ABSTRACT
The upland citadel of Khonoma in 1830 was home to some 4,000 Angami villagers of all ages. It dominated the jungle-strewn ridges of that area of Nagaland bounded by the Zubza and Barak Rivers. To the south it exercised a fluctuating suzerainty over the Zeliangrong (once referred to as Kacha Nagas), and marauded into Kachari territory and Mikir foothills that nudged the valley of Assam. For more generations than men could number, or, that most respected of men and lively raconteur of anecdotes and folklore could relate, the village po/u, it had stood the proud sentinel of Angami power. From that entrenched position it ranked a firm bulwark between the inimical depredations of mischievous Manipuri, with whom relations on one hand had never been anything but.hostile, and a cordial bickering with the Ahom of Upper Assam, with whom mutual respect had been slowly established, on the other.
