Thursday, December 30, 2010

Christmas in Nagaland (III)

It was back to Natha New on Christmas morning. After tea, biscuits and fried Sümi sho, we were off to the village where lunch was ready for us at 8am - my stomach no longer knows when it should be full, so I just eat when I am fed.

There was a morning service (yes, another service) at the local church, before another service up at the feast venue, which was H S Rotokha's brother's compound.

Remember the butcher's area from the day before? Amazing how some pine leaves and a few chairs can transform the place into the VIP area.
Christmas Day feast, Natha New

I was eventually asked to sit on one of the chairs on the little 'stage' area, which I always find embarrassing, but at least I got a good view of the entertainment. The women of the village put up two comedy skits, though given my lacking listening comprehension skills in Sumi, Nagamese and Hindi I wasn't able to follow them. But  I did certainly appreciate the physical comedy.

H S Rotokha's Christmas 2010 feast, Natha New

The Chief Officer (I think) from the local Assam Rifles was also invited and he was treated to the show too. The man's so massive he looks like he could crush you with his bare hands...



After food, it was time for the bamboo climbing competition. The day before, two bamboo poles had been erected with a large chunk of meat (a pig's leg) and a bottle containing about 1,000 Rs dangling from the top. The idea is to climb to the top of the bamboo pole to claim the prize.

Bamboo climbing competition, Natha New

To make the climbing experience even worse more fun, the whole pole is greased with pork fat. The only way to get up without sliding down is to apply ash on the pole to rub as much of the grease off. Standing on the downwind side of the base, I got quite a bit of ash in my face...

Bamboo climbing competition, Natha New



After about half an hour, one guy finally made it to the top of the left pole. I observed that he had waited for the others to clean off the grease before attempting to make his first climb. He later also managed to reach the top of the other pole. Very clever.

The victor
Bamboo climbing competition, Natha New

It was a great way to end the celebrations. And soon we were back to Zunheboto where I ended the day at Nito Mount singing songs late into the night by a bonfire.

Oh, what a great Christmas.

Christmas in Nagaland (II)

I was invited to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at the distinguished H S Rotokha (or 'apuh Sükato')'s home village of Natha New, which is so close to Zunheboto town, it might even become a suburb (or assa 'colony' as sub-divisions of towns are known here) of the town.

The village of Natha New
Natha New

H S Rotokha was throwing a feast for the villagers on Christmas Day, and by the time I arrived at the village on Christmas Eve, preparations had been well underway. I was told that all up, 8 pigs, 2 mithun and 1 rooster had been slaughtered for the feast (that's for another post).

H S Rotokha and his wife, in front of the women pounding rice using akhumu, big pestles, in the big aboshu, a long log-like structure with little depressions carved from a single piece of wood. Basically, a very big mortar.
Rice pounding, Natha New



I got to try my hand at pounding rice in the aboshu. They also dressed me in head gear meant for women...
Pounding rice, Natha New

Some men were busy making baskets out of bamboo.
Basket making, Natha New

Others were busy cutting up the pork and mithun meat.
Christmas Feast preparations, Natha New

Christmas Feast preparations, Natha New

Once the rice was pounded, it was used to make Sumi sho, often translated as 'Sumi bread', although it's more like a steamed rice patty wrapped in a banana leaf.
Wrapping Sumi shou, Natha New



Sumi shou, Natha New

I personally prefer the fried version, which reminds me of the shel roti I had in Nepal.

Later, it was off to the local Baptist church for the evening service. I found the sermon, given by one of H S Rotokha's daughters, a little hard to follow given that a) I didn't understand most of it, and b) towards the end, the sound of fireworks ouside got very distracting.

That evening we headed back to Zunheboto town for the night. The surrounding hills echoed with the sound of fireworks, which everyone referred to as 'bombs', for hours. I don't think I've ever heard had a Christmas Eve quite like this, or experienced fireworks (not just firecrackers)going on for such a long stretch of time. While it wasn't exactly a constant cacophony and there wasn't any grand climax, every few minutes you'd hear some more 'bombs' go off. This went well into the night.



It's amazing I got any sleep that night, but next morning we were up bright and early to head back to Natha New for the feast.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Christmas in Nagaland (I)

A few days ago, a friend back in Australia asked me if it even felt like Christmas over here. It's a fair question, given that I am in India, where the majority of the population are Hindu.

