N 26°21′4″, E 95°16′30″.

  As the zu was drained and the men relaxed, it became apparent that they had been in Pangsha that day after the fighting and reported that five Pangsha men had been killed and many more had been wounded. They had instructions from Pangsha to parley and appeared to have traveled to Noklak to get a closer view of these people who had humbled the mightiest village in the area. Mills decided to use the visit to his advantage and asked the Ponyo emissaries to go back to Pangsha and invite its leaders to Chingmei on the day after the next for talks. He instructed them to say that he wanted peace but that a precondition was the release of the last remaining slave girl, whom they were to bring with them. If they were unwilling to acquiesce, he would be forced to consider further action. The Pangsha delegates would be provided with a safe passage to Chingmei if they came with peaceful intent and were determined to hand over the slave girl as instructed.

  Sunday, November 29, saw the expedition bid farewell to Noklak—despite the government’s victory, the citizens were relieved to be rid of their uninvited guests but careful nevertheless to show wary politeness at all times—and begin to wind its way to the more certain welcome of Chingmei. “It was a long and rather beastly march to get here, the path like the side of a house,” Mills wrote to Pamela. They were all now “sick of climbing up and down hills,” but the welcome they received in Chingmei more than made up for the exhaustion of the trail. Chingmak and his sons, Sangbah and Tangbang, as well as the portion of the column that had stayed at the Chingmei stockade to serve as the base camp, greeted them as returning conquerors. Chingmak would have been relieved that his British ally had been triumphant and had avoided humiliation at the hands of the Pangsherites. His loyalty to the Raj had been vindicated and his position in the region reinforced. Noklak’s leaders accompanied the column, eager to make peace with Chingmei and bringing with them, on the hoof, payment for the fine levied by Philip Mills for placing those deadly panji sticks on the path into the village, and portions of a mithan cow were soon roasting flavorfully on spits across the camp. Mills and Fürer-Haimendorf dined that evening on one of Mills’s favorite dishes, boiled mithan tail. “The succulent meat on the tail vertebrae of one of these huge animals is surprisingly tender,” the Viennese man noted, “and much more tasty than any ox-tail.”

  Mills’s plan was to rest and recover at Chingmei for two days while using the combined threat of force, with diplomacy, to ensure that other villages in the region also firmly received the antislaving message, gave up their captives, and agreed to desist from these practices in the future. It was also an opportunity to read the mail that had arrived in Chingmei by runner from Mokokchung. The letters brought news from home, some of which was deeply disturbing to these servants of the empire. Mills and Williams were horrified by the news from London about the scandal overwhelming the king-emperor, which in their view was every bit as damaging to imperial prestige as the refusal of recalcitrant places such as Pangsha to bend to the imperial yoke. The bad behavior of the king and the gossip in the American newspapers of Mrs. Simpson’s scandalous shenanigans placed the empire in a poor light, and a deeply embarrassed Mills and Williams agreed to keep the information from Fürer-Haimendorf. “One can’t discuss the King of England’s affairs with foreigners,” Mills wrote to Pamela. “If he [King Edward VIII] were to go off the deep end it might break up the Empire!”

  The following day dawned bright and clear, although it was bitterly cold and a thin frost lay on the ground at the start of the day. Would Pangsha come to Chingmei to secure terms? Mills was certain that the Pangsherites would do so despite their loss of life in the Wenshoyl skirmish. They could not afford to be weakened any further and thus fall prey to the potential depredati
ons of their neighbors, who might now be keen to capitalize on the sudden weakness of their former overlords and seek to prevent a resurgence of their power. The sun climbed gradually into the sky, quickly dissolving the frost, and as the day warmed the entire column lazed on the grass, enjoying its first real respite from the rigors of the campaign. Sepoys of the Assam Rifles, bayonets fixed to their Lee-Enfields, kept watch at the gate and at sentry positions around the stockade. A sudden commotion at the gate after lunch brought news that they had visitors. A dobashi rushed into the hut occupied by Williams, Mills, Fürer-Haimendorf, and Smith as a temporary “officers’ mess,” blurting out excitedly, “Sahib, Pangsha men are at the gate!”

