Reconstructing Naga history from oral tradition: Retrieval and evolution

(Continued from previous issue)
Celebrations like these show that we could be in a crucial moment of cultural redefinition. Christianity is a relatively new faith in Naga history and culture. We know Christian theology and exegesis, like in other faith traditions, are colored and shaped by culture. The indigenous peoples of the North East, particularly the hill tribes, are now Christian — a Christianity that came packaged with colonial Western culture. The early missionaries were extremely ethnocentric and convinced of the superiority of their faith, culture, and race. They forbade converts from performing traditional rituals and taking part in festivals. They were very particular about the formal signs of conversion. They urged converts to discard their native appearance by dressing in Western clothes and changing their hairstyles to make their conversion to Christianity visible, to mark their difference from their supposedly “benighted” past. These Eurocentric attitudes undermined some of the priceless values of indigenous culture, like the Naga sense of self and place within the cohort, which was intimately connected to the community’s wellbeing as a whole, alongside that of the life-giving natural ecology. The evangelical missionary attitudes also caused social disharmony in many villages and created confusion of values for generations.
Given this history, today’s Christian communities attempting meaningful cultural rebirth, like the celebration of Sekrenyi, will find the process perplexing. But we will need to ensure we do it right on two main fronts. The first is how to facilitate the transfer of the old to the new in terms of ritual changes. This will require creative imagination but will be the easy part. The harder task will be merging the best of both worlds into the renewed festivals in communities and villages which are now for the most part Christian. How do we nurture the ancient ethos of the common good back to everyday life such that our ancestors will find a comfortable home among us in the churches and the society at large? The occasional anxiety and growing pains in the transition process should not discourage us, because in the end the result will be deeply satisfying. It could become the starting point of healing for society.
Supposed Inferiority of the People of Northeast India
On the broader political front, the estrangement of this region’s indigenous societies from customary forms of government seems to be already decisive. It happened over decades. For Nagas, the disruption of traditional institutions started with India’s repression of the freedom movement and the creation of Nagaland state, along with the introduction of party-based rivalry in electoral politics, followed by political intrigue and infighting among Naga national factions. All of this has left the Nagas physically and psychologically wounded. The effects are too deep to get into at this lecture.
What is more to the point here is the current sociocultural climate in the Northeast as a whole, in relation to mainland India’s persistent domination of the region. The Central Government’s imposition of its political will has a history that includes an assumption on its part of a natural inferiority of the people compared to Indians on the mainland. The Northeast’s satellite status was put into policy by the leaders of the newly Independent Indian government back in the mid-twentieth century; it was consistently pursued by the successive Central Governments; and has now reached a new level.
The BJP government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has unabashedly ratchetted up its dominance over the region. The governance structure built around this assumption of inferiority has resulted in an outcaste-like state of national exception for the region. But the institutionalization of inferiority has gone beyond governmental structure and policy. It has translated into forms of racism in everyday life and acts of ethnic discrimination and open violence against Northeastern people in the mainland. Over the decades, the uneven power relation has morphed into an insidious group mentality: unthinking sense of superiority on the part of mainland India and subordination fatigue for the region. Even intellectuals and professionals now seem untroubled by the naturalization of the northeast’s status as India’s outcast region.
Morbid Symptoms of Communities in Crisis
Colonial history is replete with chronic problems it generated among the native peoples of the world from being uprooted. You combine close to a century, or longer, of colonial British rule of the region with another close to a century-long takeover by postcolonial India, and all of that history now culminating in the current BJP government’s feverish agenda of a monolithic India, and what you have is a perfect recipe for societal breakdown. This state of continuous control under the two dispensations of divide-and-(mis)rule have not afforded the people of this region a viable chance to work through their crises of identity. We have been consistently denied the wherewithal to make a transition from colonial to postcolonial self-rule. State autonomy and productive intra-regional collaboration are hard to come by in the northeastern part of the world’s “largest democracy.” Meanwhile, history marches on — as it has always done — and the world has become even more complicated in the 21st century. So, the people of this region have no choice but to muddle through as best as we can the political debris from several generations past, in addition to the uncontrollable challenges currently coming at us from the forces of globalization.
The depressing signs of our crisis at all areas of society (political, social, psychological, and moral) have been evident for a long time. They can be seen in the public sphere as well as in local communities and individuals across the region. Among these include: chronic micro-nationalisms, insurgencies, intra-regional rivalry, extortion by underground groups in the name of Christ and for patriotism, corruption in electoral politics, nepotism in public life, inadequate rule of law, violence, depression, alcoholism and substance abuse, loss of human dignity, so on and so forth. These are group and individual responses of a society uprooted and imposed upon by external forces, without the means to reconnect with their cultural roots for replenishment from enduring traditional values. For the people of this region, particularly the indigenous groups, the age of colonialism never ended. We have been, still are, living under what Italian political theorist and writer Antonio Gamsci said back in the 1930s about “a great variety of morbid symptoms” (Prison Notebooks, 1929-1935) that predictably attend periods of failed transitions of this nature. The people of this region are no exceptions to human frailties in the face of trauma.
Challenges and Ways Forward
How then do the Naga people recover from the history of subordination and loss, and work our way to becoming a region of diverse and living cultures, co-existing side by side in mutual cooperation in the interest of a plural society?