Nagaland is different. Most people in this region refer to the rest of India as 'the mainland', and if you look at a map of modern India, you can see that the whole northeast region looks like India putting an arm around Bangladesh. More importantly, Nagaland is predominantly Christian - Baptist, to be precise. (According to an unsubstantiated claim on Wikipedia, Baptists account for 75% of the state's population, making it even 'more Baptist' than the state of Mississippi. where only 52% are Baptist.)

Since the beginning of December, people all over the state have been busy putting up Christmas lights and Christmas stars (big red stars usually fixed to tall bamboo poles) even though most households don't receive constant power and the added drain from so many lights causes power disruptions / load-shedding times to increase.



To most people, today is the first day marks the first day of Christmas celebrations with shops closing early (earlier than usual) downtown, only opening again on the 26th. And how are people celebrating? By going to church. First there's an evening service today. Tomorrow there'll be a morning service and an evening service. On Christmas Day there'll be another morning and evening service.

But then, comes the eating. One thing that has passed on from traditional pre-Christian life are the big feasts thrown by important members of the community. This usually happens back in people's respective villages and all the villagers are invited to partake in the feast. I'm sure I'll post more on this at some later stage as I've been invited to the Natha New village tomorrow. I was told that two days ago they already slaughtered about five pigs and one (or maybe two) mithun.

Most people here - like many people in the Northern Hemisphere - are tickled by the idea of Australia celebrating Christmas in summer. Ironically, given that it is quite chilly here right now, I don't think it would feel like Christmas to many people here if they were in Australia or Singapore and it was warm and sunny.

Will probably post again after Christmas. Bring on the praying and feasting!

Monday, December 20, 2010

10 hours on a bus

On Sunday at 4pm, I left Dimapur with Ab. and a whole busload of farmers heading back to Zunheboto after the Agri Expo. Given that sumo tickets are sold out till after Christmas, this was the best option for the return trip to Zunheboto for Christmas. The trip was meant to take 12-14 hours, though it only took 10 hours in the end.

Now, 10 hours on a bus doesn't usually sound like a long time to be since I've been on much longer bus rides and I usually end up sleeping most of the time. This time however, I was aware that we were travelling at night on some very winding and badly maintained roads. I was also aware that there was no heating on the bus and that we was going to get very cold at night, especially as the bus approached Zunheboto.


Ab. rugging up for the cold night.

The seat would've been more comfortable if I could've stopped it from reclining all the way back every time I leaned back.


The worst thing about the trip was that just as we were leaving Dimapur - and in a scene reminiscent of the last time I was leaving Nagaland via Dimapur - I realised I was down with a case of food poisoning. I'm not sure what it was, though I'm happy to blame the pork chow mein I ate at the Agri Expo just before leaving (I really don't do well with chow mein in this country). So basically, I spent most of the trip trying to fight off the accompanying nausea from the food poisoning, while trying to field questions from farmers who had no idea who I was or that I didn't understand most of what they were saying. I did manage to will myself to sleep at times, but the bumpiness of the road and the cold later kept waking me up.

As usual my survival instincts kicked in and somehow I made it to Zunheboto 10 hours later. At 2am. We were told that the reason for leaving Dimapur at 4pm (and not a reasonable like say, 11am) was so that we would arrive bright and early in Zunheboto between 4am - 6am when transport would be available. Of course, arriving at 2am meant that the town looked like this:


Ab.'s father came to pick us up shortly after. We made it back to Nito Mount where they broke the lock to the room in the guest house and I collapsed in bed, weak from the journey and the food poisoning. Thankfully, the diarrhoea only kicked in after I got back.

Feeling too weak to stand up for long stretches, I spent most of yesterday in bed, eating mostly bananas and a rice porridge mixed with the some leafy greens (which the Angamis call galho). But given the iron gut I've cultivated, I'm pretty much back to normal today.

So I survived my first night bus ride in Nagaland. And while having food poisoning to boot!

Saturday, December 18, 2010

NE Agri Expo 2010

Since I have to wait for the bus to go back to Zunheboto with Ab. and the farmers (which was meant to leave at 4pm, then 9am, then 4pm again), I thought I'd post a few pictures from the North-east Agricultural Expo that's on (and ending today) here in Dimapur. The expo showcased produce from all over the 7 northeastern states of India - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura, among other things. They also had a few model morungs from each of the major Naga tribes like at the Kisama Heritage Village.

