On Uncle Khekiye’s “Sumi Reality Check,” IBI and Angami-Sumi relationship

Dr. Petevilie Chasie [dropcap]A[/dropcap]ROUND eighteen years ago a girl classmate of mine who went to study in Medziphema after leaving the village school came to the village with her friend a Sumi girl. I saw this girl fetching water from the village water tank when an old man who was taking bath asked her which Sumi clan she belongs to. She replied in chaste Angami dialect that she belong to the Awomi clan, if I am not mistaken. The old man replied, “Good, I am happy, the Awomi’s are our kindred.” That old man died away around nine years back before I became aware of things in life and still I am. However Thevomia of Angami’s, Awomi of Sumi or Thevomi of the Chakhesang sounds synonymous. I don’t know about the Sumi’s take on Awomi’s clan, the Tenyimia belived that Thevo is the elder of the moieties; Thevo and Thepa of the Tenyimia origins. Earlier this year some elders from a Sumi village from Zunheboto District came visiting Khonoma. I do not know much but it seems our two villages have some sort of ancient relationship. I believe this sort of traditional relationship built ages ago should be renewed and strengthened for the sake of peace and reconciliation in our trouble society. I see a more civilized and a more advanced thinking in our forefathers than us when I learned this kind of relationship. Coming back to my small Chasie clan in Khonoma, it is probably one of the smallest clan in Khonoma but in this small clan we have three Sumi ladies, a Yimchunger lady and a Zelaing lady as our sister-in-laws. With pride I should say they are very cordial whenever we met although we stays in different colonies and places in Kohima and Dimapur. Why I wrote this is that there should be more inter tribe marriage among the Nagas and not with the illegal immigrants. My (self style) philosophy is that with Naga inter tribal marital union; we will become closer and there will be more understanding. When one of my cousin brothers eloped with one of this Sumi lady, we had a gathering at one of my uncle resident. I remember the then Sumi Hoho president P. Inaho graciously came, and gracefully listen to the Sumi speech of the girl’s mother and translate it in chaste Angami dialect for our sake. I found in him a man of wisdom and a true leader ready to bend down to talk with and helped an old village lady. I don’t find this kind of antique much in my leaders these days. Again if I am not mistaken one of the sister-in-law is a daughter of a Sumi village chief in Dimapur. Why I am writing all this is because I want to assure that we the Angamis don’t have deep grudges or hatred towards the Sumi brethrens, to say “nothing” or “never” is a too utopian concept that I very much doubt it existed anywhere. But at least I don’t hear any from my village or came across from any one. May be I looked at the positive side more. Off course whenever any incident happened in Dimapur I heard people unfortunately cursing the entire Sumis. I believe the Western Sumi Hoho or Youth Front could do something about it because often one can differentiate which tribe a certain person belong to because of our distinct ascent. It is bringing bad name to the entire Sumi brethrens. It must have helped in the eighties and nineties to be rough and unruly but it no more helps in this generation and it can become explosive in our narrow minded tribal society. Let me be clear here no tribe or group is saint in Dimapur, each tribe is displaying their criminal side trying to outdo each other for territorial, political and business advancement. I just put it here the Sumis because uncle Khekiye shares his thought about the Sumis and in Dimapur lived the Sumis as majority. Regarding the Sumi settlement in Dimapur, except occasional noise and perhaps it will continue for some few more years to come. When your forefathers roam around there, surely there will be some noise, but I don’t think the Angami’s care about it much, otherwise we or our elders should have settled there long ago in the seventies and eighties. An old lady once told me that JB Jasokie and Thepfülo-u, two elder statements of those days, even encouraged the settlement. I am not sure if she is right or wrong and she is no more. I may also be hurting my own tribesman by writing this but it is high time we understand that we did not settle there when we should have, why keep on grudging. Without permission I will quote what uncle Kaka Iralu once said when we went down to Dimapur for some work, “Neither are we (Angamis) settling (in Dimapur) nor do we want others to settle, what is it? It is not the way.” There are still so many lands being bought without settling and lying in waste by the Angamis. We Angamis are like broilers preferring the comfort