150 NAGA HILLS. pitfall traps covered over with branches and leaves of trees. The bottom of the pit is filled with sharp bamboo spikes, so that any animal falling into it is transfixed and killed. Their only agricultural implements are a heavy, long, square-headed dio or hand-bill, and a light hoe. Their system of cultivation is that known as júm, which requires that fresh patches of jungle should be cleared by fire every three years. But in those ranges where the hills have a gentle slope, terraces are cut from the base to the summit; and the same land is continuously cultivated, being irrigated by artificial channels along which water is often conducted from considerable distances. The Kukis are comparatively recent immigrants into the Nágá Hills from the mountains bordering on Tipperah and Chittagong. They form what is known as the Langtung colony, and are a short, hardy, and warlike race, much feared and respected by the tribes among whom they dwell. Their villages are all situated in dense jungle, and generally on high ridges with water near at hand. Some of the principal villages contain as many as two hundred houses, built on platforms raised three or four feet above the ground. The houses are built wholly of bamboos, and generally divided into two apartments. The chief's residence is, of course, much larger, and built with large posts, and thatched with grass and bamboo leaves intermingled. The dr of the Kukis is of the scantiest, often consisting of nothing beyond a large cotton shawl or sheet (chádar), either wrapped round the loins, or hanging down from the shoulder to the knee. The women wear a short petticoat reaching from the waist to the knee, with generally a second petticoat tied under the armpits, but this is frequently discarded for a small cotton shawl thrown loosely over the shoulders. They are of excessively filthy habits, and disease and death are constantly among them. The Kukís are the only tribe in the Nágá Hills who have a recognised head, whom they call hausá; his word is law, and he is the arbitrator in all quarrels and disputes. The chieftainship and title are hereditary honours, descending from father to son. Their ideas as to religion and a future state are very vague, but, like nearly all sayage tribes, they believe in the existence of cvil spirits or demons, whose machinations are only to be averted by sacrifice. They also seem to believe in a future state of retribution, and in a plurality of gods. The principal deities worshipped are called Tevae and Sangron, to whom fowls, pigs, and rice spirits are offered in sacrifice on occasions of sickness, famine, or other afflictions. They believe that when the spirit leaves the body, the angel of death conveys it away. If a good life has been led in this world, the soul is transported with a song of triumph to the gods, ever after to remain at case. The sinner, however, is subject to a variety of tortures in the next world--to impaleinent, hanging, immer