I came to town to meet up with some people who've been doing work on Sumi, and the meetings went pretty well. Ab. was also in town for the entrepreneur seminars happening at the expo and we're going back to Zunheboto, hopefully, later today.

The 'welcome mithun' showcasing local beans and king chillies.
NE Agri Expo 2010, Dimapur

The governor was arriving the day I took this shot. The costumes reminded me a lot of China for some reason. Maybe it was the tackiness of it all.
NE Agri Expo 2010 Welcome party

No NE India expo would be complete without raja mircha 'Naga King Chillies' featured.
Naga King Chillies (Raja Mircha)

At Honey Fest 2010 - the government's really pushing for people to start bee cultivation in the state.
NE Honey Fest 2010, Dimapur

Friday, December 17, 2010

Khonoma village on a foggy day

After the two weddings on the day I was meant to leave Kohima, my friend's sister and cousin surprised me by telling their driver to take us to the nearby town of Khonoma, Nagaland's first 'green village'. It's not just the roofs that are green, the village actually has rubbish bins everywhere, and with the exception of a few bottles on the street, it looked like the locals actually used these bins. Certainly not something you see everyday in Nagaland.

I'd wanted to visit Khonoma this time. Unfortunately, getting here from Kohima isn't easy unless you have a private car - there's no regular bus / taxi service to and from Kohima and  the town's inhabitants have their own bus to take them to Kohima and back. My original plan to spend a few nights here at a guest house  (basically someone's house with a room or two for rent) wasn't feasible either, and I don't know if I would've enjoyed the stay if it was just me.

So I was really happy to be able to see Khonoma, except of course for the fog obscuring most of the valley. I guess it gives me something to look forward the next time I come here, and I'm planning to come here with anyone who comes to visit me on my next trip here to Nagaland.

View of the surrounding terraced fields
View from Khonoma village on a foggy day

View of Khonoma village from above
View from Khonoma village on a foggy day

The new Khonoma village gate
Khonoma - new village gate



Khonoma village gate - the old one that was placed to the side, out of sight to people walking up the hill.
Khonoma - old village gate


The Khonoma Baptist Church, which looks quite modern compared to even some of the new churches I've seen here.
Khonoma Baptist Church

A memorial to all the people who fought for independence from India
Khonoma Memorial

There were also some memorials for four senior British soliders who died trying to capture Khonoma in 1879, I'm told as part of a larger British campaign to capture Kohima.

Oh well, till next time.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

'Tis the season to get married

So my original plan to travel to Dimapur fell through today, given that I would probably have had to spend the night in a hotel, and without a hard copy of my new Restricted Area Permit, that might be a bit of a problem. Means I'll be heading down there tomorrow morning.

All wasn't lost today. The sister and cousin of the friend I'm staying with here in Kohima brought me along to two different weddings. At first I was told that at the first wedding, it was the brother of a cousin who was getting married (which made me wonder why she didn't just say 'cousin') but I told out later it was the brother of a friend. It sounded all very complicated, so I didn't probe.

Given that it's December, two weddings in one day is not common. In fact, even after attending the ceremony, I counted no less than 3 different venues sporting the banner 'Wedding' and no less than 2 car entourages on the street, each car bearing the sign 'Wedding'. December is clearly the time to get married here in Nagaland because people tend to have more free time off work, and relatives who are studying or working in the rest of India are also usually back for Christmas. 

What was more interesting about the two weddings was that even though my friend's sister and cousin are Angami (one of the major tribes of Nagaland and the main tribe of Kohima district), the first wedding was a Rengma wedding, conducted in a language that they don't speak, and the second was a Lotha wedding, conducted in another language that they don't speak. To my ear, Rengma sounds similar to Angami, but my friend's cousin said she couldn't understand what was being said. It was also good that I had a little booklet with some hymn lyrics written in Rengma.

Classifications of the languages of Nagaland often group Angami, Rengma and a little more distantly, Sumi. Lotha, by comparison is grouped with Ao, another major language of the region. Looking at the hymn lyrics printed in the booklet for the Lotha wedding and hearing how they were pronounced, I noticed a few similarities of the sound system with Sumi, particularly the pronunciation of si as [si] with a high central vowel. Just first impressions here though, nothing concrete.

What was most surprising by far at the Lotha wedding, was that, following the service, there was a vegetarian buffet section! Vegetarian! In Nagaland!

