Fictionalised Folk Belief and Studying Their Social Relevance

Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf’s impression, one of the earliest impressions of the Nagas, was that the “highly developed megalithic ritual of some of the Naga tribes seemed to be of crucial importance in the elucidation of the ideology which led men to commemorate meritorious feats by the erection of crude stone monuments” and that his concern with this particular aspect of Naga culture led him “to a general appreciation of the archaic patterns of life persisting in the remote hill tracts along the Indo-Burman border”.

(Haimendorf 1976:1)

The statement throws light on the Naga spirit and art and the impact that it had on one of the greatest scholars to have lived with and studied on them. Though in a state of oblivion from the views of most in the Indian mainland and the world beyond that, the Nagas have been able to mesmerise and inspire the souls who have tried to peep into their lives. Kire’s role in taking her people to the outside world is immense. She has repeatedly tried to over­shadow the commonplace impression of literature of the state being centred on violence and political apathy and this she has done by bringing to the contemporary reader the var­ied manifestations of the four fields of folklore as classified by Richard M. Dorson (1972): oral literature, material culture, social folk custom, and folk performing art. A study of the selected novels show that the novelist is very concerned about the presentation of the fol­lowing:

i) myths

ii) legends

iii) beliefs regarding nature and relationship with it

iv) customs and beliefs related to birth, marriage, death, agriculture, hunting, community living and other such practices/aspects that have a direct impact on the lives of the peo­ple

v) belief in the supernatural elements: heaven, hell, gods, angels, benevolent, and malevo­lent spirits

vi) rebirth/life after death

vii) beliefs related to material culture

The folk beliefs as presented by the author can be enumerated as follows:

1 All of the novels have elaborate descriptions of the age-group houses, thehou, where a child would be put into after attaining puberty.

2 Much like the modern education system’s insistence on apprenticeship followed by hands-on sessions, stay in the thehou also involves thekra earning where boys of a particular age group work collectively in fields of the villagers to collect money for the customary feast. Such a practice is believed to instil a sense of having grown up so that the young man may come up to take worldly responsibilities.

3 The Nagas are famed warriors. Clashes among warring clans and villages have been described elaborately by historians and travellers in their accounts. But it is taboo to live in villages having instances of ghastly bloodshed. Every raid is preceded by elabo­rate rituals where a young rooster is sacrificed and if it dies with the right leg crossing over the left the omen is believed to be congenial. The novelist talks about ghost villages left empty after such bloodbath:

In the second village, the members of the upper clan killed a man from the lower clan in a drunken brawl. The murder led to a war between the two clans and, by the end of the seventh day, so much blood had been spilt in the village that it became taboo to live there. The women and children filled their baskets and their belongings and walked out, weeping loudly. The men followed them with guilty hearts; they knew that if they had stopped the killings they would not have lost their homes.

(Kire 2016a:13)

It can be easily perceived that violence is not encouraged in the social system and redemp­tion lies in tasks like vacating the entire village and settling somewhere else.

1 Despite being warriors they have some steadfast beliefs of whom never to harm. For instance the marauding warriors abstain themselves from harming a woman in the loom.

2 The Nagas have elaborate hunting rituals. Killing a tiger is always considered a very brave act to perform. The rituals that start as the hunter(s) killing the beast approaches the village and what he/they have to do in the next few days has been elaborately described by Kire in her novels:

The headman was waiting at the gate and said, ‘Do not come. You have killed our elder brother, do not come.’... ‘It was not I, Apfu-o. It was the spear who killed Tiger’.

(Kire 2016a:131)

After the carcass of the killed tiger is brought inside the boundary of the village the male members start the tekhukete ritual wherein:

Turn by turn the men came to strike the dead tiger with their spears. Male children were encouraged to thrust their spears at different parts of the tiger’s body so that their fear of the tiger would be diminished and their hearts strengthened.

(Kire 2016a:32) In addition to that they have to honour certain customs rigidly not to invite the wrath of the malevolent spirits:

cook from a new fireplace for five days and eat separately, using a different set of pots and pans. He needs his clansman to guard him for a week... He also had to use freshly cut wood.

