I have been asked by some of John’s Indian colleagues to talk about my visit, four months ago, to Nagaland. Sitting at the computer in the comfort of our lovely serviced apartment in Bangalore, it is hard to remember that, even though both places are part of India, these two locations are worlds apart.
To start the discussion, I recommend going to my first blog of May 23, 2008: “Incredible India: Entrances Compared” to read about the difficulties my photographer friend Terri and I had in entering the restricted Nagaland, even with the required permits, and to look at a few photos. I’ll continue from there by quoting some excerpts from my daily journal: February, 2008.
We spent our first chilly night in Kohima, Nagaland’s main city, and then were off on a two-hour bumpy and windy ride to the small village of Tuophema for the festival of Sekrenyi. Before we left, our guide Jimmy called a friend of his, Tonlo, a stylish veterinarian with recently tinted red hair, and invited him to join us. He is a well connected member of the tribe we were visiting, the Angami, one of the 14 major tribal groups of Nagaland.
When we arrived, some women in traditional dress were singing the mournful chant that we heard everywhere. Tonlo introduced us to a lovely well-dressed lady who invited us to a VIP reception at her village home, a big house that that was rivaled only in size by the Christian church at the top of a nearby hill. (The vast majority of Nagas are Christian, having been converted by missionaries who began arriving there in the 50s.)
We later found out that this was the home of Neiphiu Rio who had been Chief Minister until President’s Rule was imposed on Nagaland in January 2008, and was running again. He is a member of the Nagaland People’s Front, which joined other Naga regionalist parties and the state branch of the BJP to form the Democratic Alliance of Nagaland, a coalition that in 2003 brought the 10-year-long rule of the Indian National Congress to an end. (Note: a few days after we left in March 2008, he again beat the Congress Party in an election that was not without controversy or violence.)
We were treated as honored guests by the Rio family and friends and invited
to partake of bottled beer, hard liquor and snacks. These included deep fried bugs, liver, pig intestines, and hard salty dried beef, the only thing I was brave enough to try. Later we were invited to a buffet lunch of rice, dahl, and boiled meat (apparently the favorite dish of the Nagas; everywhere we went during festival and election celebrations we saw men sitting on the ground cutting up meat and cooking it in huge pots over wood fires.) After lunch, because we were the only foreigners present, a handsome young TV anchorman from Delhi who was there to cover the election interviewed us on camera.
The festival was disappointing because so much effort was going
into the election, but we did see processions of men in local traditional dress who, after arriving at the tribal gathering place, loudly shot off their rifles one by one. The women, in their simple outfits and lovely beads, took part in competitions for spinning and throwing pots. There was alos a basket weaving competition.
My favorite activity was a unique game. Several rats were staked with numbers attached to the stakes. The same numbers were propped up in front of rocks quite a distance from the rats. For a few rupees, participants purchased a few stones to be thrown at the numbers. When they hit a number, they got the appropriate rat, considered a culinary delicacy. A couple of the winners turned their prizes over to their pre-school sons who carried them, squirming, by their tails.
Much of our time in Nagaland was spent visiting villages, hanging out with the tribal people, and learning about their traditions. We were always accepted warmly and offered rice beer and often boiled meat served on leaves. One of our most interesting visits was to Shangyu Village. Along the route we found several old men with facial tattoos indicating that they had been headhunters. That practice was outlawed in the 50s but probably continued in the remote regions for another 20 years. The old men wear necklaces with brass heads to indicate how many actual heads they took back in the day.
Because on that particular day the Congress Party was staging a political rally, we were lucky that we not only got to meet the Angh of the village (headman) but all of the elders. When pick up trucks of spirited young men began arriving at the hilltop village, they suggested we leave because they thought the scene might turn ugly. This was only one example of how the impending election affected our visit to Nagaland. The enhanced military presence plethora of election advisors made travel extremely uncomfortable and difficult. But it could have been more difficult without these groups, since there probably would have been more factional incidents.
For travelers who are interested in tribal cultures and can tolerate the inconvenience of the lack of comforts and infrastructure (especially if there is no election in progress) I recommend making this trip. I can’t think of too many other places in the world today where you can see relatively unadulterated tribal cultures at such close range.