Okay, so maybe it was more 'Vegeterian', but it was still something I had not expected at all to see here.

Not that I partook of any of that, especially when there was pork at the main dining area. And there was cake! Cheesecake (with a biscuit layer), some soaked chocolate cake, and fruitcake (the wedding variety).

Even if we hadn't gone to visit the pretty little town of Khonoma afterwards, the cake would've made my day.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Does the language we speak shape how we think?

The blogosphere is all atwitter with the debate on the Economist website, the proposition being:

This house believes that the language we speaks shapes how we think.
http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/190

My friends in linguistics will not find any of this new, but I did made a small comment on the site, mostly because people were arguing that it was culture, not language that shaped thought, which I agree with (I'm sure the situation is far more complex than I care to think about), but didn't feel was actually relevant to the points being raised by the proposer.

I'm certainly not a hard-core Whorfian believer in linguistic determinism - that the language I speak somehow limits my experience of the world - but I do believe in linguistic relativism in its 'weaker form'. There's something about the grammatical structures and lexical items in our native language/s that we retrieve so habitually and 'naturally' that we don't even realise it until we start to learn another language as adults.

Nick Evans writes in his book Dying words: endangered languages and what they have to say, "Languages differ not so much in what you can say as in what you must say" (paraphrasing Roman Jakobson). In learning a new language, one often encounters distinctions that one wouldn't otherwise have to consider in their own language, like having to specify each time whether I'm going to get from point A to B on foot or by transport in Russian, or specifiying whether I farted on purpose or by accident in Sherpa (see here). Native speakers of these languages don't realise they're making these decisions because they're so automated, but for someone else trying to learn these languages, I don't think there's any doubt that they require a slightly different way of thinking about events in the world.

Anyway, whatever! Have a look at the live debate at the Economist site and see what others are saying!

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Going in all directions

One thing I had noticed when I was working on my MA thesis was that along with the verb wu 'to go' (though I think it might actually just be u), Sumi also had two other verbs: wo and hu.

The verb wo is generally used with the noun aki 'house', as in aki lo wo 'to go home' (lo is a locative or allative marker), suggesting that the verb also conveys the meaning of motion towards one's home / point of origin. The verb hu is usually used with the noun alu 'field', as in alu lo hu 'to go to the field', suggesting that the verb also conveys the meaning of motion away from one's home / point of origin. The verb wu therefore simply means 'to go' with no direction specified. Let's also not forget the verb ighi 'to come', which specifies direction towards the speaker / hearer / some common reference point, but at the time I was more interested in the wo and hu distinction at the time, which I think I've worked out.

In addition to these, I'd also found two other verbs, ipe which one speaker had told me meant 'to go out' or and ilo 'to go in' (iloghi also appears, containing the same ghi found in ighi 'to come' - something to work on). Again, I wasn't that surprised that the language made these distinctions. After all, English distinguishes between 'to enter' and 'to exit'.

Just recently on this trip, I'd been alerted to two more verbs: iqi 'to go down' and iqho 'to go up'. These can also mean 'to go South' and 'to go North' respectively. This is just like how people in Melbourne might 'go up' to Sydney for the weekend or people from Sydney will 'come down' to Melbourne. In French, on peut descendre sur la Côte d'Azur ou monter à Paris, ('One can go down to the Cote d'Azure or go up to Paris.'), assuming I'm coming from somewhere like Lyon. The image in people's minds I assume is that of a standard geographical map with North pointing up.

Similarly, a speaker in the town of Zunheboto might say:

(1)    Satakha lo iqini.
        (I) will go to Satakha.' (Satakha is south of Zunheboto)

(2)    Suruhuto lo iqhoni.
        '(I) will go to Suruhuto.' (Suruhuto is north of Zunheboto)

However, and this is the curious thing, if a speaker was going to Nito Mount (where I was and will be staying) from the centre of Zunheboto town, they would say:

(3)    Nito Mount lo iloni.
        '(I) will go to Nito Mount.'

And if a speaker in Nito Mount was going to the Zunheboto town centre, they would say:

(4)    Zünheboto lo ipeni.
        '(I'm) going to Zunheboto.'