  If they had come to submit, decorum was demanded. The four Europeans sat at their portable table while eight visitors were brought in, one by one. The dobashi relieved each of his fighting dao as he entered and was ushered to a seated position on the ground in front of the table. Nakhu—a distinguished Ao gaonbura and dobashi accompanying the punitive expedition—and a somewhat nervous Matche stood by the side of the table, serving as interpreters. Fürer-Haimendorf felt his pulse race as he looked into the faces of the men who only two days before had been intent on removing the head from his shoulders. Only three of the men, it transpired, were from Pangsha. The other five were from Ponyo and a further ally of Pangsha, Tsawlaw (“Shiwu,” recorded Mills), on the Burmese side of the Patkois. The three Pangsha men looked glum, Fürer-Haimendorf thought, and seemed to have been brought along by pressure from their allies.

  The leader of the Pangsha delegation was Mongsen, one of the men who had approached the column in the Langnyu Valley rather optimistically offering a goat as an inducement for the expedition to depart. Mills and Williams had already been told by Noklak that Mongsen was one of the most famous warriors in the area and that he had been responsible, with his fellow Pangsherite Santing, for the recent devastating raid against Saochu. Santing, however, had been one of the warriors to die at the hands of Williams’s sepoys in the mad dash to escape from Wenshoyl, which left Mongsen as the preeminent khel leader. Fürer-Haimendorf captured the discussion in his diary. Mongsen was invited to speak first.

  His speech is open and dignified. He attempts neither defense nor accusation. What has happened, has happened; we have burnt their village and killed some of their best men—they, too, have tried to kill us. But now they wish to make peace, and so they have come to Chingmei in answer to Mills’ message. Mills replies that peace is also his wish. He bears them no grudge, but Pangsha must swear not to take revenge on any of the villages who have befriended us. It would be futile to exact from Pangsha a promise to desist for ever from all head hunting, and Mills demands only that in future they shall not raid “this” side, leaving it open what is to happen “that” side, i.e. in the unexplored area to the east. But above all they must return the slave-girl. All the other terms are agreed to, but in this last demand there lies a difficulty, for the Pangsha men assure us that the child has really been sold across the Patkoi through the mediation of Tsawlaw, but they know which village bought her. The transaction must have been carried through shortly before our coming, and in a great hurry, for Mongsen complains that the price is still owing. Well, so much the better; it should be easy to recover the child from a defaulter, and Mongsen promises to bring the slave-child as soon as possible.

  Peace was thereby concluded. “The scene was really rather an amazing one,” Mills wrote to Pamela. Mills gravely drank zu while touching Mongsen’s hand as a sign of their agreement before passing the cup to Mongsen for him to do likewise. Solemnities over, the party, rather incongruously, Fürer-Haimendorf thought, began a relaxed conversation about the fight. It was a little like two opposing teams discussing a hard-fought game of sport after the event, when passions had cooled and the rivalries of the field had been replaced by friendly camaraderie over a glass of beer in the bar. Previous enmities seemed to have entirely dissipated, and they chatted matter-of-factly about the man-to-man fight they had “enjoyed” three days before. Mongsen told Mills that although four bullets had brushed his hair, he had survived because at their first meeting Mills had described him as a lambu—a sacrosanct ambassador—and therefore he could not be killed by the British bullets. Noticing that Mongsen had a burned foot, Mills arranged for Dr. Vierya to treat and bandage it. Rushing back into Pangsha after it had been fired, Mongsen had trodden in the embers of one of the fires. It had not stopped him from leading the counterattack at Wenshoyl, however, or from making the long journey to Chingmei. He was clearly a remarkable man. Now that they were formally friends, the eight visitors were to stay that night in the village as guests of Chingmak, together with the emissaries from Noklak—who had also made peace with Chingmei—and the zu flowed freely into the evening (the Europeans reverting to gin and bitters). As the tired interlocutors went to sleep that night, there was no thought but that they were all lifelong friends getting together for a happy reunion after spending time apart. Mills had every right to be pleased with this outcome, Fürer-Haimendorf concluded. He had brought Pangsha to heel and secured a peace that would prevent it behaving in such a high-handed way in the future. Importantly, the punishment should also have a dampening effect on the trade in slaves for human sacrifice. With any luck, he thought, this terrible practice would die its own natural death.

