Sumi

Clans and Kinship

Hutton (1921, pp. 121-131) found that the unit of Sumi society was not the exogamous clan (ayeh), as among the Angami, but the village (apfu, agana) or part of a village (asah), each under a chief (akekao). A village or asah was loosely named after the chief's clan, though men of many clans lived in it. Clan feeling still shaped a person's food, choice of wife and friends. By Hutton's time most of the larger clans had ceased to be strictly exogamous: two people of one clan might marry if they had no common ancestor in the direct male line within five generations, sometimes four. The chief allotted land to the mughemi, literally 'orphans', the villagers who were not chiefs; he provided for them and they worked for him on set days and helped him in war. The duties of the Angami kemovo were shared between the chief and a priest, the awou (p. 151).

The twenty-two clans as Hutton (1921, p. 122) lists them, in his order; he adds a small clan, the Shochumi, and says there are probably others. Sumi family names today may be written differently from Hutton's clan names.

In the Official Lists

• Scheduled Tribe

  Nagaland, Manipur

  In Nagaland the Sumi come within the single entry 'Naga'. In Manipur the entry is 'Sema'.

Checked on 2026-11-06 against the sources below. The lists are amended from time to time and can differ by district; for a certificate, the current order or the state's list is what counts.

Name and Origin

Like the other western Naga tribes, Hutton writes (1921, pp. 5-6), the Sumi point to the south as the direction they came from and tell the story of the Kezakenoma stone, but they trace their origin no further south than Mao and name Tukahu, the mountain called Japvo, as the place their ancestors came from. One account has the villages spreading from Swema, near Kezabama, which in Hutton's day still spoke Sumi though surrounded by Angami villages; others trace clans north through Hebulimi, Cheshalimi and Chishilimi. All traditions bring them north through the low hills of the Dayang valley. Some clans also hold that their first ancestors came up out of the earth.

History

J. H. Hutton described the tribe in The Sema Nagas (1921), the standard early account. He found the Sumi still spreading north-east and east in his day, through a custom well suited to it: the eldest son of a chief, when old enough, took a party from his father's village and founded a new village in which his authority was permanent, and other sons might do the same, leaving a younger brother to succeed in the old village (p. 8). Most Sumi today are Christian, and Zünheboto district is their main home.

Faith and Worship

Hutton (pp. 192-195) recorded that Alhou, also called Timilhou, 'the Creator', was regarded as the supreme deity, remote but all-good, all-knowing and almighty, distinct from the many spirits of the sky, land and forest; the name was used to translate the Assamese Ishwar. Most Sumi are now Christian.

Customs

Hutton names the officials of a Sumi village as the chief (akekao), the priest (awou) and the first reaper (amthao), who begins the harvest and keeps many food rules (pp. 215-216). Marriage is outside the clan, within the limits of the five-generation rule. Most clans have their own food rules. The Nagaland government's calendar gives Tuluni in July and Ahuna in November as the Sumi festivals; Tuluni is also the name of a month in the calendar Hutton recorded for the Asimi villages.

Festivals