At first I thought it was strange that one would say literally that they were 'going out' of town, where in English one would say 'I'm going into town.' Someone then pointed out that the important thing was that one was travelling west to Nito Mount and east to Zunheboto (which I'm slightly dubious about). Similarly, people would use the verb ilo to say they were going to Dimapur or Delhi, which all lie west of Zunheboto.

What it looks like then, is that the four verbs: ilo 'to go in', ipe 'to go out', iqho 'to go up' and iqho 'to go down', can also mean 'to go west', 'to go east', 'to go north' and 'to go south'.

As I've noted 'going up' and 'going down' are often associated with 'going north' and 'going south', but are there other languages where 'going in' and 'going out' correspond to 'going east' and 'going west'? And I don't just mean phrases like 'going into the East' or 'going out west', but instances where people will say the equivalent of 'I'm going in to (PLACE)' when that place is east of the speaker.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Indian Folklore Congress 2010

On Thursday (9 Dec) I was invited by a friend to attend with her the inaugural programme (basically the inauguration ceremony) of the 34th Indian Folklore Congress at ATI (Administrative Training Institute) Kohima. I thought it would be a good idea, given that the chief guest (guest of honour), Khekiye Sema, is Sumi himself, and back in Zunheboto we had originally planned to come down to Kohima to meet with him and discuss the oral literature project.


After the sweet little traditional song presentation by some Angami kids (see above), Professor Jawaharlal Handoo, the President of Indian Folklore Congress, gave the keynote speech. I wasn't terribly impressed with the speech because he simply read off a 5-6 page document that only some members of the audience were given. Still, I suppose it's the fashion for some professors to do that here (and having spent a year at a French university has given me more patience for such things). In the talk he mentioned issues to do with folklore and the construction of ethnic identity (I prefer the term 'negotiation'), which was all quite expected.


When the time came for the chief guest, retired government official Khekiye Sema, to speak, he was much more candid and natural. He started off by congratulating everyone who'd come from outside the state, suggesting that everyone should be given a medal of courage for 'daring' to come to this part of the world (to the few Indians who've heard of Nagaland, the place conjures up images of bloodthirsty headhunters, a violent insurgency, or just frightening food). He spoke about the loss of traditional oral literature and its transmission mechanisms, particularly with the loss of the traditional morung system after the arrival of Christianity. Also in more recent times, Nagaland University has not been giving much attention to the study of such traditional folklore.

Sure, there was the usual lament that with modernity and Christianity, the younger generation no longer knew the old traditions, but bear in mind that all this happened within the span of a generation or two (almost like Singapore's rapid urbanisation). At the moment, there is a cultural cringe among the younger generation who are quickly embracing Korean culture, after having done the same with American culture. (I'm sure it's a familiar story in other parts of the globe.)

He also spoke of the connection between Nagas and nature, and recounted his own experience with an old man from Aghünato village who was a were-tiger - I'd heard about such stories from friends in Zunheboto. Unlike the werewolves in the European tradition, people who are were-tigers don't physically transform into tigers, but their souls simply become tiger spirits (according to some people, these people actually have tiger spirits). In any case, there seems to be some bond between the human spirit and that of the animal, allowing that person to find out things happening in the jungle even if their body is physically at home. I like to think it's a kind of 'astral projection' of the soul.

After the talks were over, I decided to go up and speak with Mr Khekiye himself. I mentioned the World Oral Literature Project to him, and he suggested I speak with another Sumi man in Dimapur who'd done quite a bit of cultural documentation with the help of Mr Khekiye.

My heart sank a little bit when he gave the name of the person. I'd just received a copy of this person's 'Sumi grammar' and it wasn't particularly great. It wasn't even a grammar, more a vocabulary list, with a number of short traditional stories, presumably from the documentation project. But most of these were very badly translated from Sumi into English. Still, I'm off to Dimapur in a few days and hopefully I'll get a chance to meet this person and see what documentation he has already done.

Calques

I just purchased a book on linguistics: Linguistics: an introduction by Radford et al. (2009 edition) for my friend Ab.'s reference. It's not in my opinion the best textbook (or introduction for the total beginner), but it was the best of the lot I could find here in Kohima.

In the book, one of the authors writes,

"Sometimes when new concepts are introduced from other societies, the speakers of a particular language may use their own native linguistic resources to coin a new word. These are known as calques.".

The examples given include Irish Gaelic sciath fearthanna 'umbrella' (lit. 'rain shield') and Maori wai mangu 'ink' (lit. 'water black'). Under this definition, Chinese 电脑 'computer' would also be considered a calque because it comprises two morphemes meaning 'electric' and 'brain'.

