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.

Miss Sumi 2010

After 4 days of waking up early to spend 5-6 hours on the road and in the sky, I finally arrived in Zunheboto, Nagaland around 1.30pm on the 13th of November with a small dent in my head - life is tough when you can fall asleep in any moving vehicle, including a crowded sumo travelling on a winding and bumpy road. (A sumo is a term commonly used across the NE for a 4WD used to ferry people from town to town.) Despite my best efforts, I could not remain awake long enough to prevent my skull from knocking against the window. This is in stark contrast to my first time travelling down this road last February when I was absolutely terrified of everything, from the local police to the local militant factions.

After being treated to some tea and and ahuna, the name given to rice cooked in bamboo during the Sumi month of Ahuna, when the post-harvest festival Ahuna is celebrated - my principal reason for coming to Zunheboto at this time of year - I was asked if I wanted to attend the Miss Sumi 2010 beauty pageant later that afternoon. Having seen videos of a Miss Nagaland beauty pageant at the anthropological museum in Zurich back in December 2008, I was keen to attend despite my fatigue.

After squeezing through the Zunheboto town hall doors with our tickets, my hosts and I had to sit through a number of speeches thanking the numerous donors and 'sponsorers' (sic) before the actual pageant began.

It was pretty normal as pageants come. There was the ethnic costume round, the 'casual' round where the girls presumably chose their own 'modern' outfits, and the 'designer' round where they got to model outfits made by a local designer. The girls also had to introduce themselves and answers a few questions: two in English and one in Sumi.

My favourite for the evening was contestant 10, because she - wait for it - had recently completed an MA in Linguistics.

Much of the commentary seemed to focus on 'women's empowerment' and using this as a platform for that. However, as with most beauty pageants that claim to do so, I couldn't help but notice the large number of males in the audience oggling and catcalling at the participants, especially when they were in 'ethnic cosutme'.

The other thing I found slightly disturbing - the organisers clearly have never seen Little Miss Sunshine - was a performance by little girls from the local Montesorri school, dancing to the song "Shut Up and Bounce" from the Bollywood film Dostana.





I'm really sure if people quite understood the not-so-subtle subtext to that song:
"I feel it... I need it... Baby we can do it all night".

Add that to the little cosutmes the girls were in, and I can't imagine how parents in the West (except maybe in America) would ever approve of such a performance. But it clearly didn't seem to phaze the audience here, and even when I show the video to people here, everyone seems to think it's just a very cute performance.

I was really grateful to be able to attend the event, especially given that tickets cost 500 Rs to admit two. There were some complaints about the sound operators this year, especially when they stuffed up the actual Ahuna festival sound the following two days. But who would've thought, I actually got to attend a beauty pageant in Nagaland.

And of course, the winners for the evening (with Miss Sumi 2010 right in the middle)