A girl from the Kachari community performing at the Hornbill Festival 2018 in Kisama. (Morung Photo)
Morung Express News
Kisama | December 4
“The Hornbill Festival has been a great platform for us to showcase our traditions. But more importantly, the rest of the Naga brothers have also come to know us,” says Dharmadhag Sonowal, Cultural Secretary of the Kachari Tribal Council Nagaland at the Hornbill Festival.
Sharing similar view, Sharmila, in-charge of the Garo Morung at the Hornbill Festival maintained that the Hornbill Festival has helped highlight the tribe and its culture to bigger spectators. The Garos and Kachari communities are the lesser known minority tribes in Nagaland still struggling with equal and fair representation as well as acceptance of their identity. In recent years, the Hornbill Festival celebrated from December 1 to 10 has created spaces for these communities and a positive awareness to a lot of visitors, tourists as well as locals, on the marginalised tribes and communities of the State.
“Tourists have started knowing more about our tribe through the Hornbill Festival,” says Sharmila while mentioning that a major attraction for tourists at the Garo stall is the Khapa- a Garo cuisine made of meat cooked with grinded rice powder and sour leaves. With a population of about 4000, Sharmila provides a brief history of the Garos of Nagaland who are believed to have migrated from Burma and settled in Samaguting, now known as Chumoukedima.
The Kachari tribe is a recognised tribe of the State which comprises of two sub-tribes, namely the Dimasa and the Mech Kachari. Sonowal informs that during the Hornbill Festival, the two sub-tribes takes turns to run the Kachari stall with the Mech Kacharis running the Morung this year. A popular attraction at the Kachari Morung is the Indi Imphu (silkworm) and the Kachari rice beer called Zumai. With the indigenous Kachari cuisine sharing similarities with cuisines of Assam and the rest of India, Sonowal viewed that their Morung usually attracts more domestic tourists. “It is a pleasure for us, and we are thankful to the Nagaland government for providing the platform,” says Sonowal.
A significant progress, for both Sonowal and Sharmila, is the growing awareness of their communities through the Festival. “Others in the interiors and remote areas of Nagaland think that we are not a part of Nagaland but when they come here at the festival, they get to know that we are part of Nagaland,” states Sonowal.
Marginalised communities such as the Garos and Kacharis shares diverse histories in Nagaland, yet they are confronted with the same challenges of poverty, fair and equal representation, unemployment, lack of development in rural areas, and most essentially due recognition and acceptance of their identity.
While events such as the Hornbill Festival is opening up fair spaces, members from these communities says look forward to better days of equal representation and acceptance of their identities in future.