(Kire 2016a :131-132)

When the fire was made, Vilau killed a pig and chopped off the right leg to give to the tekhutheno-u, the man who had injured the tiger... he divided his food into 39 shares and ate all the portions after careful counting...On the fifth day, he would store the remains of the fireplace and put away the cooking stones. Then he would fetch water again in order to complete the tiger killing rituals.

(Kire 2016b: 33-34)

The reason behind such elaborate ritual is the belief that in the past Omei (man), Orah (supernatural spirit), and Okhe (tiger) were brothers and fratricide is an unpardonable crime. The answer is tricky and ambiguous, but assumed by them to be logically tenable.

The men whose spirits had metamorphosed into tigers...Legend said that every wer- etiger began as a smaller animal, possibly a wildcat... Men whose spirits were turning into weretigers would begin to behave strangely... It is not only the tiger that men transform themselves into... Can you turn back into a human when you get tired of being a tiger?... Only with great difficulty and as though you are going through living death. The spirit is tormented so greatly that the pain itself is a deterrent to those who want to stop being tigers.

(Kire 2014 :26-28)

Nagas are hardworking agriculturalists and have deep faith in their gods and the benevo­lent spirits for a good harvest. They attempt to avoid any untoward incident that may invite their wrath. One prominent practice is observing genna⁵ days. It is a taboo to work on such days in the field:

If you work break the taboos, you break yourself, her father had always said that.

(Kire 2016a:31)

Such practices help the people to get some time from their busy schedule as well as help in the replenishment of the soil so that it does not become barren with over-cultivation. Despite being known for their warrior spirit the Nagas strongly believe that:

a household is not worthy of its name if its granaries are empty... War is part of a village’s life but if we have grain, we can withstand war. If we do not have grain, a few days of war will overcome us.

(Kire 2016a:30)

They have genna to save the paddy from withering, to prevent the soil from becoming ster­ile or barren, and subsequently to keep the fertility of soil intact. Thus, the taboo associated with not working in the field on certain days has deep rooted relation with their activities.

1 Terhase after genna days is a ritual carried out to pacify the spirits so that they do not harm the fields and the people continue getting good harvest, and to keep the people in good health.

2 Rhuotho is a seed sowing ritual involving two young children who walk in different directions sowing the seeds. After the ritual gets over the hosts cannot work on that day and also cannot talk to the sojourners. The belief seems to put the hosts away from influences that might distract them.

3 Birth rituals are observed by all communities and are important treasures. The elabo­rate birth rituals have been beautifully shown by the author in the novels. The beliefs centre around the urgent necessity to keep the spirits away from harming the newborn: As the baby squealed into the world, Kovi quickly smeared saliva on his fin­ger and touched it to his daughter’s forehead with the words “I am first”. That ensured that the spirits could not claim the child before him... There had been too many deaths of newborns in the village because their fathers have not been alert enough to stake claim before the spirits.

(Kire 2016a: 23-24)

The belief appears out of place in the contemporary circumstances but the inherent motive of bringing the family together through the belief is deep rooted. Another such practice is that of nuou when meat is given from the maternal relatives.

Performance, observance, and the nature of death rituals of the Nagas depend on the nature of the death. Natural deaths involve vigil and decent burial. The different kinds of apotia or unnatural death are not mourned and any display of grief is for­bidden. Such deaths may be death in childbirth, death by drowning, or in the face of natural occurrences like landslides or rockslides, and any other accidental deaths not caused by ill health or old age. Lashu death or death while giving birth is considered the worst of all apotia deaths. The dead is taken out of the house through a new pas­sage carved in the wall instead of the usual exit passage and the mat covered body is put in a grave for a hasty burial.

Death parts us but after death, the spirits of the loved ones return to lead us away from this life to the land of the dead.

