Nagaland village focus: Khuzama

As I prepare to leave India again (this time to spend Christmas at home with the family for the first time in years), I thought I'd share some photos from a visit to another friend's village in Nagaland. Like Khonoma village that we also visited, Khuzama is an Angami village. You can tell it's an Angami by the suffix -ma (corresponding to Sumi village names that end in -mi). However, most Angami speakers seem to replace the -ma with -ra / -rie when they refer to the villages in speech.

While Khonoma is a Western Angami village, Khuzama is one of the Southern Angami villages situated on the highway between Kohima and Imphal in Manipur. It's also the last Angami village before you reach the state border with Manipur and the start of Mao territory. The Maos (not to be confused with Maoists) are another related tribe. Linguistically, Southern Angami dialects are so different from Tenyidie (standard Angami based on Northen Angami) that they might constitute a different language altogether. My friend from Khuzama says he finds it easier to understand Chokri (one of the main languages of the group previously classified as 'Eastern Angami' but now known as Chakhesang).

The current Khuzama village gate

The weekend my friend from Australia was around, our Angami friends who usually live in Kohima had a church function to attend in Khuzama. I thought it'd be nice to go for a walk around the terraces and they were happy for us to take us to the village. They got one of the boys in the village to take us around, and also to explain to people why a couple of strangers were walking around their village.

Our 'guide' for the afternoon brought us to our friend's plot of land. Unlike with jhum cultivation, which involves shifting to a new field site every 2 years and the re-allocation of new plots to people to cultivate (typically by the village chief), terraces are 'owned' by the same people every year. They are also passed down from generation to generation, but only to sons I believe.

From the village, we could also see the neighbouring village of Viswema. I'm told it's the largest of the Southern Angami villages. If you've been on the highway from Kohima to Imphal, you would have probably noticed that most of the roofs on the houses have been painted red, making it almost look like some Italian village on a hilltop.

We walked down all the way to the little river / stream. It would've been nice to have a picnic on the rocks in the middle of the stream, but we hadn't organised ourselves that well.

We had a really pleasant afternoon walking around the terraced fields down to the stream. It didn't take us long to get down, but the climb back up was quite strenuous, and we weren't carrying baskets of grain or anything back up to the village with us! We were told that when there's a lot of work to be done in the fields, some villagers do sleep in the field huts that you can see dotting the hillside.


I should add that the Angamis and Chakhesangs (formerly 'Eastern Angamis', as mentioned above) are cited as the only two tribes in Nagaland to have started practising terracing before the arrival of the British. (They do still practise some jhum cultivation to grow other crops.) I've been asking around about the origins of terracing in these tribes, as it strikes me as imported technology, but no one I've asked has been able to give a satisfactory reply. I would be quite interested to find out more about local stories / folktales surrounding its origins in these communities.

Alright, this will probably be my last post in India for a while. I still have a backlog of material to upload, and I'll try to do that when I'm back in Singapore or Australia. In the meantime, Happy Holidays everyone!

Khonoma village (Take two)

Two years ago I visited Khonoma village, which is about 2 hours from Kohima (depending on road conditions). Unfortunately, the day I visited was terribly foggy and it was hard to see anything (see here). This time, I visited again shortly after the Hornbill Festival. Thankfully the weather was much better, since I also came with a friend from Australia who may not have another chance to come back.

Now, there are some friends who don't feel that Khonoma needs any special mention or recommendation. Even among my Angami friends, people from Khonoma are often perceived as being particularly proud, arrogant even. The village itself is famed for its defiance of the British which culminated in the Battle of Khonoma in 1879 that resulted in the deaths of a number of British soldiers.

The villagers even manufactured their own guns, based on models acquired in the plains of Assam. This particular gun required two people to hold it up, while a third person loaded it.

Another reason for the perceived 'smugness' might be because the village has also produced a number of intellectuals. I'm told the reason for this is that during the British siege, the villagers smuggled out a number of kids to Dimapur where they eventually received their education (and hence the overall better standard of education in the village compared to others in Nagaland). I'm not quite sure how true this is, but in the absence of other explanations, I'm willing to accept it. The village also produced a number of founding members of the Naga independence movement, including Phizo himself.

In any case, Khonoma is a pleasant place to visit if you're in Kohima for the Hornbill Fesitval (although the Southern Angami villages past the Kisama Heritage Village are also quite picturesque - but that's for another post). It prides itself on being a 'green village', and there are rubbish bins all over the village which to my eye are actually used. To my surprise, I learnt that the village still has a functioning morung, a kind of dormitory where young men were sent to learn about traditional ways and to form bonds with members of their peer group. (It was even more of a surprise for me because Hutton in his book The Angami Nagas mentions that the morung wasn't very significant to the Angamis). Some villages also had a female equivalent, although I was told there was none in Khonoma at the present time.

