Burial of the Bamboo Mug, Rice Beer and Folk Songs of the Tangkhuls

'You are not allowed to drink rice beer as Christians. It makes you do bad things that God does not want you to do...' Ashang listened to the sermon of the Christian Missionary with a strange kind of disturbed attentiveness. He had a notion that the missionary must be talking about some irresponsible drunkard as he was unable to recall any bad things he had done in his whole life because of drinking rice beer. He went home in-convinced and decided to postpone his earlier resolve to get himself baptized and convert to Christianity.

Holding a huge bamboo mug filled with rice beer, Ashang sat by the fire sipping the content talking to his wife (Phanitla) about the missionary's strange teaching.

Ashang: How can he say eating food is bad? My parents drink rice beer, their parents drink rice beer and we drink rice beer to give us strength to live. Can you think of living without it? Have I ever fought with anyone after drinking? Have I ever raised my voice on you after drinking?

Phanitla: No.

Ashang: Then why should I give up rice beer? I can't imagine living life drinking only water. And I don't like the taste of water where they add something called sugar to boiled water. Let my children decide for themselves, for me I'll not convert. As for you, you are free to decide. But, I suggest you also don't convert.

Phanitla: I don't know.. But, what if the whole village gets converted?

Ashang: Let them convert. The missionary was also saying something about singing folk songs. Once converted, people are not supposed to sing folk songs. Only heaven knows why.

Looking at the logs burning into live charcoal and then to ashes in the hearth, Ashang realized how life has changed so much in a matter of decades. When he was a child there were no coins, people just use to exchange things, but now people use only coins. He remembered the times when his father took him along for hunting and bird trapping. He often dream of the days when the whole village feasted when his father erected those wooden totems and huge stone slabs outside his house. The wooden totems have gathered moss over the years but still stand as strong as the stones.

He requested his wife to refill his bamboo mug and to give him his tingteila (Harp). Somewhere in his heart he knew his children would never know what was the past like. It pains him thinking how the future would be like for his children. A faint smile lit up his wrinkled face when he consoled himself that he would be meeting his parents again in Kazeiram (Kingdom of the dead) after death.

Ashang looked at his wife and said "When I die bury me in the family grave along with my bamboo mug, spear, dao, and harp." Not knowing what to reply, his wife answered "When are you going to die?" and suddenly realized the oddness of the words. Without waiting for further interjection from his wife, Ashang asked her "It must have been tough for you living with me all these years right? Do you still love me as you used to?" His wife just replied, "You're becoming sillier everyday" and giggled.

Ashang tuned his tingteila and started singing the folk song of how a man went to Kazeiram (Kingdom of the dead) and brought back his dead wife. The last logs in the fire were burning out and Ashang pointed to the few logs and told his wife that they are like the last logs in the fire burning away so quickly. If live coal are found among the ashes in the morning, a new fire would be lit out of it, else some live coal would be fetched from the neighbors. He can cover the burning coal with load of ashes to ensure some coals are found in the morning. However, he can't hide his children and grand children from the many changes that are happening around too quickly. He knew he would be buried along with his tingteila, bamboo mug, spear and dao but beyond that he was not able to foresee whether his children and grand children would sing the song that he used to sing, hunt like he did and drink rice beer as he and his forefathers did. To be continued...

Note: The advent of Christianity has totally changed the Tangkhul Naga's way of life. Many things have been forcefully buried. This blogpost is a tribute to my grandfather who lived and died without giving in to the wave of Christianity.

Tangkhul Naga Totem Erection Rituals

If I have a time machine, the first thing that I would do is sneak back a century and explore the lifestyle, culture and tradition of my forefathers. Changes that have occurred after the advent of Christianity and Western Education to this otherwise isolated hills are almost incomprehensible. It was so hard for me to believe the stories that my grandpa used to tell me about his childhood, adolescent, youth and the prevalent lifestyle, rituals and social practices. I often tasked dad to validate that there are some truth in the stories and tales that grandpa narrated to me. For dad, it was not that hard to believe as he grew up seeing and living some of the experiences of the times that are now lost forever. One of the stories I remember is about the rituals people used to perform before erecting totems and stones, which were symbols of prosperity those days.

