Ursula Graham Bower

0:00:17 Introduction; early life; Roedean; archaeology first love; met Alexa Macdonald on Skye and invited by her to Manipur in 1937; first impressions of India; Dimapur; first sight of Nagas; sense of déjà vu; Angamis; Kohima; Imphal; tour with Civil Surgeon to Ukrul in Tangkhul Naga country; tour with Civil Engineer; Kabui Nagas; walking stick from Skye; Barak River; fishing; knitting; Silchar

0:15:41 Imphal; Sir Robert Reid’s visit; Mao dancers; bought Mao costume and later gave it to Horniman Museum; returned to England but invited again the next year; trip to south Manipur; photographs; during previous months in England met Hutton and Hodson; photographs exhibited at Royal Geographical Society; in Manipur asked to do trip alone aged 24; went to Kabui village for ten days; brought back cloth and basket; went alone again to Tangkhul country, to Ukrul and beyond near the Burma border; followed this with trip to North-East Manipur on the border with unadministered Naga Hills; Somra village; head-taking

0:22:48 Reasons for head-hunting; return to Imphal; friendly Tangkhuls; attempt at black magic in Jessami; simple first-aid; elders way of locating culprit

0:28:13 Use of interpreter; servants; returned to England April 1939; in London Ambulance during “phoney war” with Alexa; both decided to return to India; family did not object; went in December 1939 but couldn’t continue in Manipur; went to see J.P. Mills the Governor’s secretary who sent her to North Cachar to the Nzemi Nagas;

new religion causing problems; death sacrifice; Gaidiliu; Hangrum massacre

0:35:19 Millenarianism; capture of Gaidiliu; mistaken for reincarnation of Gaidiliu; reported to Mills and then returned; 1942 Japanese threat

0:39:37 Went to live in Laisong among the Nzemi; lived within the village perimeter; description of the village; young men’s houses; village headmen; lived as part of the community and abided by village law

9:46:38 Striking features of a Naga village; physical appearance of Nzemi; costume; swift pattern on cloths; earrings of feathers and orchid skin; Nzemi not warlike and often attacked by Angamis; very loyal; March 1944 Japanese invasion and by April were 20 miles away; no soldiers in area but Nagas watching for Japanese; Naga bodyguard returned to homes for the night but came back and resumed search; Namkia; Nagas loyal to the British; their heroism rewarded with muzzle loaders

Part 2.

[slight damage to tape at start]

0:00:05 Japanese advance and reaction of the Nagas; acts of heroism; future husband saved by Nagas while retreating from Burma to Kohima; own part in the fight against the Japanese; ‘V Force’; relief of Kohima brought help from Gurkhas; Japanese retreat

0:15:24 Interview with Field-Marshall Slim; Assam Regiment; Naga spies in Japanese H.Q.; Japanese battle plan stolen and presented to Slim

0:22:30 Naga agriculture – slash and burn; thirty year cycle; Nzemi land scarcity resulted in Gaidiliu trouble; Kuki immigrants allowed to settle on fallow Nzemi land;

hunting and fishing; filmed fish poisoning; mithan sacrificial animal; pigs; rice and rice beer; little meat in diet

0:23:00 Own entourage: interpreter, cook, dog boy, mail man, gardener, and kitchen boy; lived on small personal income of 450rs per month of which 50rs went for medicine; set aside £50 a year for annual leave in Calcutta

0:35:15 With Leica camera took about 4,000 photos; after 1941-2 practically impossible to get film until late 1944; very little taken during war years because of this; took about 2,000 ft. of film on Nzemi; Bell & Howell camera had no zoom lens; women sometimes objected to being filmed but not men; filming stone dragging became involved in preventing a serious accident; gravestones

0:44:50 Feasts of Merit; way of redistributing wealth; display and sexual prowess; head-hunters’ shields tufted with human hair; Magulong; only a head-hunter could carry shield now in Pitt-Rivers Museum

0:51:50 Meeting with future husband, Col. Tim Betts; reputation among ‘V Force’; June 1945 wanted to meet “Naga Queen”; butterfly hunting; proposal of marriage; cold feet: went to Shillong and met Mills who approved.