Collect various animals around us—Habits of our pets—Our
beautiful grounds—The Nagas—Amusing incident—The liquor
zu—Roast dog—Villages allotted to us for food, labour,
etc.—Women do the work—Children of the Maharajah—A
water-party—Every child dances in Manipur—The Manipuri women
not shut up.
Such was our life at Manipur. It seldom varied day by day. We used to
ride every morning, and directly after breakfast go the round of the
place, visit the stables and kitchen-garden, and feed all the animals,
from the horses down to the two little otters, which were so tame that
they followed us about like dogs. What would life in India be without
one’s animals, I wonder? We were never tired of collecting around us all
kinds of creatures, and the natives got to know it, and used to bring us
anything they caught. We had three monkeys, little brown fellows, which
were my delight. They lived during the day in boxes nailed to posts,
and were tied by ropes long enough to enable them to run up and down.
Sometimes they got loose, and we had a long chase to get them again, as
we could not leave them to do their pleasure upon our garden. One of
them was so clever that we had to get him a chain to fasten him by, as
he could undo any knot, and gnaw any rope in half in no time. He used
to untie the rope and then look cautiously round, and if he saw anyone
watching him he would sit on the end he had undone and pretend to be deep
in the mysteries of his toilette; but if no one were looking, he would
rush off to a large bed of sunflowers on the front lawn and snatch at
the blossoms, tearing them to pieces, and strewing the petals all over
the place. After this he would make for the house, and, if he were not
discovered, run into whatever door or window happened to be open and do
dreadful damage to anything that took his fancy. Directly he was seen
there used to be a grand hunt after him, when he would betake himself
to a particular tree in the grounds, clamber up to the very top, where
the branches were too thin to bear any man, and remain there making the
most hideous faces at us below. We had to station a man to watch him,
as if everyone disappeared he would immediately come down and do more
mischief. Sometimes it would be a whole day before the young ruffian was
caught, but he generally came down for his evening meal, and then was
captured. All three monkeys slept together on a beam in the roof of my
bedroom veranda, and they were as good as any watch-dog, for if anything
came into the veranda after dark they would begin chattering and making
a great commotion. Poor little monkeys! I cannot bear to think of what
their fate must have been.
We had a bear, two otters, a tame deer, and two large gray and red
cranes, besides the monkeys. The bear was a small ball of black fluff
when he came to us, with tiny teeth that could not hurt. We brought him
up on milk and rice, and he grew a huge beast. I was a little afraid
of him when he grew up. He was always getting loose, and was almost as
difficult to catch as Jacko. When he was caught, it was very amusing
to see him standing up behind his post playing hide and seek with the
servant who was tying him up. He used to put his paw round the post
and give the man’s bare leg a friendly pat, which must have been very
painful, and he stood all the while upon his hind-legs. He got very
fierce as he grew older, and one day I was out in the garden gathering
flowers and suddenly noticed the Chupprassies and orderlies flying
towards the house—a proceeding that always happened directly the bear was
at large. He very soon spied me out, and came rushing towards me, and I
began to run; but long before I could get to the house he had overtaken
me. I threw the flowers I had collected behind me, hoping that he would
stop for them, but he just sniffed at them and then came on. He caught
me up in a moment and clawed at my back, and tore my jacket all the way
down. Fortunately it was a very cold day, and I had put on a thick winter
coat, which saved me from getting badly clawed; but he gave me some nasty
scratches. Luckily the Ghoorka orderly saw it from the house, and ran up
and beat him off; and then the other servants came and captured him and
chained him up. So my husband said we must get rid of him, and the next
day he was conveyed away by four Nagas and a couple of Ghoorkas to a hill
covered with jungle about fifteen miles away and let loose there, with a
heap of rice and a lot of plantains to keep him going.
The next day we heard that the Manipuris had kept a holy festival on
the identical hill, but we never asked whether they had seen our poor
bear afterwards, and we never heard of him again. Our large grounds
were a great delight to us at Manipur. We had quite a park at the back,
with fine large trees and bushes of gardenias and roses and oleanders.
