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NAMSANGI.
The Namsangis live across the eastern border of the Sibs
gar District.
Their head- quarters are the village of Jaipur, and the banks of the Namsang
River in its neighbour- hood, at the south-west corner of Lakhimpur, where it
abuts on Sibs
gar. They are also known by the name of Jaipuri
N
g
s
after their principal village. Brown classes their language as identical with
Borduar
and P
niduari
, but these are the names of two septs of
the Mohongi
tribe, some eight miles to their west. Mohongi
is, so far
as I can tell from the scanty materials available, not the same as Namsangi
.
The Namsangis are the last N
g
tribe of importance to the east. We know more about their language than we do
about the other members of the Eastern N
g
group, for Robinson wrote a short grammar of it so long ago as 1849. As this
grammar is not readily available it is reproduced below. Sir George Campbell
has given us a list of words in the 'Naga of Luckimpur' by which he means Namsangi
.
This I also reproduce. It would be very valuable were it not disfigured by numerous
mis- prints. As a check on these I also give the corresponding words, so far
as I could gather them from Brown, Hodgson and Butler. These must be taken for
what they are worth.
The following are the authorities which deal with Namsangi:-
OWEN, J., -The Naga Tribes
in Communication with Assam. Calcutta, Carey&Co., 1844. Contains Vocabulary
and Notes on Eastern Nagas (Namsangi
and others).
ROBINSON, W.,-Notes on the Languages spoken by the various Tribes inhabiting
the Valley of Asam and its Mountain Confines. Journal of the Asiatic Society
of Bengal, Vol. xviii, 1849, Part I, pp. 184 and ff., and pp. 310 and ff. On
pp. 324 and ff. a Nms
ngiy
grammar. On pp. 342 and ff. a N
ms
ngiy
Vocabulary.
HODGSON, B.H.,-On the Aborigines of the Eastern Frontier. Journal of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal, Vol. xviii, Part II, 1849, pp. 967 and ff. Reprinted in Miscellaneous
Essays relating to Indian Subjects, Vol. ii, pp. 19 and ff. London, 1880. Contains
Vocabulary of Namsang Ng
by the Rev. M. Bronson.
BROWN, The Rev. N.,-Specimens of the Ng
Languages of Asam. Journal
of the American Oriental Society, Vol. ii, 1851, pp. 155 and ff. Contains a
'Namsang and Bor-Duor' Vocabulary by the Rev. M. Bronson.
PEAL, S.E.,-Notes on a Visit to the Tribes inhabiting the Hills South of Sbs
gar,
As
m. Journal
of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Reprinted in Selections of Papers regarding
the Hill Tracts between Assam and Burma and on the Upper Brahmaputra, No. 10.
Calcutta, 1873. On p. 29, the Namsangi
numerals.
CAMPBELL, Sir G.,-Specimens of the Languages of India including those of the aboriginal Tribes of Bengal, the Central Provinces, and the Eastern Frontier. Calcutta, 1874. On pp. 221 and ff. a Vocabulary of 'Naga of Luckimpore.'
BUTLER, Captain J.,-A Rough Comparative Vocabulary of two more of the Dialects
spoken in the 'Ng
Hills.' Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,
Vol. xliv, 1875, Part I, pp. 216 and ff. Con- tains a Vocabulary of 'Jaipuri
N
g
.'
DAMANT, G.H.,-Notes on the Locality and Population of the Tribes dwelling between the Brahmaputra and Ningthi rivers. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. xii, 1880, pp. 228 and ff. On p. 250 a Note on the tribe. On p. 257, a short Vocabulary taken from Butler.
I here reproduce the Namsangi grammar
written in 1849 by Robinson and quoted above.
See preceding page.
See
list of words on pp. 345 and ff.
I am indebted to Major Waddell, C.I.E., I.M.S., for this reference.