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.
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