Thepfulhouvi Solo
Dr JH Hutton, Deputy Commissioner of the Naga Hills has gleefully mentioned a story, in his monumental Book -The Angami Naga, of the people talks about as having descended from the lost Tribes of the Jews!
Indeed, there are several similarities in the life of the Angami and of the Jew; however the story of the Angami descended from the Jew is post-Christian and not pre-Christian pagan traditional oral history, transmitted down the memory lane from time immemorial for generations after generations: it is historically speaking, very recent.
I haven’t heard Tenyimia [Angami Tsanàmia] of any old pagan tell such a story. My hunch is: in the primitive pre-Christian pagan days, the Angami didn’t even know who of mankind the Hebrew is! It was only after the American Missionaries brought Jesus to the Angami tribe that they slowly accepted YAHWEH, -the monolithic God of the Jews, the Creator of Heaven and Earth- as ‘JIHOVA’ in their own tongue. Before and during the early days of the colonial Britisher’s first appearance in the Angami Naga country in 1832, the people didn’t even know themselves as Naga outside the name of their own tribe TENYIMIA in their own tongue.
My unconscionable hunch could be: it is possible the fond story germinated in the fertile minds of some Angami after they became Christian and surprisingly became aware of a few similarities of the biblical Jews, of their lost ten tribes and the Angami life. If I were an Apostle Paul, I would have loudly called out: “‘normally Judicious Angamis’: who have bewitched you into funny speculative histories?!*”
It never occurred to the tribe that civilized Christian Europe has even some anti-Semitics who unlike the Angami disdained the Jew saying they are murderers of Jesus Christ; the writings of Martin Luther may even had an unintended influence in the development of this unwelcome feeling in the Christians of Europe!
The Jew is Semitic by Race: the Naga is Mongolian; and a person of one race can’t morph into another. A Naga can, become the citizen of another Nation; anyone can, but a Caucasian however can’t become a Mongolian, or vice versa, though one can obtain the Citizenship of another State.
There are quite a few Naga became ‘American’ Citizen. That doesn’t make them Caucasian American, or Red-Indian American or even Latin-American. An Indian-American or African-American can’t become a person of another Race.
Paul, the Apostle by Jesus inherited Roman Citizenship from his father but he is not a Roman, he is a Jew; a person of one Race can’t metamorphose into another.
The Angami life does have certain similarities with that of the Jew:-
He washes his body with water of whatever the source is: -from the Pond, Lakes, River, and Rainwater or piped from underground spring or Well; but the Angami, from very ancient pagan times, cleansed ‘puoPhou’ [his spiritual body] only with water from his own Clan or Thinuo Pond in the Village, in a special manner of bath called ‘Dzüse Va’, -the Baptism in water Christian believes washes the person’s sins.
Every Clan, every Thinuo of the village has its own spring well; and it is only from this Thinuo’s or Clan’s Pond that the water is used for doing the ritual bath -DZÜSE VÄ, -Baptism.
Christians do Baptism once on the person’s acceptance of the principles of the Christian Denomination and not of any other.
In the Angami, only the males can have Dzüse Va once every year in a ‘religious feast’ -Sekrenyi-, [life cleansing festival] at a particular time of the year with solemn religious rituals and feasting.
The Month and date of the festival is determined specifically according to the Phases of the Moon and the position of the Sun in its yearly revolution.
At the approach of the Sekrenyi season, [November-December] early one morning, the male folks of the Clan or Thinuo together go to the Well and thoroughly clean its surroundings, drain out all the water and allow the water to well up with fresh, new water in the pond. After that, woman folks are not allowed to fetch water or even touch it from the Pond for the two days and forenoon of the third day.