The problem here is, I always thought a calque referred to the borrowing of a compound word or phrase from another language by translating each individual component of that compound or phrase. Therefore, examples like English flea market from French marché aux puces, French gratte-ciel from English skyscraper or Russian детский сад from German Kindergarten would qualify as calques. (Note that the English word kindergarten isn't considered a calque since it's been borrowed 'wholesale' from German.)

By this definition, the examples cited in Linguistics: an introduction would therefore qualify simply as neologisms, created by compounding morphemes already in the language. Since they are not literal translations of terms from another language, I would be hard-pressed to call them 'calques' - last time I checked I don't call my computer an 'electric brain' or 'electro-brain'.

The Wikipedia page seems to confirm my own definition (with the same French examples I've given above - I'm sure they're the ones commonly used in other linguistics textbooks), but maybe I'm missing something here?

Friday, December 10, 2010

Playing with fire

Christmas is definitely coming soon to Nagaland. Not only are people starting to put up their Christmas lights and stars, but last week before I left Zunheboto, I got to watch the boys living at Ab.'s have a 'little' bonfire.



Burning pine, Zunheboto

Burning pine, Zunheboto

These boys really aren't scared of fire. Afterwards, I even saw them doing cartwheels in the still glowing cinders.

Kohima sunset

This was the view from my friend's balcony here in Kohima. I had walked out to get my laundry, but ended up running back to my room to grab my camera.

Sunset over Kohima


Sunset over Kohima

It's been unseasonably wet here these past few weeks. When I was in Zunheboto it rained quite a bit two weeks ago. And here in Kohima in rained non-stop for close to 15 hours yesterday and the day before. I had assumed that the monsoon would've ended a while ago. At least the mist and clouds made for a very pretty sunset.

How to post a wood plate in 12 easy steps

Note: the wood plate (asükhu in Sümi) I'm referring to is a traditional Naga plate with its own stand carved from a single piece of wood (such as teak).


Step 1
Ask at the India Post counter at Kisama during the Hornbill Festival if they have a parcel box large enough for the plate. Receive confirmation that such a box exists and can be sent internationally.

Step 2
Go and purchase a plate at one of the festival stalls (1,200 Rs).

Step 3
Return to the India Post counter to discover that none of the boxes there are large enough. Tell them you will go back to the main post office in Kohima to send the parcel. They tell you that there will be boxes there.

Step 4
Take the plate to the India Post Office in Kohima.

Step 5
Discover that there are no boxes large enough, but the bookshop across the street can help with packaging.

Step 6
Go to the bookshop with the plate and ask them if they have a box (or 'carton' as people usually call them here).

Step 7
Watch as they try to squeeze the plate into a cardboard box that is clearly too small for the plate, then line the inside of the box with styrofoam before trying to squeeze the plate in again, even though the box is already buldging. The box is then tied up and taken away to be wrapped in cloth and stitched up.

Step 8
Wait one hour at the bookshop for the parcel to come back, then watch as they apply red sealing wax all over the parcel. (Optional step: purchase a copy of People magazine to pass the time.)

Step 9
Pay for the packagaing service (250 Rs).

Step 10
Bring the parcel back to the post office and write the addressee's details all over the parcel, along with contact details and 'FRAGILE' and 'HANDLE WITH CARE'.

Step 11
Pay the fee for registered mail (1,000 Rs).

Step 12
PRAY that it gets to the intended destination in one piece!

The package without addressee details etc.

(Mum, if you're reading this, please take a photo of it if / when it arrives before opening it - although I suspect that it might already have been torn open by then.)

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Mighty Mithun

Seeing all the signs for 'Nagaland, Land of Festivals', it's pretty clear how the current tourism department is trying to promote the state. (Of course it probably feeds the Indian preconception that all people do here is party and celebrate in tribal outfits - but I won't rant in this post again.)

Nagaland, Land of Festivals

Instead, what I want to point out is the animal on the poster. It's the state animal, known as a 'mithun' or 'Indian bison'. I would call it a 'gaur', rhyming with both 'power' and 'sour' - apt descriptions of the animal or so I recall from reading Willard Price's Indian Adventure as a kid. According to Wikipedia 'mithun' refers to the domesticated variety, but people here call even the wild ones 'mithun'.