We face a two-faceted challenge: a monolithic national assimilationist drive on one hand and globalization on the other. And the way to meet them can be summed up in two words: retrieval and evolution. Avoiding cultural oblivion is the first step and this is done through retrieval of the old traditions. The other is evolving from the old traditions to new modes of being in the current realities of the 21st century world.
Retrieving oral cultures:
I started out this talk with a premise, based on historian Vansina’s theory of oral culture and the existential history of indigenous societies, that the health and growth of a people are reflected in the dynamic fusion of their narrative and performative cultural repertoire that arise from lived reality. The Nagas have lost much of the traditional stories and the worldviews they gave them birth. We need to retrieval them from our archival memories, and we can do that using conventional methods as well as new technologies. The crucial thing to bear in mind is — as we attempt to reconstruct history and document culture from oral sources — accuracy of the material being recorded and integrity of interpretation we bring to that material. There is considerable responsibility in committing stories to the written record, or into video format, so the responsibility should be well considered. In pursuing oral tradition while reconstructing history and birthing the language of a new emerging culture, we must employ methodologies that are ethical, preserve human dignity, and are in search of the truth. The application of oral traditions varies from place to place. So pursuing the study of oral culture requires that detailed work with and interviews of older generations and traditional storytellers should be diligently conducted. The stock of folk tales, legends, sayings, poems, prayers, and proverbs enrich our understanding of a society, and careful attention given to them from perspectives of an insider can urge us to pursue questions we hadn’t considered, forcing us to engage with material in new and deeper ways. Because oral traditions in Naga areas are in the process of being freshly documented, we need to be especially aware of the need for patience and discernment in this process. As I ponder this question, I am reminded of an old saying among my people: “ Niaki kele tieki rei phichii mia diezelie” . Loosely translated, this means: Listen to the voice of your elders even as the sun is setting. When all seems to fade in the face of impending darkness, the wisdom of the Ancients will be your beacon. The hope lies here — in the voices of the Ancients. They are the basis for nurturing the birth of the new when the old day has waned. We need to listen to them and retrieve what we can.
Evolution: reinventing selves in the present realities.
At another level, the globally interconnected world of the 21st century requires of people everywhere to forge new alignments and collaborative relations with others near and far. We cannot begin to do these things empty handed. Every group has to bring something, offer something, to the new ventures. Only a people with a cultural identity of their own can engage in mutually beneficial relations with people different from themselves. So those ancient voices, stories, and traditions we retrieve must help us grow and evolve as a people. The process would involve renewing our society on the basis of the old in the changed circumstances of the present. Like the trickster of oral culture, we will need to acquire new skills, learn new languages and idioms, and adapt to new situations. We will have to reinvent ourselves. As we put the interior cultural life of our group in functioning order, it will be necessary to look out to our neighbors in the region, and farther out to the rest of the world. The historical trajectories of the people of the region suggest certain shared sociocultural values. They can act as guiding principles for our ever expanding relationships. Those values come from our shared past that has taught us about the importance of social justice and human rights for all and the wellbeing of community and environmental health going forward.
Conclusion
Physical dislocation, cultural disruption, spiritual disorientation are all common human experiences throughout history. The recent history of the peoples of this region encompasses all of these situations in large measure. What lies ahead, namely cultural reinvention and retooling, is an uncertain and arduous process, yet it must continue, because without it we fade into oblivion. We escape oblivion by strengthening the cultural life of every culture-group, forging lasting social structures within and among the diverse groups, along with building bridges and relationships with people in mainland India, and extending lines of connection beyond the country out to the rest of the world. We do these things from a position of strength in our diverse cultural identities. We just need to work together to make it into a thriving multicultural society. The Internet and global travel are opening new lines of cross- and inter-cultural interaction with the wider world. As T. Sakhrie said, we are taking a leap, as it were, “from a distant past into the glare of the present century”. At this juncture, from the relative isolation I reflect that we would do well to consider the journeys of our indigenous brothers and sisters from other parts of the globe, like Australian Aborigines, who have had to navigate the risks and challenges of multiculturalism and are embracing the emergence of new avatars of identity.
We can picture ourselves as a people staring down a two-lane road to a viable, thriving future. One lane is freedom from the ghosts of oppressive history — whoever they have been or may want to continue haunting us. We are a small nation with strong and diverse traditions and rich biodiversity. We have differences among us sometimes, but we should all be agreed on one thing about how to deal with dominators: We refuse to be people in any country whose government and citizenry use us to feel superior and to act as though they were. The second lane would lead every tribe to a revival of ancient traditions for holistic wellbeing, and from the strength of that foundation to evolve further out to forge relations among the peoples of this region and beyond to the fast-changing world. The potential of a culturally multifaceted, plural society that this region offers can open us to greater horizons, a wider sense of common humanity, and a shared embrace of the best in the human spirit. But travelling on the fast-track highway of monolithic nationalism and unbridled globalization is a difficult and dangerous adventure. Our values and spirit will need keen awareness and insight as we make the journey. I can hear the words of my Elders: “ Kejiimia mu ketuomia ketsolie yamo shie” – He who sleeps will not catch up with the one who walks.
May we walk with our eyes open (Concluded)
Dr. Visier Sanyü
Healing Garden, Medziphema
Nagaland