Then early in the morning, all able bodied males, even small boys holding their fathers or elder brothers hand go to the well, wash themselves ritually mumbling good blessings in, cursing away bad fortunes after the father, shake off their old cloth in the air, then walk back home holding the toughest kind of Grass –Tsohe - with tough sharp leaves that can cut even the fingers given by the father, that imparts its tough character to the boys. Reaching home, the chicken one for each male is strangled dead, and observe the signs of its legs cross over each other for good or undesirable signs. The bird is burned clean of its feathers, cut open by its belly and carefully pull out all the entrails to see what its pair of appendices forebode good or ill luck for the person in the days ahead. Then the meat is cooked in the newly constructed hearth, in new pot. It is finally eaten by the males themselves alone in new plate: not sharing with the woman folks of the family. It is taboo for the females to eat even the left-over of the cooked meat.
The processes of the Sekrenyi feast are no simpler than the Pass-Over Feast of the Jews. It is so complicated, the Christian Writer could only observe with his eyes, but could not record in his Diary the entire acts, except the main points, including the smearing of the King Post with ritual wine and food at night, done so silently and solemnly by the wife of the Master of the house that the Writer only looked at in wondered solemnity unable to raise any questions to the performer for explanations or write down in the note book the processes of the rituals in the dark inside.
The ritual is similar to the Pass-over Feast of the Jews described in the Bible, except that the Angami house has a very important King Post of the house and not Door Post of the JEW on which the blood of a Lamb is said to be smeared. The similarities of the rituals in the Passover Feast of the Jew and in the Sekrenyi of the Angami are surprising: A gracious good Spirit must have described the whole processes of the Senkrenyi Feast to the Angami forefathers in the old time immemorial many, many years ago.
The Angami traditionally holds his House with great reverence. When the Master of House has traditionally abandoned the house in Customary Exile [Themou] after putting out the permanent fire off the hearth in consequence of unintentional extinguishing Life of another [Biejo-biemou] of the village, the Family of the aggrieved comes and slices the King Post of the house inside and that is taken a sign of desolation of it and allowed to rot into abandonment.
The main structures of the Angami house are:
i. The Codi -King Post, solid, about 12 inches wide, four inches thick of choice plank of a wood, with an inch-size channels fashioned convoluted on the faces of the post in elongated lines, like in the stone pillars of ancient Greece building;
ii. The Kithe, -Ridge, one-piece round log, de-barked and fashioned straight the length of the house;
iii. Two Ge-Cos, -corner-Posts, fashioned like the kingpost, but smaller and;
iv. The Kiprü, – Cross-beam fastened to the Codi above the entrance door of the house and connects the two Ge-Cos, -the corner Posts.
The Codi and the Kiprü forms a Cross, like the wooden Cross Jesus was crucified on.
The similarity of the Passover Feast of the Jews and the Angami Sekrenyi: –Passover Feast, Dzüse Va –Water Baptism, Ki Zhie – Doorpost Smearing acts etcetera are autogenic and not ontogeny: similar in actions but different in origin. It doesn’t indicate the same origin of the actions in the Angami and Jews because the reasons of the actions are different.
Another similarity of the Angami and the Jew is in the Man’s hair-cut style. The Angami has a tuff of long hairs, -pig-tail, at the top back of his head; called –TSÜKHRU, every male wears one in his head.
The Jews have two tuffs of curly long hairs on the –sideburns- called Peugeot, one on each side of head: to the Angami’s only one Tsükhru at the back of the head.
The similarities in the lives of the Angami and of the Jew, are probably just co-incidences due to similar thought processes of the two peoples, perhaps in their Stiff-nakedness in their natures!?*; not through Angami descent from the 10 lost Tribes of Israel.
Of all the peoples of the world, the Jew is different from all others in that they believe God commanded their Patriarch Abraham to cut-off the tip foreskin in the penis of every male on the 8th day of his birth, -Circumcision- as a sign of the everlasting Promise of God to all generations Abraham’s descendants.
Circumcision is not one of the Ten Commandments, yet perhaps no other practice in the life of the Jew is more distinctively important than Circumcision is, but any non-Jew ritually and religiously accepting it to be in one with the Jew, after the “Kingdom of God has come to the World”, binds himself to all the other Mosaic laws also; and thus refuses the promise of Gospel of Jesus, his sacrifice of death on the Cross and the power of his Resurrection from death:
Notwithstanding, the graciousness of God is far, far, ever higher and greater than any of the Laws of Moses.
