Christmas 2011 in Nagaland - Vishepu (II)

On the day of the Christmas feast, the whole (or most of the) village gathered in front of I.'s parents' home (well technically the house owned by her father's brother - I think). I noticed that most of the people sitting in this area were kids. They brought their own plates - you can some of them just brought the usual asükhu, the wood plate with its own stand.

As with the Christmas feast I attended last year, the morning's festivities began with the cake ceremony, after a prayer or two of course. The cake here was brought all the way from Dimapur.


The entertainment programme began with ashi kimiki, where one (or two) guys(s) holds a large piece of pork meat and fat and other men try to bite off chunks of meat / fat. There's also some stylised jumping involved, but I'm not 100% certain what the rules are. Also, even though the name of the game contains the word ashi 'meat', most of it is really fat - maybe some people call it atha kimiki? The word kimiki is the deverbal noun derived from the verb miki 'to bite'.




There was also a comedy act - if you think people from villages don't have a sense of humour, you're sadly mistaken! The main guy was dressed like a tourist, while the other guys were... well one of them reminded me of George Michael. They danced to a Hindi song I didn't recognise. I'd post a video, but it already took hours just to get these photos up.




And after lunch was the bamboo climbing competition. Climbers took part in teams of 3 to 4, with no special climbing equipment allowed except for some ash which they can use to clean off the pork fat from the pole.




The happy winners and their bounty - a chunk of meat and 1000 Rs!

Alright, Christmas is over. Onward to 2012!

Christmas 2011 in Nagaland - Vishepu (I)

Everyone will tell you that Christmas time in Nagaland is best spent in a village. The towns and cities tend to empty out. It's just as well I wasn't in Zunheboto town because there was a situation involving two UG factions, so people weren't even setting off fireworks on Christmas Eve, which is the usual thing to do.

You might remember that last year I was in the village of Natha New, which is actually just next to Zunheboto town. This year I spent Christmas in Vishepu, since my friends I. and N. had come back from Australia to throw a Christmas feast for the village.



As with all Christmas feasts, preparations start weeks, if not months, ahead. But it's in the week before the feast that most of the village is mobilised for the feast. One important thing is pounding rice into rice flour.



Here, two kinds of rice flour (normal and glutinous) are mixed and water (and some salt and sugar) is added to make a a kind of dough. This is then wrapped in banana leaves and boiled or steamed (though some are baked in a fire). The result is Sümi sho or 'Sumi bread'. Personally, I like it when they fry it, although I've had some very good steamed Sümi sho.



What's a feast without the meat? And a real feast in Nagaland involves the slaughter of at least one mithun. The fellow here got a bullet through his skull on Christmas Eve morning. I got to witness the killing only because the person knocked on my door at 5.30am looking for ammunition (he was looking for the guy who was supposed to be sharing my room because he apparently knew where the ammo was kept.)


And being Nagaland, there's lots of pork.


This wasn't all the pork, because a few pigs were slaughtered a few days earlier and the meat distributed all over - I.'s sister even came to where I'm staying in Zunheboto to deliver a portion.


Finally, with the food all ready for the feast, there's the entertainment as well. Here the guys were setting up bamboo poles with meat and money hanging from the top. Teams then compete to climb up the pole to get the prizes. It's a game I saw last year in Natha New. Also, the poles are greased with pork fat, since watching the guys slide down the pole as they try to climb up is probably the main highlight of the game.

Sex sells fireworks?

Happy New Year from Nagaland!

Now, going back to Australia for a second, most Australians associate (or have associated) Canberra with being able to legally purchase porn and fireworks. It's a bit of a misconception, since fireworks are no longer freely available in the nation's capital and seriously, who buys porn in shops anymore?

Anyway, I have a point somewhere here. With Christmas and New Year's over, there's been a helluva lot of fireworks (locally known as 'bombs' here). While fireworks for New Year's is fairly standard for me, nowhere have I seen Christmas celebrating with such prolific use of explosives. It's a wonder I got any sleep on Christmas Eve.

But - apart from the loud intermittent blasts throughout the night - it was the packaging that really caught my attention. Most packaging looks fairly tame, bordering on family friendly even, but note the position of the woman's hand in this picture:

Others, on the other hand, are a little more shameless.

It's almost like a combination of porn and fireworks!

Okay, not quite, but I do find it hilarious that you're able to purchase these potentially life-threatening and sexually explicitly marketed babies, given that people aren't even allowed to go to cinemas here because it's considered a sin against God.

There are some things I don't think I'll ever understand.

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!