Title:  The Stone People from Lungterok

Author : Temsula Ao

Genre : Poetry

Publication : 2009

Format : E-copy

4.5/5

Blogpost by Dhanu

Temsula’s poem The Stone People from Lungterok depicts the origin, cultural and social images of the Ao Naga community. In my early twenties, I came across this Northeast Indian poet, Temsula Ao. She describes the soulful beauty of her community in her poem. The poem solely surrounds the tradition and culture of the Ao Naga people and their origin. This Ao community is a major Naga ethnic group settled in Mokokchung District, Nagaland.

Cultural Significance of Stone People from Lungterok

Lungterok does not only stand as the cultural reflection of the Naga people. It is the birthplace for the human emergence of their ancestors and the beginning of Ao Naga culture. The poet argues that they are advanced in both culture and livelihood even without modern science.

The oral tradition of this indigenous group becomes their strength and identity. The six stones symbolize the three men and three women and mark their legacy on the earth. The poem expresses the connecting bridge between the present generation and their ancestors.

Themes and Symbolism in the Poem

Birth of The Ao Six Stone People

Temsula plays herself as a representative of her community through the lines of her poem. She begins the poem with the recall and explanation about the birth of her first six people from the six stones. These stones are located in Lungterok, Chungliyimiti. She further praises their birth out from the womb of the Mother Earth.

In the second stanza, she intuitively talks about their responsibilities right after their origin story. The Stone people enrich the community with all kinds of professions, like poets and balladeers, who are intended to tell the story of nature and themselves. Then, there come the ones who find and bring water resource to be purposeful for their day-to-day lifestyle, cultivation and storage. Also, they are well-versed in handling the fire and not being engulfed in it.

Language and Indigenous Knowlege

In the third stanza of Stone People from Lungterok, she talks highly of the intellect and literacy of the Stone-people community. She says that they speak the language of Nature to stay abode in it, not the one spoken by human beings. They speak the language of birds and animals. This brings them close with their environment and aware of them. So, they can save themselves from being endangered in the deep forest.

Even the kids get their life lessons from tiny ants that teach them about unity. This valuable lesson keeps them acquainted within the community. So, they can gather the heads of their enemies during the war period. And showcase those as the symbol of their victory.

In the fourth stanza, readers can visualize the remembrance of her ancestors. She mentions that their people know the difference in each act of Nature. Common people enjoy the pleasant sensation of sulking as an escape from extreme heat. But the people in the Ao culture know the difference.

They believe the stars in the night sky are the souls of their ancestors. They visit them in the night to watch their people and guide their predecessors even after they have left this world. Likewise, these people compare even small reactions from Mother Nature with their livelihood alterations.

Cultural and Nature Intimacy

The next stanza continues, with their guidance, these people work hard with excellence in everything they do. They are good at pottery, weaving, cultivation, hunting and arts. So, they do not have to be reliant on anything other than the nature. Even though they sing a rhythm of nature, they also know how to behead their enemy. They can be both ‘Gentle lovers and savage heroes’. They learned to construct homes for everyone in the community. If anything comes to endanger their community, they will never be hesitant to destroy of the other villagers.

In the final stanzas, she tells the world about the godly beliefs of these people. The Stone people from Lungterok region worship Mother Nature and their ancestors for their peaceful life. They seek guidance from the departed souls of their ancestors in the ‘varied forms’ and their temporary dwellings. And, pay their respect for their final journey towards the afterlife.

Temsula ends the people by saying that Stone-people can live like both ‘savage and sage/ Who sprang out of LUNGTEROK’ stones. In the end, she raises a rhetorical question about their ancestors’ age during the birth from the stone. She asks whether they were born like an adult with complete knowledge and skills. Or whether they were still evolving across generations. This emphasizes the mythic uncertainty as it is quite impossible to imply.

In this poem, readers can vividly see the cultural ethnicity of the Ao Naga people and their origin. Temsula describes them as the ‘progenitors’ from the worm of the earth. As we can see, they are close to nature. They are the reason for the beautiful and fertile lands in the regions of Nagaland.

Narrative Style in The Stone People from Lungterok

The most dominant symbol of this poem is the stone in Lungterok (Longterok), which literally means the six stones. It is the symbol of the cultural survival of the Ao Naga communal group. Temsula uses the theme of transformation to narrate their mythic story. As this community is familiar for its oral tradition, the narrative style of this poem is collective and cyclical for remembrance. So, the world can understand the transmission of cultural knowledge in it.

Endnote:

This poetry acts as the context of cultural resistance for its legitimacy of myth as history and their ancestral roots. It also reveals the transcendence of the genre through its narrative storytelling technique. Across generations, the people strongly behold the beliefs, customs and their traditions.