They are pretty massive, being larger than African buffalo. Their skulls adorn many important houses around Nagaland, although nowadays the typical method of execution is a bullet through the forehead so you'll see a little hole at the front. The meat is also eaten - it's no surprise that it tastes like beef, just maybe a bit more gamey. There are a number of different hybrids of cattle and mithun (I have about 5 of their names in Sumi, though I'm not really sure how many combinations are possible - quarter cow, three quarters mithun?).

On our way to Satoi last week, we saw one on the road which ran off as the vehicle passed by. We then saw a group of guys along the road who were presumably going on a hunt for that mithun. On our way back, we spotted another one, but it had an oddly white face and slightly pinkish eyes - like it was albino, but only from the neck up. I caught these on my camera as we were driving by.



Looking a bit like a demon buffalo?

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Cultural showcase or cultural zoo?

At the Hornbill Festival, I took this photo of some performers waiting to enter the stage area. Aware that their butts were hanging out of their costumes, I was a little hesitant to take the photo without asking their permission, perhaps being a little too culturally sensitive.

But as at the Ahuna festival, it was a local friend who suggested I take the shot, and I reasoned that this was a performance, these people were in costume and there were going to be cameras all over them in a second anyway.

Participants waiting to perform, Hornbill Festival 2010

A few minutes later, while the same performers were getting ready to go onstage, this is what I saw. I think the guy on the left was American, and I heard the guy on the right speaking in French.

Tourists embarrassing themselves at the Hornbill Festival 2010

Now surely there's a limit to what you can and cannot do with your camera in such situations. I still don't know what to think of these guys. They probably wanted a better angle of the performers for their photo collections, but come on, these are still people here! I suppose it would have been a completely different thing if the performers were actually posing for the photos as well.

Anyway, on the final day of the festival, I saw a tall blond woman walking around the stage perimeter shoving her camera lens in front of people in the audience (while performances were going on). She wasn't alone, there was an Indian guy doing the same thing. It was with a little satisfaction that, as she was photographing the Dimasa performers, one guy asked her stood up and asked for a photo with him using his phone camera. He then dressed her in one of the scarves that the women were wearing, which he took back after the photo had been taken.

I suppose as an obvious foreigner here, she must get quite a lot of stares (I'm sure my friend Lauren can empathise when she's in Nepal), no matter how she's dressed. The man who took a photo of her will probably be showing it off to all his friends for some time to come, the way she'll be showing off her pictures of 'ethnic people' to her friends.

Maybe such events are just meant to be a bit of a zoo for everyone.

Hornbill Festival 2010

Here're a few photos from this year's Hornbill Festival (1 Dec - 7 Dec). It's held every year at this time here in Kohima - though the festival ground itself is in the village of Kisama, which is a bit of a drive to get to and the traffic coming back into Kohima was atrocious both times I went. There were other activities in and around Kohima too, like a night bazaar, the Miss Nagaland 2010 beauty pageant and the Hornbill Rock Contest.

I only made the trip out to Kisama twice given that I was in Zunheboto till the third day of the festival, and had spent most of the fourth day travelling. Anyway, I managed to catch a number of performances on the main stage, see replicas of the morungs (the traditional boys dormitories) of all the major tribes in Nagaland, check out the WWII museum, and even bought Mum that asükhu (wood plate on a stand) that she asked for (the guy at India Post assured me they could deliver it, but I'm having my doubts).

I don't have a lot of commentary on the festival itself. Given the diversity of the performers and performances, I'm finding it a little hard to remember what I saw and the significance of each performance. I don't really mind that many of the performances wouldn't be considered 'authentic' by even a lay anthropologist, since the festival gives the numerous cultural associations around the state a chance to showcase some of the traditional songs, dances and games that they're trying to maintain. (I'm saving other criticisms I have for another post.)

One of the entrances to the festival grounds
Hornbill Festival 2010

Participants waiting to perform
Participants waiting to perform, Hornbill Festival 2010

Pochury women, having just played a traditional game of catch
Pochury women performing, Hornbill Festival 2010

A nice touch on the last day of the festival
Rainbow, Hornbill Festival 2010

Monday, December 6, 2010

Eating chillies

Yesterday at the Hornbill Festival, they held a Naga Chilli eating competition for the first time. The winner popped 8 of the fiery peppers, known as raja mircha, ('king chilli'), Naga jolokia, bhut jolokia.