The kitchen-garden was separated from the rest of the grounds by a wall
which ran all round it. It always reminded me of an English garden with
fruit-trees growing on the wall, and English vegetables all the year
round. We had nine gardeners, or Malis, as they are called in India.
Talking of them reminds me of an amusing incident which happened in
connection with them. They were Nagas belonging to one of our villages
which lay at the back of the Residency grounds, between us and the river.
The Nagas never burden themselves with too many clothes, and these in
particular wore little beside a necklace or two. I mentioned this fact to
a spinster lady friend of mine on one occasion, and she was so horrified
that she sent me shortly afterwards nine pairs of bathing-drawers to be
given to them. They were very beautiful garments; some had red and white
stripes, and some blue, and they were all very clean. I presented them
gravely one morning to my nine Malis, and a few days after I went into
the garden in the evening and found two of the men at work. One had made
a hole in his bathing apparatus and had put his head through it, while
his arms went into the places for the legs, and he was wearing it with
great pride as a jacket; and the other had arranged his with an eye for
the artistic on his head as a turban. After this I gave up trying to
inculcate decency into the mind of the untutored savage.
We had a good many Naga servants. My second Khitmutghar[4] was a Naga,
and a very excellent servant he was too, except when he was drunk, which
I am sorry to say was very often. If we were going into camp, or if we
had just returned, were the particular occasions which, in his mind, were
the ones of all others to be celebrated with much spirituous fluid. A
message would come from the village to say that Mecandaï (the gentleman
in question) was very dangerously ill—in fact, that he was not expected
to live through the day. At first my sympathies were all aroused in his
cause, but after a little experience I discovered the nature of his
illness, and had him conveyed to the house. The native doctor was then
sent for, and if he said the man was ill he was put into the hospital; if
not, he went under military escort to the quarter-guard.
The Nagas will drink anything, but the stronger it is the better they are
pleased. They have a beverage of their own which they make of fermented
rice water. They can drink great quantities of it with no bad effect at
first, but they get very drunk on it if they go beyond a certain limit.
They call this liquor Zu, and I have heard my husband say he found it
very refreshing after a long hot march; but I never had the courage
to touch it, as they offered it to one out of a bottle that was never
cleaned and that everybody drank from. I suppose to a Naga there is
nothing more delicious than roast dog washed down with quarts of this Zu.
Poor doggies! They are only kept to be eaten. They are well fed while
they are growing up, and then, when they are ready to be eaten, they are
starved for a day. At the end of this they are given an enormous feed
of rice and the remains of a former comrade, perhaps, which they eat up
ravenously; and then the head man of the village gives the victim a blow
on the head and converts him into curry and rice.
On one occasion we were going up to our hill bungalow, and our village
Nagas, wishing to do us honour, erected a triumphal arch at the entrance
to our garden. Fortunately I looked up at it before going under, and
saw, to my horror, the head of a dog, which had just been cut off,
hanging in the centre of the erection, whilst his four paws and tail
graced the sides, and the whole archway was so low that I should have
touched the top of it as I rode under. I dismounted, however, and walked
through.
The hill bungalow mentioned was situated about fifteen miles from
Manipur. It was about 6,000 feet above sea-level, with a delightfully
cool climate all the year round, though the rainfall was excessive
during the summer months, and damp mists came up from the valley below,
hiding even the garden round the house, and making the place very cold.
Still, it was pleasant to be able to get away up there for a few days’
change from the heat at Manipur, and we generally went up from Saturday
till Tuesday every week. The village below the house belonged to us,
and rejoiced in the name of Khan-jhub-khul. We had some five or six
villages, which were given us by the Maharajah, the inhabitants of
which worked for us. They were situated in different parts of Manipur,
and we found it very convenient. The Nagas preferred working for us to
working for the Maharajah, as we paid them for their labour, whereas the
durbar considered it as revenue, and gave them nothing. At the same time,
the way the Manipuris managed all the hill-tribes about them was very
creditable. Every village had to work for the Rajah so many months in
the year—about four. Some had to cut wood, and bring so many bundles in
for the palace; others had to give so much rice, or go down to Cachar or
to Kohima for trading purposes, and each tribe had its own duties. This
system extended throughout Manipur, and not only amongst the hill-tribes,
but also among the Manipuris themselves, and was called ‘Lalup.’ In
return for their services they got their land rent free, and were not
restrained from trading in their own interests as soon as they had
performed their ‘Lalup’ for the Maharajah. It was a system that answered
very well, and the people seemed well-to-do and contented.
