The Hutton Lectures Symposium
Morung Express News
Kohima | December 9
The second day of the fourth edition of the Hutton Lectures Symposium held on December 9 at de Oriental Grande, Kohima discoursed on ‘Foods, orality, language, and practices’, ‘Orality, knowledge, and transmission’, and ‘Indigenous knowledge in contemporary times’.
While presenting her paper on ‘Women’s writing on the Nagas: A study of MM Clark’s A corner in India and Mildred Archer’s Journey to Nagaland’, Temsurenla Ozukum, from ICFAI University Nagaland mentioned that the few female voices in the colonial era in the Naga Hills provided insightful perspectives and pre-conceived notions of the Nagas by outsiders.
“As women writers though both writings were personal they have made many observations about the Nagas be it their physical features, way of life, role in the family, society and the church and their costumes. Their observations and writings on the Nagas adds a different dimension to the already vast collection of knowledge on the Nagas by the colonial writers mostly men,” said Ozukum attributing Archer and Clark for providing rare perspectives on the Naga way of life during the colonial period, which most male writers failed to identify.
Their writings, however, also revealed the insular mindsets outsiders perceived on the Nagas as Ozukum aptly pointed out: “Their thoughts have been restructured to acknowledge and proclaim that the outside world was far better and advanced.”
Akha Kahirii Mao, Ambedkar University Delhi who presented a paper on ‘Morung, the traditional education system of the Nagas: A study of the Mao-Nagas’ spoke on the dormitory systems in different Naga societies, various perspectives of the Morung system, and functions and practices of the Morung system among Mao Nagas.
Stressing on the relevance of the Morung in the modern education system, Akha mentioned that the working of ‘the Morung can be used as an example of the ideal state-education relationship, sustaining the public education institutions and providing for its upkeep, the Morung was totally looked after by the village and common resources.’
According to Akha Mao, the Morung also encapsulated some of the cherished values of the Indian constitution such as equality and fraternity, in terms of its functioning. However, Mao also pointed out that the Morung should also be critiqued as it was marked by strict gender-differentiation.
Further recommendations were also given to document and study other similar institutions across communities, preserve various historical artifacts, folktales and folklore. The need to study historically and sociologically institutions, including endangered languages, skills and customs was stressed, where Mao also reminded appropriate precautions need to be taken in order to preserve certain cultural legacies.
In her presentation on ‘Re-thinking Naga Cultural Practice and Memories’ Dr Hewasa Lorin, Tetseo College, Dimapur posited that “the re-articulation of cultural practices under different conditions of significance is never a recovery of an ‘original’ tradition.”
A major consequence of the colonial and missionary interventions in Naga society was the renouncing of traditional practices. This, Dr. Lorin viewed was just one part of the story, the other being the Nagas rejecting their traditional practices themselves, in their quest for modernization.
“The ‘traditional’ came to seem discreditable and was thus disavowed by the Nagas when they attempted to conform to modernity. But this led to feelings of anxiety, as the result of a disavowal that was incomplete: neither total conformity to the new morality nor total disavowal of the traditional morality,” claimed Dr. Lorin.
These feelings of anxiety were best manifested in dreams which often appear to include contradictions. Although the ‘dream’ was a traditional genre of dubious epistemic value for a modern self-knowledge, Dr. Lorin interestingly propounded that dreams played a significant role in the cultural realm of the Nagas which was used to make sense of contemporary events. “The belief in dreams was so powerful that much of the decisions and choices in their daily lives were dependent on them,” said Dr. Lorin, who cited stories of Nagas and their dreams associating with historical or past memories.
While speaking on the use of dreams in contemporary times, Dr Lorin’s theory indicated how for Nagas even in contemporary times, dreams are connected to the lived memories of Nagas. Further, it also indicates that the politics of memory shapes the dreams of Nagas in contemporary times. Thus, the need for re-thinking of cultural practices and memories in Naga society.