  The following day—Tuesday, December 1—none the worse for their imbibing of the previous night, Mongsen and his two fellow leaders from Pangsha were ceremonially bestowed with the signs of their preeminent status in the eyes of the Raj: red waistcoats and blankets. More practically, and as a reward for their obeisance, they were provided with the most valuable gift that could be made in these hills: salt. It was entirely absent in the mountains and as a commodity was obtained from either the Brahmaputra or Chindwin Valley. “All three villages swore an oath of friendship,” Mills wrote in his report. Peace concluded, and now the best of friends, the men of Noklak and Pangsha departed for home.

  11

  RETURN TO MOKOKCHUNG

  Mills’s plan was to delay the expedition’s return to Mokokchung, making the most of the fact that he was deep inside territory that had never before been visited and in which a number of recalcitrant villages skulked. One of these was Panso, which, although only eight miles south as the crow flew, lay on the other side of the rugged Mount Yakko, a prominent obstacle rising to a height of 7,687 feet on top of which lay the village of Sangpurr. Another was Noklu, also deeply implicated in local slaving, although Mills wanted to find a way of securing the freedom of slaves there without having to visit the place. Accordingly, he sent armed warriors with messages to Noklu to ensure that it sent emissaries to meet him at Panso. Chingmak, Sangbah, and Tangbang were to accompany the column, which was now to take on the style of a diplomatic tour rather than a punitive expedition. The practicalities of dealing with issues of localized fear-based power were very evident in these parts. “Diplomacy is completely jammed at the moment” in the area, Mills reported. “In the area through which I want to get messages, no one dare visit anyone else’s village.” The route to Panso would be a difficult one, taking three days. The route was known to be dreadful and would pose a significant physical challenge for them all.

  Soon after the Noklak and Pangsha farewells had been said, the column said good-bye to the hospitable people of Chingmei and began its own march toward Chentang, where foodstuffs were replenished and preparations made to travel over Mount Yakko the following day. “We plunge into it tomorrow,” Mills wrote to Pamela. “It’s going to be one of our worst marches. We go down into a valley, over a hellish range on the other side [Mount Yakko] and down into another valley.” Before leaving Mills did his best to determine the future of the slaves who had previously been handed over to Chingmei. He wrote to Pamela:

  “Girly” is a young widow. Her mother was killed when she was captured and her father died a few days ago. She wants to stay on at Chingmei with Mrs. Chingmak. Really, she is hardly fit t
o be moved, as her mind is still dulled with shock and fear. “Bert” is the youth. He has some relations left so I am taking him back to them. One of the children has a grandfather in Chingmei, so will stay with him: another deaf and dumb poor little rabbit is going back to his father, the last has no one left in the world, all killed in the raid, so he is being adopted by a dobashi and his wife, a nice childless couple who live in Mokokchung.

  The journey from Chentang to Yukso on Wednesday, December 2, 1936, was every bit as difficult as Mills had anticipated. A streaming cold that had come on Major Williams at Noklak remained with him, and Mills recorded that “we are all sick of hills and battles and rather short rations.” A drop of 1,000 feet that took them to a stream was followed by a direct climb to the top of Mount Yakko, where lay the village of Sangpurr. Fortunately, despite the blazing sun, most of the walking was achieved under the shade of the jungle canopy. At Sangpurr they met a small group of men from a Nokhu khel. Mills told them to return home and ensure that the ambassadors whom he had demanded from Noklu were ready to meet them at Panso in two days’ time. Just in case they were not believed by their own people, Mills gave them each pages of the Statesman (an English-language newspaper published in Delhi), one for each morung. “They will never have seen paper before and will believe that the people who came in today really saw us!” he told Pamela. Not one of the Nokhu men had seen a white man before, he observed, and noted that their faces remained inscrutable while they received these instructions. They said they had returned all their slaves on hearing that the British were making a fuss about slavery. That night the column camped in thick jungle on the side of Mount Yakko.