About the Cloud People

A legend in Mao folklore tells of the first Mother named Dziilimosiia (Dziilimosiiro to some others due to variation in the dialect) from whom life forms in the animal kingdom, humans and spirits, originated. According to the legend, there was a lone woman in the beginning. One day, as she was lying at rest under the shade of a banyan tree, a column of clouds descended and enveloped her. It led to her conceiving and giving birth to three children, namely Okhe (which literally means ‘tiger’ representing the whole of animal kingdom), Orah (literally meaning ‘god’ representing the entire supernatural world) and Omei (literally meaning ‘mankind’), in that order with Okhe as the eldest and Omei the youngest.

On the left: picture of the Sacred Banyan Tree, which stands at Makhel, under which Dziilimosiia is believed to have conceived her three children.

(Photo courtesy: Elow Paul Eshena)

While our modern minds may dismiss the existence of the lone woman as implausible and mythical, a way of understanding its meaning is to consider the super entity that supposedly existed in the person of the first woman as one representing Mother Nature for which no creator was ever needed to create. This seems to be the case because the concept of creation by a Supreme Being, which the system of beliefs in many cultures equate as ‘God’, seems to have begun with the ‘Mother’ since ‘God’, according to the legend, is itself the creation of the Mother. Her name, literally meaning ‘of the purest water’ or ‘of the crystal clear water’, implies that she represented the reproductive power of nature.

On the right: A picture of the three menhirs, commemorating the meeting of the three brothers – Okhe, Orah and Omei – with two standing upright on the eastern side with the third on the western side lying on the cairn, at Chazhilophi, south of Makhel or Makhrai Rabu. The one to the east (nearest to the photographer in the picture here) represents Orah, the middle one (the largest seen in the picture) represents Omei and the one to the west (not visible in the picture) represents Okhe.

(Photo courtesy: Heshu L. Aji)

The legend says that all life forms originated from the first Mother with the process of creation or conception initiated by an act of union with the clouds. Logically, therefore, ‘Cloud People’ should mean the whole of mankind. However, applying this appellation for mankind would imply that different stories of origin held by many other peoples in the world are less significant. For this reason, it is only the guardians of that legend who are today known as Maos, or Ememei in their own language, whom I call the ‘Cloud People.’ Although the legend is not widely shared by other Naga tribes, it forms a centre piece of a gamut of legends, which taken together tell the story of origin of the Nagas at Makhel. This tradition is buttressed by a wide range of relics and monuments standing at and around the village of Makhel (Makhrai Rabu in Mao language) and forms a foundation for the identity of the Maos as well as the Nagas.

(All names in italics are in Mao language or Maola. Follow this blog for the full story in subsequent post).