________________
208
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(AUGUST, 1898.
96... ...telang-maben-trok
...100-not-brought-6 100 ... telang, noklang ... ... 1,000 ... megirizang, meirzang! ...
The Ao Nagas do not weigh the metals, so far as I can make out, probably measuring them; but they bave a neat set of measures of capacity, on which they have based a sort of avoirdupois weight for their great requirement, fermented rice for making yi (rice-beer):18 -
AO-Naga Measures of Capacity.
Name.
Meaning.
Use.
Approximate actual weight.
àentző molok 2 yi molok...
... egg basket... .. beer basket
value of an egg in paddy ... sêrs value in paddy of standard! 2 sêrs measure of rice made ready for brewing yi (rice-beer).
5 sêrs village standard ... ... 20 (and 10) sers
2 paa
Indian quarter sér... village ...
4 (and 2) imzi
..
The real standard, i. e., the weight that does not vary, is, however, the puè, for the Bengali pawa, magnified from the quarter sér, which it really is, to the five-sêr weight (pasew), probably because five sérs of paddy are equivalent in value to one quarter sér of some article that these people still commonly bay, or have in the past habitually bought, with paddy (unhusked rice).
Another common measure, evolved as above, is the nahú molok, wage basket, 2) to the pua. and hence equal to about two sérs which represents a day's wages in paddy.
Ao-Naga Avoirdupois Weights,19 2 tsama-s'ong are 1 s'ongti = 14 sêrs
1 s'ongti ... ... ... ... = 2 sêrs Some villages have a weight called pudkoplà (? short pud), intermediate between the s'ongti and the teama-s'ong (p. 49). The word for scales is s'ongti, and the term tsand-song seems to mean half-
song, or half the weight that turns the scale. The word seret is also given (p. 157) as a synonym for scales, and the expression seret-lung (lit., scale-stone) is given for "scale-weights." But I gather from a sentence on p. 71 that seret is really borrowed from the Indian word sér and means that weight or its equivalent, thus:
shizang seret-kd mabensa potatoes sér-one insufficient (translated) "the potatoes are a seer short weight."
11 Mrs. Clark very properly remarks (p. 46) that the above toode of reckoning puzzles children and makes them carry forward the wrong figures in addition. So much is this the case, that in the schools an effort is being made to diecard the above irregularities and count regularly thua: tori-trók, sixteen metaart trók, twenty-six ; and so on.” One does not wonder at it. In computing money the wystet must be a very difficult one to work. ..
18 Clark, p. 49. Compare this with the Mapipuri double scale; - one for rice and the other for paddy; Primrone, Grammar, p. 24
1. Clark, p. 49.
