Description (Physical description)
The waist band is decorated with one row of yellow orchid stalks. The name "T. Ao" is embroidered on the left and the right of blue belt. Animal hair dyed white and red is attached to the belt.
Event Date 3/8/2005
Author: mark elliott

Conservation (Pest Debris Removed)
CON.2015.42 | Pest Debris Removed
Event Date 15/1/2015
Author: cao37

Description (Physical description)
Woven band of blue fibres with red detail and letter I.A o embroidered at each end. Deep fringe of red or white within yellow binders
Event Date 7/12/2016
Author: maa

Context (Production / use)
Lipokmar Dzuvichu (Assistant Professor, JNU, New Delhi) also first associated "T. Ao" with Talimeran Ao, but also noted that Tinu Ao was the orderly of either Charles Pawsey or J.P. Mills, and this belt could therefore either commemorate him or have been a gift from him to his superior.
Event Date 17/3/2016
Author: mark elliott

Context (Production / use)
Temsuyanger Longkumer (January 2018) suggests that the name "T. Ao" embroidered on the belt could be the celebrated Naga footballer Tamimeran Ao, captain of the Calcutta team Mohun Bagan from 1948 to 1949 and captain of the Indian national soccer team at the 1948 Olympic Games in London.
Event Date 17/3/2016
Author: mark elliott

Description (Physical description)
One of four waist-bands. Woven pattern in cotton and fringe with red and white dog's hair.
Event Date 17/3/2016
Author: mark elliott

Conservation (Remedial)
CON.2016.3549 | Remedial
Event Date 22/9/2016
Author: Rachel Howie

Context (Display)
'Another India: Explorations and Expressions of Indigenous South Asia' 07/03/2017 - 22/04/2018 MAA exhibition label text reads:

Change and Exchange

In his 1921 book The Sema Nagas, J.H. Hutton expressed
his fear of the great social change being felt by the Sema (now called Sumi) with whom he worked for many years. These two Sumi baldrics, or amlakha, worn across the chest by men, each speak to a degree of change experienced by the Sumi in the last years before India’s independence. Both are thought to have been collected by a successor of Hutton’s as District Commissioner of the Naga Hills, Sir Charles Pawsey, in the early 1940s. Both have been embellished to suit their erstwhile owners or wearers.

2. T. Ao’s amlakha

Embroidered in red thread with the name ‘T. Ao’, this amlakha poses many questions. Why does a Sumi item of clothing bear the name of an Ao man? Who was T. Ao? Some Nagas who saw images of the amlakha linked it to Talimeran Ao, captain of the first Indian national football team in 1948, whose name was put on every football in the state for decades. Is this the first Naga football scarf? Probably not. Charles Pawsey had an orderly named Temin Ao. This was probably his.

Sumi (Sema). Nagaland Collector and donor unknown Z 18180 D

Event Date 7/3/2017
Author: Emily Shorter

Exhibition (Li Ka Shing Gallery)
EXH.2017.2 | Another India: Explorations and Expressions of Indigenous South Asia
Event Date 8/3/2017
Author: Remke Velden

Description (Physical description)
A sash made from a band of blue textile woven or embroidered with a diamond pattern in red cotton in the middle, with a long fringe of red and white goat hair threaded through yellow orchid stem along the top. Along the blue ties 'T. Ao' is embroidered in red cotton.
Event Date 14/3/2024
Author: Emily Shorter