The streets are generally well maintained, with competitions between the various peer groups, known as peli in Tenyidie (the standard Angami dialect used in church and schools). Here, one can see the work of one peli working on a section of road, so that they don't get outdone by other peli who are in charge of other sections of the same road.

My Angami friends in Kohima organised the visit for us. We had a local guide named Michael, who used to be the president of the students' union here (I believe), and who was very knowledgeable about the village's history.

I don't normally do such recommendations, but I was quite impressed by his role in organising the members of the village to maintain its cleanliness and preserve the local wildlife. I would say that many villages in Nagaland could benefit from learning from Khonoma's system of organisation, but I don't want to inflate the villagers' egos any further!

If you are interested in visiting Khonoma village, you can contact Mr Michael Saphi (Khonoma Tours & Treks) at +91 98 5655 9394.

On the importance of tones

Even though I've looked at Sumi tone for years (and I can speak another tone language, Mandarin), I still feel like I'm tone-deaf when I listen to the language. Fortunately, I've been getting a lot of help with Sumi tones thanks to my friend Cana, who apart from being a gifted artist, is also a gifted musician.

Sumi has 3 contrastive tones: low, mid and high, all of which are fairly level (except when there's intonation involved). This means that there is a change in pitch height results in a new word, e.g.

apuh [à.pù] ‘father’
apu [a.pu] ‘water scoop’
appu [à.pú] ‘son’

So apuh with low tone means 'father' and appu with high tone means 'son'. The change in spelling is a fairly recent one, which hasn't been universally adopted. But the main thing is, when you say the words out, the consonants and vowels are all the same, the only difference is pitch.

I find the high tone easiest to perceive, but I often get the low and mid tones mixed up. I was actually pretty amazed (I suppose I shouldn't have been, but I still was) when Cana told me that the low and mid tones are closer together in pitch than the high. That was something I'd demonstrated in an acoustic instrumental study of the language a few years ago.

The other problem I have is, when I speak Sumi, I have a tendency to put a slightly higher pitch on the last syllable of a word that I try to stress. As an example, the word ana [ànà] with low tones on both syllables means 'rice'.

But every time I answer the question "Ana chu va chu mphi?" 'Have you eaten yet?' (lit. "Have you eaten rice yet or not?"), I end up saying "Ana chu va." 'I've eaten' (lit. 'I've eaten rice'), pronouncing ana as what speakers perceive as [àná], with high tone on the second syllable. I know it should be low tone, but somehow part of me just wants to stress the whole word, and I end up using a higher pitch to do so.

At least ana [àná] with high tone doesn't mean anything in Sumi, but speakers can still tell it's wrong.

In a similar vein, when I was staying with friends in Kohima a few weeks ago, I was trying to learn a few phrases in Kohima Angami / Tenyidie. In contrast to Sumi, Tenyidie has 5 tones, all of which are fairly level as far as I can tell, and I still can't tell the difference between most of the tones. Anyway, it didn't stop me from learning a few key phrases.

One evening, when asked if I was hungry, I replied with A merü mo. I thought I was saying "I'm not hungry." The verb merü means 'to be hungry' when there's low tone on the final syllable.

Without realising it again, I'd said merü with a high tone on the second syllable.

My friends all burst into laughter immediately. It turns out I'd said "I haven't vomitted."

Angamis, Aos, Sumis and Lothas - Identity

Last week I caught a taxi back from Midland in Kohima. Some Sumi friends accompanied me to the taxi stand to help me negotiate a fare, but I was headed for Bara Bosti, the original Kohima village, which is almost exclusively Angami for historical reasons. The taxi driver, who turned out to be Lotha (another major tribe of Nagaland) was confused and asked me if I was Angami or Sema (Sumi).

It's quite a telling question - even in 'mixed' cities like Dimapur and Kohima, tribal identity is still very important to most people. Most people want to know what tribe someone else is from. Given that Nagaland's not a big state and I suppose this is also about identity negotiation within the very heterogeneous social fabric of the place. Even within each tribe, people will be curious about the village or clan you're from? Last year in Zunheboto, I was asked Khuuno ghami kea? 'Which village are you from?' when I first met someone, before my friend had to explain that I wasn't even from Nagaland.

Often people can tell someone's tribe by looking at physical features, picking up on sociolinguistic cues, or knowing the other person's name. As a last resort, they might just ask someone outright what tribe they're from (like I was asked). I've been told many times that physically, I'm too tall to be a Sumi. Also, despite all attempts at getting a tropical tan, my skin is still 'too fair' to be either Angami or Sumi. One Angami friend reckons that I have the height and facial features of an Angami, but my 'fair' skin makes me look more like an Ao.

These 'rules' (for want of a better word) often strike me as fairly arbitrary. It's true that I tower over most people in Zunheboto (the headquarters of the Sumi-dominated district), but I've met Sumis who I'd consider to be just as 'fair' as me. It's also not as if all Angamis are tall - given that the capital city Kohima is in Angami territory, better nutrition in recent history might have resulted in some people gaining in stature, but only in certain pockets of the population.