This may not seem like a lot to people used to popping  which may not sound like a lot, unless you know that these chillies have been found to rate up to 1,041,427 units on the Scoville scale which is a measure of spicy heat. Wikipedia gives the rating for Tabasco sauce as between 2,500 to 5,000 units, while bird's eye chillies rate between 50,000 to 100,000 units. The only chilli hotter than raja mircha is a hybrid called the Naga Viper made by cross-breeding the raja mircha and two other chillies and was developed in the UK.

Prize-winning chillies at the horticultural centre next to the Hornbill Festival grounds at Kisama.
Raja Mircha

In any case, these are still the hottest chillies in the world that are being cultivated and consumed en masse. There are even reports that the Indian army plan to put them in hand grenades. Dangerous stuff.

Cucumber baby

So I'm spending a few days in Kohima, the state capital of Nagaland. I'm in town mainly for the Hornbill Festival, but also to meet with one of the linguistics professors at Nagaland University, as well as to sort out some other 'administrative' things like an extenstion to my current permit *fingers crossed* and Tata mobile internet for when I'm in Dimapur and Assam (I'm not sure if the Tata Photon Plus will work in Zunheboto, *fingers crossed*).

I'm staying with B., who's organised both my permits to enter Nagaland, and her husband. They live next to the original Kohima village site known as Tsütuonuomia Khel or more commonly, T-Khel. The term khel refers to a village sub-division - nowadays it almost corresponds to the local term 'colony' (or 'suburb' to most Anglophones).

T-Khel, Kohima

In Angami tradition, villages (and khels) were generally named after their founders. Hence the name Tsütuonuomia, the founder of this khel, whose name translates as 'cucumber baby'.

Now the story goes that there was once a cowherd who would take her cattle down to where the road between Kohima and Dimapur now runs. She got pregnant out of wedlock, which I assume was the guy's fault, but women always get the blame. Ashamed, she covered up the pregnancy until the time came to give birth. She then ran away to the fields to have the child in secret (most certainly without a midwife). On her way back and still ashamed, she covered the child in a blanket. When people asked what she was carrying, she told them it was cucumber.

And so the child was named 'cucumber baby' and grew up to found this khel.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Visit to Satoi (II)

When we arrived in Satoi, it became clear that our little 'sightseeing' trip would involve a little more than sightseeing. It was the 50th anniversary of the local pastor's appointment in the village and the occasion was in away a retirement party for him. I think it was also meant to commemorate his 75th birthday. Arriving with the reverend meant more VIP treatment - this time we got chappatis and avi kighinoli (mithun innards) and more cups of milk and black tea.

We were then led into the church, where the service was held.
Visit to Satoi

Visit to Satoi

I was a little embarrassed because they first ushered me right to the front to sit on the couches in the front row, when even the pastor was sitting on a plastic chair. At least we managed to give our seats to the pastor and his wife, but I ended up sitting in front of other guests of honour. During the service, I also had to stand and give a little wave while Ab. introduced me to the whole congregation - being a foreigner, having an MA and having worked on Sumi is apparently enough to attract this kind of attention. At the end of the service, I was presented, along with the other VIPs, with a bag containing a book about the pastor's life.

Then there was the feast following the service. To be fair, I could've taken a little less food without offending anyone, but I counted no less than four kinds of meat: pork, chicken, beef and mithun, cooked in a whole host of ways. And a lot more fat... but at least there were fresh vegetables. I only had one serving, which was more than enough...
Visit to Satoi

On our way back from Satoi, we managed to stop a few times to take photos of the valley. You can see Zunheboto town on the ridge just off to the right.
Road to Satoi

We also stopped again in Ghokhüvi to look at some of the Baptist conference preparations. I really liked the traditional wind chimes that adorned the entrance to the main venue.

Ghokhüvi village

A view of Ghokhüvi from the bottom of the village
Ghokhüvi village

Leaving the village, we had to drive again down to the base of the valley and up again. This time we had a bit more time, so we stopped for photos at the bridge right near the confluence of the Tizü and Tsütha Rivers. It's a very pretty valley.

Confluence of the Tsütha and Tüzü rivers

The Tsütha River just before it joins the Tizü
Tsütha river

Tizu river

I had a great day, despite the initial embarrassment and over-eating. Looking forward to visiting other villages and having more feasts!