Ahuna significance

Given that I came to Zunheboto for the festival, I suppose I should first explain what the Ahuna festival is about (and drop the use of italics as well). My friend Zh., whose house I'm staying at, kindly gifted me a copy of his book on the Ahuna Festival - the Sumi Ahuna, which was published in 2009 and outlines the principal beliefs and practices around the Ahuna festival, and more generally, the traditional Sumi agricultural year.

The word ahuna can refer to a few things in Sumi. It can refer to: the festival itself; the Sumi equivalent of the month of November; and the newly harvested rice specially cooked in bamboo for the festival. Without going too much into etymology, the word can be analysed as a compound of ahu, which most people say refers to the bamboo vessel in which the rice is cooked and na, the noun root for 'cooked rice' in Sumi (Assumi 2009:12-13). The Ahuna festival is traditionally a post-harvest festival to give thanks for the current year's harvest and to pray for a good harvest the following year. The festival used to be celebrated after all the crops had been collected and stored in the granary over the course of at least three days, but now it is a largely symbolic occasion that has been officially scheduled to fall on the 14th of November by the State Government. While always an important festival, it is currently being marketed as the Sumis' 'main festival' of the year - in past years, it is my understanding that until fairly recently, this honour went to Tuluni, the pre-harvest festival held in July.

The cynic in me can't help but feel that the move was done primarily for reasons of marketability. The Nagaland State Government is trying to market the state as the 'Land of Festivals' (the annual Hornbill festival in Kohima is coming up in the first week of December, while the Chakhesangs just celebrated their 'fish' festival the other day). While both Ahuna and Tuluni are important Sumi festivals, I think Ahuna has been given more attention because of its proximity to the Hornbill Festival, making it more enticing for tourists to come a bit earlier and also because the town of Zunheboto is more accessible at this time of year than during the potentially wet month of July.

I'm really not sure what the 'Road Show' actually referred to - there were no vehicles on display, nor was the festival actually on the move.

Whatever the reason for the shift in attention, the cynic in me is scoffing at the fact that the main reason I'd come to Nagaland so early (more than two weeks before the Hornbill Festival) was for the Ahuna festival. It has given me more time to meet with members of the community who are interested in doing research on their language and cultural traditions.