The women did all the hard work, as a rule. They wove all their own
and their husbands’ clothing, and cooked and looked after the house
generally, besides working in the fields and coming every evening to the
big bazaar[5] with merchandise for sale or exchange. No men were allowed
to sell in this bazaar with the exception of a few Bengalee traders, who
sat in a different part of the market and sold cloths. It was a pretty
sight in the evening to see all the women hurrying along with their wares
on their heads, and their little babies slung on their backs. They sat
in long rows in the bazaar, and it was divided up in a most methodical
way. Vegetables and fish occupied one end, and cloths and jewellery the
other, and the whole of the female population turned out, and even the
princesses occasionally sold in the bazaar. The princesses were more
numerous than the princes, as each of the latter had several wives. The
Senaputti was supposed to be the happy owner of nine wives, and the
others had almost as many.
The eldest daughter of the Maharajah was about fifteen. She very often
came to see me, in company with nine or ten other girls of the same
age, of whom more than half were royalties. The Senaputti used to bring
them, and they loved running all over the house, examining everything.
They liked most of all to go into my bedroom and try on my clothes and
hats, and brush their hair with my brushes, admiring themselves in my
long looking-glass. They used to be very much surprised to find that my
dresses would not meet half-way round their waists.
The Senaputti generally waited in the drawing-room talking to my husband.
After the party had explored my room, we used to rejoin the others, and
take them all out into the garden, allowing them to pick the flowers,
and decorate each other, and then my husband would photograph them. They
were always amused with the monkeys and rabbits, the latter particularly,
as those animals are wholly unknown in Manipur. In fact, these Manipuri
children were very much like any other children in their delight at
seeing new things. They liked going into the dining-room when the table
was laid for dinner, and asking us what all the knives and forks and
spoons were used for; and they enjoyed sitting on the sofas and in the
big armchairs, ‘just like the Memsahib,’ they said.
Once we had a water-party on the lake in the grounds. The big pink
water-lilies were in full bloom, and we had about five boats crammed with
these children and some of the little princes, and we all pelted each
other with water-lilies and got very wet, and enjoyed it immensely. Of
course it was always a drawback not being able to offer them anything
to eat or drink, as their caste forbade them taking anything of the
sort; but we used to give them flowers, and Japanese fans, and beads,
and those kind of things, with which they were very delighted. Some of
the Manipuri girls are very pretty. They have long silky black hair as a
rule, and fair complexions, with jolly brown eyes. They cut their hair
in front in a straight fringe all round their foreheads, while the back
part hangs loose, and it gives them a pretty, childish look. They dress
very picturesquely in bright-coloured striped petticoats fastened under
their arms, and reaching to their ankles. Over this a small green velvet
zouave jacket is worn, and when they go out they wear a very fine muslin
shawl over their shoulders, and gold necklaces and bracelets by way of
ornament. Very pretty these little damsels look as you meet them in twos
and threes along the road going to their dancing-lessons, or to market or
temple. Every child is taught to dance in Manipur. They cease when they
marry, but up till then they take great pride in their nautches.
The Manipuris do not shut up their women, as is the custom in most
parts of India, and they are much more enlightened and intelligent in
consequence. As soon as a woman marries she puts back her fringe; but
no other restrictions are laid upon her. They do not marry until they
are fifteen, and I have seen girls of seventeen unmarried. From going so
often through the bazaar in the evenings, I got to know several of the
women very well, and they liked my coming and having a chat with them. I
learnt all their little troubles and anxieties—how so-and-so’s baby was
teething and generally ailing, and how someone else’s had grown an inch,
or who was going to be married, and who had died. I liked talking to
them, and I learnt a good deal of the language by doing so.