My Sumi, Angami and Ao friends often have things to say about the 'character' of people from other tribes. They're gross generalisations, but I find such perceptions of other tribes interesting.

To avoid offending any particular tribe, I'm just going to rely on a song composed by an Angami person named Zutakherie. It's a pretty famous song in Nagaland (I can't find any videos of it on Youtube though). The title can be translated as 'Residents of Kohima' / 'People living in Kohima'.

Kohima te thakia khan composed by Zutakherie

Kohima te thakia khan
Nisa lake phutani,
Wokha pura ahia khan
chalak, chalak ahise,
Mokokchung thakia khan
style kuri ahise,
Zunheboto pura ahia khan jagara,
Sop jati Kohima te jama kurise,
Kohima Nagaland capital,
Naga manu misa-mishi ofis te najailebi
tolop pai - Nagaland city kuribole.

Loosely translated (suggestions, especially for the last two lines, are welcome since my Nagamese isn't good):
Kohima residents
Get drunk and feel proud
People coming from Wokha
Are very cunning / come with their tricks (?).
Mokokchung residents
Come in style
People from Zunheboto come fighting / arguing.
All tribes gather in Kohima,
Kohima the capital of Nagaland.
Nagas casually don't go to work / office
(But still) draw a salary - (in so doing, they are) making a Nagaland city.

So there you have it:
The Angamis (the traditional residents of Kohima) are drunkards, the Lothas (from Wokha) are liars and tricksters, the Aos (from Mokokchung) are overly concerned with fashion, and the Sumis (from Zunheboto) are a rowdy violent bunch.

All according to the song of course.

Angamis, Aos and Sumis - Languages

I was also going to post about inter-tribal perceptions of the main three tribes, but rather than risk offending anyone, I thought I'd just post about common perceptions of their languages, as well as my own.

Over the last few weeks I've stayed with Sumi (aka Sema) friends in Zunheboto, an Ao friend in Dimapur and now Angami friends here in Kohima. Given that the Angami, Ao and Sumi languages are three of the most commonly spoken Naga languages, I think I've started getting the hang of telling them apart if I hear them on the street in places like Dimapur and Kohima where people from all over the state gather.

Given that most of my research has been on Sumi, I can almost always tell if someone is speaking the language, even if I can't understand what they're saying. The most distinguishing feature of Sumi are what people often call 'guttural' sounds. More technically, these are the velar fricatives [x] and [ɣ] - [x] is found in languages like German, e.g. the sound represented by ch in achtung and [ɣ] sounds similar to French 'r', except it's not articulated as far back in the mouth. Sumi also has uvular stops [q] and [q^h] which sound like swallowed up 'k's sound - [q] is found in standard Arabic, as in the word Quran.

My non-Sumi friends have also told that Sumis sound like they're arguing with each other when they speak, even when they're not. They're seen as quite a rowdy lot in general and the language is perceived as being 'harsh'. I'm not quite sure I completely agree with this, but there was one Sumi guy who I thought was always angry, just judging from the general loudness of his voice.

Angami on the other hand, is said to sound 'gentler', 'sweeter' and more 'melodic'. Again, I'm not sure I completely agree with this statement, but I do agree that it can sound more 'melodic'. This might have to something to do with the fact that Angami has more contrastive tones than Sumi: the Kohima dialect has been analysed as having 5, while Sumi only has 3. Also, the lack of 'gutturals' might have something to do with its perception as being 'gentler'.

As a non-speaker of Angami (apart from the few phrases I got my friends to teach me this week), I don't hear the tones at all. What I do listen out for are the consonant clusters 'kr' and 'pr', which Sumi and Ao lack. Angami also has a mid central vowel, like English schwa [Ə], which Sumi lacks.

Of the three, I've had the least experience with Ao, which is said to be the most 'singsong' of the main three languages. I can't comment much on it, except after spending 4 days with a speaker of (Mongsen) Ao, the most distinguishing feature for me is the high incidence of rhotic or 'r' sounds. It's sort of like when I hear Beijing Mandarin being spoken - all I tend to hear is 'rrr ... rrr ... rrr ...'

[Addendum: Lotha, the language of another major tribe, sounds like Ao, except speakers roll / trill their 'r's.]

Certainly, there are many other languages spoken which may fit these patterns, but given the relatively larger number of speakers for these languages, there's a higher probability that my guess is right.

Finally, my friends here can usually tell what tribe's someone's from just from the way they speak Nagamese (the local lingua franca based on Assamese but quite a bit of Hindi and Bengali vocabulary). For some of these friends, intonation seems to be a good cue. I'm sure it'd be an interesting linguistic topic to explore somewhere down the track.

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).



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.