As Tangkhuls are basically an agrarian society, wealth in olden days was computed in terms of food grains and livestock of the family. So a rich man is someone who has a surplus of food grain and cattle. Life was that simple. Erection of totems and stones was a luxury that only the rich could afford to do. The process involved feasting for weeks and even months of the whole village at the expense to the man who erects these symbols of prosperity. Many erected stones stand even today to remind the younger generations of the glorious past. However, there are only few moss covered wooden totems (poles) left even in interior villages, which would soon rot away erasing remnants of the past that was so different.

Erection of totems as I was told is done only by people who are rich and mainly by the eldest in the family or the clan. When it is decided that a family is going to erect totems, the news is made known to all the relatives, the whole village and subsequently the neighboring villages too. Preparation for the occasion include, searching for a witch doctor/priest, collecting spotless sacrificial animals(biggest to the smallest), bulk brewing of wine and beer (for the villagers and guests), bulk grinding of rice and other food grains, etc. Once these initial preparations are done, village elders along with the witch doctors go scouting to find the right trees and stones to be brought home for erection.

Trees and stone selection as I was told was not done randomly. Necessary sacrifices were offered and are felled based on what the tree or stone spirits reveal in dreams or through a medium. Only unmarried trees and stones are to be selected and felled. This is one part where I choose not to hide my sarcasm, unable to comprehend how trees and stones can possibly speak or could have spirits in them. Anyway, there are too many things that I don’t understand and may never understand about the past.

After the sex of the tree or stone is determined, the objects as I was told are adorned with the appropriate costumes of male or a female. Cross dressing entails serious curse upon the family which was believed to last for generations.
After felling the trees, the young men in the village are tasked to carry home the trees and stones in single pieces. The drinking and eating celebration starts with coming home of the first tree or stone and ends when all the totems are erected following strict sacrificial procedures.

Animals that are considered perfect in every aspect are sacrificed throughout the erection ceremony. There are folk tales that suggests even human beings were sacrificed at the time of totem erections. However, my grandfather didn’t mention about this particular thing. Maybe he didn’t want me to know that people then were inhuman, or maybe human sacrifice was discontinued at some point of time. It was strictly mandatory to sacrifice animals and fowls from the smallest to the biggest. Missing out a single animal was believed to be a bad omen which has an associated curse, which would run in the family for generations. Scary as it sounds this one seems to be true as there are families where some of the siblings have some abnormality that people believe is the curse inherited from totem erection blunders.

This is one of the practices that were still prevalent till the late 19th century. With the advent of Christianity, the practice became odd and conflicting with the new faith. There is nothing I can connect this practice with the Tangkhuls of today. The time gap and difference between the present and the semi distant past is too wide. It is more like the past Tangkhuls disappeared one fine day like the Incas and Mayans and the present Tangkhuls suddenly replaced them. I am a Tangkhul, one of the many who are struggling to connect with the past.


Note this is a draft version that Google allowed me to post; If there are any grammatical mistakes or Typos, shoot a mail to Eric Schmidt and Google

Do Militants wear tattered clothes and torn shoes?

Another foolish and arbitrary act of the Assam Rifles (Indian Army) who call themselves as 'Friends of the hill people."

"Maaro, maaro.." ('beat them' in Hindi) was all they could understand before they were kicked, punched and hit with rifle butts. No one heard their painful groans in that dense forest where they've camped for days on a hunting expedition. That fateful winter day of 1996 is a day none of the six hunters would ever forget in their lives, not for being so pleasant a day but for being the most horrific one.

Amidst the kicks and punches and the groans of pain there were some weak sounds audible:

• Iya Kappan, chaena kappa kachanae ('this is the end, this is the end' in the local dialect)
• Iya Oho miran (Oh my life)
• Oh Ai (Dear mom)
• Iya Onushasha (my children) etc..

