What remains after taking away Naga folksong is about copying, says Dr. Arkotong Longkumer

Our Reporter

Dimapur, June 1 (EMN): Fusion is embedded in the ecology of creation and it is about making an open enquiry about engagement related to place and rooted in the land. The central idea of fusion is that it leads to growth and establishes a new way of doing and thinking, said Dr. Arkotong Longkumer, Senior Lecturer, Modern Asia, University of Edinburgh, UK, on Wednesday at Dimapur Government College (DGC).

Longkumer was the keynote speaker at the inaugural session of the two-day international seminar on “Fusion: Intellectual and Cultural Exchanges” organised by the department of English and Research Committee, DGC, in collaboration with the Highland Institute, Kohima and Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC), DGC.

Speaking on “Fusion- ecologies of creation and the sonic genre”, the speaker told the participants that he would examine the terrain of fusion through “the ecologies of creation” while drawing attention to the work of Padma Shri Guru Rewben Mashangva from Ukhrul, Manipur — a musician — and who he called “the reviver of tradition”.

“His music gives us a glimpse into the workings of fusion that is about creating a practical way in which the sonic experience of singing and listening connect to what author Charles Hirschkind calls developing the body as an auditory instrument,” he said.

Drawing on music, fusion, he said, often contests and troubles the uneven terrain in which it sits and it is not simply a combination of different genres but has the ability to transform and establish its own expression.

Quoting Mashangva, who said: “We have lost our culture and tradition and now it has become dark. So to bring light, a teacher is needed to light a candle, a lamp. Even if it’s a small lamp, a thin light, the dark room can now see a little better”, he elucidated what the folk musician meant was that a teacher is someone who is attempting to bring light to a world that has forgotten its roots. 

Longkumer opined that oral tradition play a vital role in how folk songs are passed down. There are no written musical notations; it is the spoken word, the songs that tell the history of the people.

He went on to quote a Naga musician who said: “We learn stories, folktales about our ancestors, lifestyle, government, economy and culture through music. Only music, folk music, traditional clothes are the original documents that we have since we have no original written manuscript.” He said that if one is to take away the Naga folksong or tune, ‘what remains is only about copying’, while underlining that modification of culture is part and parcel of fusion.

DGC Principal Dr. M Libanthung Ngullie also launched a book titled “The Diary of Connie Shakespeare: The Naga Hills 1900-1902” by Nigel Shakespeare at the event.

“Reading the private thoughts of an unsuspecting person makes one feel somewhat guilty despite knowing that the person in question is long deceased. Such a feeling is quickly dispensed with when we read the diary of Connie Shakespear as we come to realise that it may well become a document of historical importance for the Nagas, of whom she writes about,” wrote DGC Assistant Professor A Sentiyula in the forward of the book.