INDIA
Nagaland
​I returned to India in the 10's to visit the northeast.

                                                              Naga
The Naga people originated in Southeast Asia and are distributed all along the India/Myanmar border.

They are nominally Christian and live in villages of communal wooden longhouses decorated with the skulls of mithun or wild buffalo.  Each village is ruled by a aung or chieftain and young men share a morung or dormitory until they get married.

Older Nagas have elaborate tattoos and facial piercing and Naga hunters wear pendants known as yanra, depicting several human heads, a reminder of the tribes'f head-hunting past.  Probably the most distinctive feature of Naga costume is the dao, a lethal-looking machete carried by both men and women.*​ 
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Traditional Naga culture is vanishing rapidly...*​


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The Naga people originated in Southeast Asia and distributed  all along the India/Myanmar border...*​

Each village is ruled by an aung, or chieftain, and young men share a morung (dormitory) until they get married.*

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The drums are carved to resemble upturned canoes, reflecting the legend that the Nagas originally came from the sea.* 
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Above the market (in Kohima), the immaculate War Cemetery contains the graves of 1200 British and Indian soldiers killed fighting the Japanese.*​

The Nagas are nominally Christian and live in villages of communal wooden longhouses decorated with the skulls of mithuh (wild buffalo).*

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Older Nagas have elaborate tattoos and facial piercings and Naga hunters wear pendants known as yanra, depicting severed human heads, a reminder of the tribe's head-hunting past.*

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The Vanishing Naga

Cultural diversity helps dispel negative stereotypes and personal biases about different groups.

The ethnic conflict in Nagaland, in northeastern India, is an ongoing conflict fought between the ethnic Nagas and the governments of India and Myanmar. For centuries, tribes could sustain themselves by following their own customary tenure system, deciding who can use and manage different resources.

​However, their rights and culture have been recently undermined by amendments to the land laws making them particularly susceptible to expropriation leaving forest-based Naga tribes at peril of losing all claims to the lands and forests.
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In the run-up to independence, the Nagas campaigned for an independent state, but the territory was absorbed into India, triggering one of the most brutal insurgencies in the northeast.*

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Probably the most distinctive feature of Naga costume is the dao, a lethal-looking machete carried by both men and women.*
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The Nagas were once feared head-hunters, but most converted to Christianity under British rule.*
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The Nagas were once feared head-hunters, but most converted to Christianity under British rule.*
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*These captions are from India -- Lonely Planet's travel guide.