The hunters were from my village and were camping near Myanmar border. Winter is the best time for hunting in the hills. Hunters leave the village in groups and go camp in the forest for a week or two. They built temporary tents from wild banana leaves and plastic sheets as night shelters. It is not unusual to see multiple hunting camps in that part of the dense forest in winter.

When the hunters were about to have lunch that day, they suddenly heard the sound of guns being loaded from all sides. Then they saw uniformed indian army personnel pointing their guns and advancing towards them. All the way, the army jawans were shouting to them in Hindi, which the hunters couldn't make out. They were forced to lie down flat on the ground, frisked thoroughly and then were made to kneel. This was when blows started landing on them.

None in the group knew Hindi and were at their wits end when they didn't understand what on earth the army personnel were asking and what they were supposed to bark back as response. To their relief, there happened to be one Manipuri tribal in the patrol party and was called to interpret. The eldest of the hunters told him they are hunters and asked why they are being beaten? It was from the interpreter that the hunters came to know the Army issued no hunting notice to villages in view of Army Operation, which was not known to the hunting party from my village.

The leader of the patrol party was not convinced that the six rabbit like scared people were just hunters and not militants. They were all arrested and taken to Assam Rifles Post at Pushing, a place about 30 kilometers south of my village.

Fearing that they might be beaten and interrogated at the Army camp, the smartest in the group feigned madness and started acting strange before reaching the Army camp. All the hunters were worried not knowing what possibly might happen to them. On reaching the Army camp they were bundled into a small room and the door was locked from outside.


They were later paraded in front of the commanding officer, a well educated captain who instantly realized that his boys have arrested the wrong type of militants. The patrol leader was summoned and was asked what made him think those six hunters were militants? Maybe, the leader got a sound scolding, which we'll never know as none of the arrested persons knew Hindi. To the relief of the hunters, they were not beaten or interrogated further but, were fed well and were asked to stay in the camp for the night.

However, the arrest drama did not end there. The hunters were taken to Kamjong Assam Rifles Headquaters, approximately 60 kilometers further south from Pushing. The reason for taking them to Kamjong which was revealed later was to complete the proper procedure of arrest and release. The hunters were unnecessarily detained for a whole week at Kamjong camp. After a week, they were ferried to Ukhrul and let off there.

On coming back to the village, they were again summoned by the Assam Rifles camp commander of Khamasom to come and meet him. Khamasom is about 7 kilometers north east of my village. The hunters have to drag their asses all the way to Khamasom again even before recovering from the shock and trauma of being detained for a week. The commanding officer told the hunters to report to the army camp every day for a week as punishment for daring to go hunting when the Army was doing jungle operation.

Well, they did what they were asked to do for another week///\\\ The Army do anything that comes to their mind out there in the hills exploiting the ignorance and simplicity of the populace in the name of curbing militancy.

We'll never know the Army's intention of the arrest and torture of the hunters. It could be due to lack of common sense in deducing the difference between militants and commoners. As the army in that part is known for their cruelty at times of trouble, maybe they were simply venting out their anger and frustration on the hunters for:

• Being send for jungle operation by their superiors when they like to do was to stay at the camp sipping XXX Rum
• Their inability to track down the real militants
• Some of their colleagues being killed by the illusive militants

If it was due to mistaken identity, it would be an exposure of sub-standard training given to the Indian army personnel. Even an untrained person would be able to tell the difference between militants and hunters.

• Hunters in that part of the world wear only torn and worn out cloths. Militants wear camouflage uniforms
• Hunters wear rubber shoes or torn jungle boots. Militants wear uniform boots.    
• Hunters carry single shot shotguns. Militants carry AK 47, M16 and other sophisticated weapons    
• Hunters carry bamboo woven baskets. Militants carry backpacks and many etc..

Note: All the six hunters are still alive and their arrest incident is one of the favorite festival jokes in the village, a typical village way of trying to see laughter in pain and humiliation. Ringmi, Kanmi, Simon, Ninganung, Rinkahao are five of the six, I am not able to remember the sixth one..... In the near future someone will make a movie out of this incident titled as the "Unlucky and the Lucky Six." At least they were not killed in some well orchestrated encounter