Nagaland (pop. 1,978,502) is a state in northeastern India. It is a remote and hilly territory, lying to the south of the Brahmaputra River, with Myanmar (also known as Burma) to the east. Nagaland covers an area of 6,401 square miles (16,579 square kilometers). Its capital is Kohima.
The people.
The population of Nagaland consists of several groups that originated in Tibet and Myanmar. They include the Angamis, Aos, Chakhesang, Chang, Konyaks, Kukis, Lothas, Phom, Pochuri, and Semas.
The people of Nagaland, called Nagas, were noted for their fierceness and the regular raids they made on Assam and Myanmar. The Nagas built villages on hilltops and ridges and surrounded them with stone walls. The main building in a village is the morung, a long house which may be as much as 65 feet (20 meters) long and 33 feet (10 meters) high. Its roof is supported by a single crossbeam.
The morung was once the most important house in the community. It was a boys’ dormitory and an armory for storing weapons and displaying the prizes of war. These prizes took the form of enemy heads, often as many as 150 in a morung. If fire destroyed the timber-and-thatch long houses and the skulls inside, the Nagas carved small replica skulls as substitutes. By each morung stood a huge, sacred drum, which the Nagas hollowed out of a tree trunk and carved to resemble a buffalo head. The history of the Naga culture and practices is shown in wooden images, masks, jewelry, and headgear. In some villages, women had the female equivalent of a morung. Women still take an equal share in the work and government of Nagaland today.
About 90 percent of the population are Christians. Most of the rest are Hindus. The main languages spoken are Nagamese and English.
Government.
Nagaland has one elected member in the Lok Sabha (lower house) and one representative in the Rajya Sabha (upper house) of the Indian national parliament. The state legislature has 60 members.
Economy.
Some Nagas still practice the “slash-and-burn” techniques of jhum, or shifting cultivation. After cultivating a patch of land for two years, the Naga farmers used to leave it to regain fertility by lying unplanted for 10 to 15 years. Now, the period between successive cultivations has diminished, and the land is less fertile and productive than it was. The main crops are rice and corn. Nagaland farmers also grow millet, oil seeds, potatoes, pulses (crops yielding pods of edible seeds, such as peas and beans), and sugar cane.
Today, many Nagas depend on the timber industry for their livelihood. Nagaland produces a number of woods for export, including mahogany. It also produces fuel wood and many other forest products. Cutting down the large trees, however, has led to soil erosion. To combat erosion, the state government has promoted orchard plantations and terraced cultivation. Bamboo is a valuable and major product.
Nagaland craftworkers still produce many artistic and functional items by traditional handicrafts. Women in Nagaland practice the ancient craft of weaving on portable hand looms. They stitch together strips of colorful cloth to produce shawls in different patterns that distinguish each ethnic group.
Transportation routes are limited in Nagaland. Roads connect Kohima with Assam and with Imphal, the capital of Manipur to the south. Dimapur has an airport that links the state with the rest of India.
Land and climate.
Nagaland is bordered on its south, west, and north by the Indian states of Manipur, Assam, and Arunachal Pradesh. It shares an international border with Myanmar to its east.
Parallel ranges of mountains run from north to south. They have some of the richest forest cover in India. Evergreen forests are most common below 3,900 feet (1,200 meters). Oak, pine, and other conifers are the main types of tree found above 3,900 feet (1,200 meters).
Nagaland has many kinds of monkeys, including the flying lemur, the long-tailed langur, and the pink-faced monkey. Elephants, porcupines, rhinoceroses, scaly anteaters, tigers, and wild oxen are common. Nagaland is also home to many colorful jungle birds.
Nagaland has a pleasant, temperate climate. But it has heavy rainfall in the summer monsoon months. The monsoon is a seasonal wind pattern that often brings heavy rains (see Monsoon). Winter temperatures range from an average minimum of 46 °F (8 °C) to an average maximum of 59 °F (15 °C) in January. The temperatures rise to an average maximum of 77 °F (25 °C) in May and again in August, with average minimum temperatures through the summer of about 66 °F (19 °C). The whole area has relatively dry winters, receiving less than 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain between December and March. However, rainfall in the summer is heavy, giving an annual total of over 72 inches (180 centimeters) in Kohima.
History.
There is no written account of the early history of Nagaland. The ethnic groups making up the people of Nagaland came from various regions, including Myanmar and Tibet. They settled in the remote hill country of Nagaland long ago, but experts do not know precisely when. The Nagas have rich and colorful collections of poetry, folk songs, and tales that preserve many ancient legends. They have passed this folklore down from generation to generation.
The earliest written references to the Nagas date from the 1200’s. At this time, a people called the Ahoms settled in Assam and came into contact with the Naga tribes. According to Ahom chronicles, conflicts occasionally broke out, but Ahom and Naga chiefs generally had friendly relations. However, raids by one Naga village against another were a feature of life in the hilly areas, and the Nagas decorated their morungs with the skulls of enemies slain in battle.
Until the 1800’s, the Nagas led a fairly isolated existence. In 1819, the Burmese invaded Assam and occupied it for seven years. In 1826, the British extended their rule to Assam. They sent out the first of several expeditions to the northeast region in 1832. The Nagas fiercely resisted the British, who eventually annexed the area, known as Naga Hills, in 1881.
The British occupation brought about many deep-rooted changes in the life of the Naga peoples. The British administrators put a stop to headhunting and raids between villages. The British also encouraged Christian missionaries to enter the region. The missionaries converted most Nagas to Christianity and set up educational centers.
With education came the growth of political awareness among the Nagas. Many Nagas sought political independence for their highland territory. In 1946, the people formed the Naga National Council with the aim of uniting the whole region in its fight for political rights. In 1947, some sections of the Naga people demanded full political sovereignty (self-rule) as a state separate from India. The government of a newly independent India refused to accept such a demand, and some Nagas took to armed rebellion in an effort to gain independence.
Eventually, negotiations between the Indian government and the Nagas led to the integration of the region into the Indian republic. Nagaland became a full state of the Indian Union in 1963. Some rebel forces continued to press for full independence, carrying out guerrilla warfare and bandit raids. But their political influence gradually declined.
Since the 1960’s, the central Indian government has provided Nagaland with essential aid, and the state has quickly developed commercially. A nationalist party, the Naga National Organization, won power in Nagaland just after it became a state in 1963. But its influence soon gave way to that of the Congress Party.
In 1980, Naga separatists formed the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) to fight for an independent Naga state. Members of the NSCN disagreed over whether to hold peace talks with the Indian government, and the group split into factions in 1988. Violence continued into the early 2000’s. In 2015, the Indian government signed a peace agreement with one of the main NSCN factions.