zone. Even if the entire Sumi went back to Zunheboto we might not settle there. We will probably stay back in Kohima district with each village claiming to be bigger than the other. I often wonder what is the used of claiming one’s village is bigger than the other. Off course it helps in today’s time because of election, Indian money is also baneful to us after statehood. Not only the Sumis but to all the Naga tribes I wonder why we occupied so much land without utilising it, we tried to encroached Dimapur town and our Highway greedily but a short mile or even after some few yards away there are land wasted unutilised hectares and hectares. If the Government wants to utilise it then compensation demands will sky rocket and government even if a bit sincere in doing something could not carried out any work. Or after doing it, again because of encroachment things become difficult to function. Coming to the illegal Bangladeshis immigrants, this has become a burning issue in the whole of North East. In Nagaland I don’t think we can blame the Western Sumis alone. It is our collective inherent reluctance to do manual works which encouraged IBI’s migration to the settlement in Kohima and Dimapur and in Dimapur it has become precarious. These immigrants need to do something to survive and they were ready to do anything in the beginning but as we all are seeing, slowly they are taking over our business and perhaps our woman folk too. Main land Indians irrespective of religion or caste come earn and send back money home as remittance because they are not going to stay here their entire life but this immigrants are not going anywhere. They will slowly take over every part of our daily life. Some few years ago a description called “sumiya” came out in various papers. I saw it in the North East Sun magazine. Now it is no more there but inter-marriage between the Nagas and IBI’s still continues and in Dimapur it is becoming dangerous. In Khonoma we have a saying “A small banyan tree growing on top of another tree trunk kills the mother (benefactor) tree and become bigger than the mother (benefactor) tree.” My mother used to say, “A dying snake even bites the very hand that nursed it to life.”I don’t hate these immigrants honestly, but it is harmful to patronize them: look at the crime rate in Dimapur, how much crime is committed by them and the Sumi themselves and the Nagas in general is baring some of the consequence directly. Patronizing them and adopting them, inter-marriage with them will create social problems and harmful to our ethnicity, our physical anthropology. Dimapur is only a small area, if we patronized them and they populated it, in future where will we go, what will we do. We must think for another generation. They will not be able to construct new villages. I believed everybody is aware of Tripura situation and the conflict between the Bodos and immigrants in recent years. Dear uncle Khekiye, I call you uncle because it makes me feel closer although neither you nor me knows each other. I want to say that it is you and people like you alone who can help our Sumi brethrens realised all these and helped all of us. Me and my generation in the village grew up with confidence because there is uncle Charles, uncle Niketu, uncle Vikepelhu and even uncle Kolacalie and others, some of them could have lived comfortably in some cosy Western Countries but they came back; helped us, guide us and advice us, the rustic villagers; also willingly holding seminars and conference etc., whenever requested. A vibrant and an advanced Western Sumi will be beneficial for all the Nagas since Dimapur is the gateway of the Nagas. We only wish them well and you and our educated Sumi elders can help it. You are saying something what others seems to be observing silently. People I believed will not say anything because of either fear of hurting our brethrens feeling or fear of repercussions and I too with much pondering wrote this. It is not always good to live on someone fear psychosis; I find these days some of my elders regretting what our ancestors might have done, although history wrote about us gloriously. It was said that some of the Zeliang villages used to say, “Life would be blissful if not for the hard wind and Khonoma people.” We are a small village but sometime we are conscious of History. Let us try to be honest and try to solve things with our mouth then with our fist; to understand each other more for the sake of another generation, they deserve it. I went to school with the Sumis and my neighbours are Sumis I have no much problem. I will be happy if this article can bring us closer otherwise I don’t want to hurt any feelings, just scoff it as if it is written by an ignorant boy. Wishing everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year.