THE EARLY MORUNG SYSTEM IN NAGALAND

Nagaland is a wonderful place with a glorious history that remains intact even as generations go on with ever changing trends and fads among the Nagas. The Morung(bachelors’ dormitory) system is one that occupies a very important part of the history.  It is a vital institution that taught each villager the important virtues of life and the way of living. This system was common to all the Naga tribes even if other social and political practices or certain details of the practices weren’t very identical.

The larger portion of the existence of the Morung culture remains on the other side of the watershed when the Britishers had still not introduced the religion of Christianity among the Nagas. This, however, doesn’t imply that all the good qualities the Morung as an institution offered to the young Naga lads were abandoned too. It only means that in order to give more importance to church(or God- which is what a Christian is required to do), the institutional hierarchy in the villages were re-prioritised, and later Morung eventually had to give way. Also because the Morung was also a means for men to train how to be brave and skilled enough to kill an enemy, it had to be compromised, as Christianity began to be accepted in every part of Naga inhabited areas.

What is a Morung?

“Morung” is an Assamese word, used to refer to a house or hall where bachelors of a clan sleep, and even used as a centre for important village ceremonies, and therefore is the largest building in the village. It is a form of an institution that occupies the highest status in the villages of Nagaland. It is found in almost every villages of Nagaland, and thus it is known by different names to different tribes- ‘kechuki’ in Angami tribe, ‘Ariju’ in Ao, ‘Chumpo’ in Lotha, ‘Ban’ in Konyak, ‘Apuki’ in Sumi and so on. It is a place where the villagers especially the bachelors learned vital things like discipline, customs and tradition, military tactics- offensive and defensive, the dignity of labour, art and culture, etc.

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Important physical features of the Morung: The Naga Morungs were usually placed at the entrance of the village or on the spot where the entire village could be guarded most effectively. The sizes of the Morungs varied from tribe to tribe and from village to village but as mentioned, it was the biggest building as it accommodated a lot of people under one roof. More often than not, there is a tall post in the middle of the Morung which indicates that the Morung is the highest social and cultural institution in the village. Wood carvings(and even real skulls) of mithun, tiger, hunters, hornbill bird etc. were placed in the Morung, where by the head of the mithun/ tiger signified the bravery of the bachelors in the institution and the hornbill indicated the status of the Morung. Log drums were kept in the Morung which was used during important events and festivals, and also during emergency or war.

Who took part in the Morung?

When the children in the village hit puberty(approximately between the age of 10 to 15), they are no longer expected to sleep in their parent’s house, and they sleep only in the dormitory till they get married. This is compulsory for all the bachelors in the village. However, not all tribes or villages had similar dormitory for the girls. The Morungs are guided and all authority is under one leader who is chosen based on his experiences of warfare and has been successful in bringing home a record number of enemy heads. He is regarded as the most capable person in the village to run the institution, which is filled with students learning to become future warriors.

The boys and the girls learned entirely different things in their own dormitories. The boys learned the art of war, mastering the different kinds of equipments like the dao(machete), spear, bow and arrows, crossbow, shield, etc., wood carving, handicrafts, buildings, besides the important virtues like discipline, bravery, respect, hospitality, sincerity, morality, generosity, and patience. While on the other hand, the girls in the dormitory learnt things like pottery, knitting, cooking, embroidery, apart from the other important virtues, which would be required as wives when they get married.

Like in any other modern day educational institutions, the Morung too had certain stages that required the members to get through before his time in the Morung ends. Usually when a new member is inducted, he starts in the junior level and remains there for around 5 years. After years of training and passing tests, he is regarded as a senior and eventually a complete man as he goes on to making his own family and ends his fulltime membership in the Morung, even though he is still directly or indirectly related to the institution.

                Construction of the Morungs was done only by the manfolks alone and women were prohibited to even come near the construction site, let alone touching the equipments of the men. The completion of the construction of Morung is followed by a grant feast which is celebrated with cutting of mithun and local wines(zutho/ thutse).

What were the activities that took place in the Morung?

Even though Morung is made to accommodate the young bachelors to sleep at night, sleeping is not the only thing that happened in these glorious halls. One of the most important things that the Morung provided was a platform to let our glorious past to survive from generations to generations through folklores, folksongs, dances and legends or oral traditions [apart from these, our histories were also passed on through the meaningful designs of our clothes, accessories, carvings, tatooes, stones and beads]. These were done around huge bonfires organised by the senior members of  the Morung from time to time.

                As for the training of the youths, a lot of time was invested on practises. The seniors  impart whatever they had learned to the younger ones, while the junior members were being tested from time to time to see if there is any progress. Some of these tests include making a junior member’s hand to be held very near a fire to see if he is brave enough to endure the pain and not cry. Other tests include making them find certain things kept by seniors at deep forests in the middle of the night individually, and the success in which would result in acknowledgement of the bravery of the victor. At early mornings, the junior members are required to collect firewoods and make fire before the senior members gather at the hall, and also fetch water for them to wash their faces and feet. The former also sharpen the daos and spears of the senior members and carry their loads whenever they go out together. The senior members have the right to punish or whip any junior member if found guilty of something or misbehaving. This however is not something that was discriminatory, and it was accepted and welcomed by every member.

The relevance of Morung in today’s Nagaland: Almost all things in this world have their advantageous and disadvantageous sides- and thus, change is through give and take. We Nagas still cherish our  history with the glorious institution of the Morung, and therefore constructing replicas of early Morungs is a welcoming idea for most occasions in Nagaland. Indeed, as mentioned above, there were alot of things that the Morung as an institution taught our ancestors. The one thing that the system bitter itself with is the focus of the trainings, which in most cases, is on the head hunting practice of the early Nagas. However, I would choose to say that the advantages of the Morung practice overweight the demerit I have mentioned. Because almost everybody who studied our history acknowledged how good our ancestors were at most things. Many people have talked about how in Naga villages pure democracy existed, even though they had never been in contact with the outside world. I have talked about the kind of virtues that our ancestors used to follow and they were all very genuine. They also had sincere respect for nature and earth, as they earlier believed in the existence of forest gods, water gods, spiritual home guards or other nature related unseen entities which they highly respected. The military training that the young Nagas received in the Morungs back in the days can be related to the present day guerrilla warfare tactics that modern army receive in many parts of the world. Our ancestors were highly disciplined towards their culture and traditions, the dignity of labour was engraved in each of their hearts, and were highly creative and innovative in alot of ways.  All these can be said to have been drawn from the institution, obviously, because they spent every second of the learning stage of their lives in the Morung. With emergence and preference of modern education, going back to the Morung system as it was before will be close to impossible. But we need not the physical infrastructure of the Morung to learn all good things the institution taught our ancestors. We can blend these good virtues in our modern day educational institutions and churches, besides making our own homes a place for creating a complete man.