(Kire 2016a: 158)

Belief regarding sightings of the dead is not uncommon. Though it can be assumed that repeated telling of such incidents spread news and fear fast but a belief exists beyond the plane of enforced notions, in the realm of assumed realities of the common folk. One such tale enumerated by the author goes as follows:

At first she forgot that he had been dead two weeks, because he was sitting in the same spot that he used to sit when he came to drink, and looking the same as before. When she realised that it was his spirit, she cried aloud... Then the lady of the house recollected herself and spoke to him and said, ‘Zekuo, we understand that you are longing for us and want to come back but yours is a different route now. You must not return again.’. The spirit did not reply but he got up and pulled on his body-cloth and walked out the front door.

(Iralu 2007:90-91)

The belief goes that it is more common for the spirits of those who die young to come back to their cherished places as they could not fulfil their heart’s desires. The living trying to avoid the spirits have belief that such a spirit can be dispelled by striking the machete at different spots in the doorway. It is believed to be taboo to raise one’s voice near the body of the deceased.

Marriage rituals of the Nagas also have thier own sets of do’s and do not’s. The author has given an elaborate description as to what marriage rituals are and how are they performed. Just as any other society they also believe in ascertaining that the relation­ship that they are attempting to forge shall be strong and lasting, the ritual involves sacrificing a chicken and then:

let it fall on the ground. In death, the chicken’s right leg crossed over the left and Viu pronounced it as a good ritual.

(Kire 2016a:78)

Such beliefs help the people in putting themselves whole heartedly into the performance of the marriage rituals.

1 Kerutsu is the first day of going to the fields for a married couple and the husband is to avoid piercing the ground with spear. The reference to a spear shows that the ammunition is kept handy by the men, another pointer by the author to the warrior spirit.

2 Mother Nature is held in deep reverence by the Nagas. In When the River Sleeps, Vili calls the forest his wife showing the magnitude of his attachment. The forests are store houses of endless stories of people being taken control over by spirits and sightings of supernatural beings like the weretigers. Besides the productive and benevolent dimen­sion of nature, there is the unclean forests called Rarhuria which are believed to be frequented and infested by spirits and as such are to be avoided.

3 The Naga society is basically patriarchal with the women enjoying no land inheritance rights. This has led to the creation of a notion of an ‘ideal woman’ who would fit into the ‘marry - bear and rear children - anage the household’ mould. It is such a belief whose execution breeds people like the grandmother of Dielieno, the protagonist of the novel A Terrible Matriarchy. The matriarch confidently says:

I hope her mother realises that you have to raise girls on a tight leash...

(Iralu 2007:7).

The existence of Kirhupfumia, immensely feared women having lethal powers, is another belief of the Nagas. They try their best to keep such women in good humour. In When the River Sleeps, she writes thus:

People came to her with the first of their harvests, be it vegetables or fruit or grain and even eggs, chickens and bigger animals. Parents warned their children never to neglect to greet the old woman.

(Kire 2014:131)

The societies across the world seem to be very harsh on the common people at times. One such instance is the blaming of an individual in the face of repeated tragedies in a family. The women seem to become soft targets in the face of such beliefs. Such an instance has been portrayed (Mesanou’s words) in Son of the Thundercloud:

There were two women who said it was my spirit, and not the tiger, that had killed all my sons and my husband. The village refused to have anything to do with me after that. Their children were warned not to come to my house and I was isolated from the village, even while living with it... sometimes people think that repeated tragedies have a source in the family itself.

(Kire 2016a:104)

‘From indigenous faith to Christianity’ has been the route traversed by the Naga society after the arrival of the British forces and missionaries in the Naga Hills. The initial years saw a clash between the pre-Christian belief system and the emerging Christian doctrines, but gradually the old world order could not sustain the new social undercurrents. The act of the neo-converts ploughing on a genna day as depicted by Kire in A Naga Village Remembered is a reminder that what was once believed to be a truth gets transformed into a supersti­tion. Their words once believed to be potent enough to invite the wrath of the spirits soon became acceptable. The picture of the Naga Hills stood different. However, it was not easy to flip beliefs. Such a picture has been depicted by the author in Bitter Wormwood:

Though they had been Christians for six years now, they still observed the taboo days of the non-Christians.

(Kire 2013:69)

To be precise, it was a change in approach from believing in propitiating the spirits to believing in a god brought in by the people whose entry they had vehemently opposed and resulted in bloody clashes.

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