The best of the hills and tribes
PRABAKAR VENKATARAMAN
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The Hornbill Festival in Nagaland showcases the heritage of the northeast in a very visitor-friendly manner.
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Photos: Prabakar Venkataraman
Mountain flavours: Scenes from the Hornbill Festival.
OVER 16,000 square kilometres of green-carpeted hills are home to 16 vibrant tribes of Nagaland. While it would be a dream come true to get a sufficient taste of even a couple of those flavours, one can enjoy the complete cuisine and culture all in one place and in just one week in December.
Welcome to the Hornbill Festival. Dressed in their traditional clothes, humming tunes of their own mountains, joyfully they dance to the music of their splendid colours! Be it their shawls, the piece of metal embellishment that mocks a loin cloth, a shoulder bag or the horn that scares you from far; each tribe brings its own view of the world, a heritage they would not want to lose to the fast encroaching spread of modernity.
In a heritage village
Kisama is a heritage village, a dozen kilometres from the state capital Kohima, created for and dedicated to this festival. Each tribe sets up its area, which includes a typical residence with all the furnishings, a near-typical architecture and ambience within, a food stall that boasts of the tribe's beverages (in those dragon-sized wooden casks) and food and stalls where you can buy proofs of their hunting prowess or attire to make you feel like one of them!
The Chief Minister of Nagaland, Neiphiu Rio, strode across an array of colours to declare the event for 2006 open. And little did we know a riot would follow! For the first few minutes it was absolute chaos, but as welcome as it can ever get!
Every tribe broke loose with its own performance and the audience had total freedom to mingle, dance along or take photographs — just what they wished to do. But soon enough the organisers got hold of the reins, which had slipped from their hands. Visitors, press and tourists were sent back to the galleria, each troupe got to perform and everyone relished the sound and colours.
A surprise troupe of Manipuri dancers requested for an end-show and turned out to be the icing on the cake — a tug-of-war on an imaginary rope dumbfounding the audience.
After the vote of thanks, the tribes retired to their installations and got busy with their practice singing/dancing for the rest of the week's presentations! This was also when visitors could pose with the tribals for photographs!
Nagaland can be chill in December even though the sun is bright and right overhead. A group of young child-performers whose native dress dictated just a few beads and a wooden loin-cover were left to stand shivering, till one of the moms suddenly realised their state and brought out those thick Naga shawls to wrap them up!
The food stalls outside the galleria offered simple yet delicious local food (we were vegetarians in a land where `everything that flies but not an aeroplane and anything that has legs but is not a table is food). A lot of visitors gleefully experimented with the cuisine, purchased native honey and dry fruits! Quite a few stalls also featured young artists showcase their paintings, carving and sculpting skills.
After the curtain raiser on the first day, each tribe gets a larger portion of each day to showcase their skills, art and culture for the rest of the week. The prospects of Nagaland becoming a prime tourist spot is very bright — one could plan a trip around the Hornbill Festival clubbing it with anything from a trek to the most scenic Dzouku valley; a stay at Khonoma, India's first green village; climb the beautiful Mt. Japfu; spend a very musical week with the Ao Tribe or stay with the Village Tribal chief who is said to have 26 wives.
Well-organised
The organisers deserve kudos. Though it was not well advertised, a good taxi service was organised from Kohima to Kisama and these every-15-minute taxis would ferry you right inside the Heritage Village. Local private taxis would drop you at the gate and the charges might vary.
Within the Heritage Village, there were a number of dustbins at very apt positions but unfortunately they were not utilised properly. There was litter all over the place. The toilet services at the venue also have to improve tremendously, but it is only a matter of time before all these fall in place!
The Kohima International Film Festival (KIFF'06) piggybacked on the event to showcase the immense potential of performers, filmmakers and producers — a very strategic move to boost the industry in a State that does even not have a cinema hall in the capital.
The evenings also had the local youth rocking to open music competitions. With the music of these young wannabe rockers and rappers as the background, one could taste traditional rice beer and exchange pleasantries with visitors.
For us, never before had an unplanned trip turned out to be so colourful and joyful. Nagaland can sometimes be brash and imposing. It would be a good idea to check if there are inter-tribe conflicts before visiting them (the north-eastern tribal settlements are known to be very sensitive).
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