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.


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.



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.



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...





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


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


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.




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


Some men were busy making baskets out of bamboo.


Others were busy cutting up the pork and mithun meat.




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.






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.

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!

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!

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.


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.


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


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

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 of Khonoma village from above


The new Khonoma village gate

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

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


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


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.

'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.