We finally make it to Nagaland.

After so much time thinking, talking and planning, the home of the Nagas has assumed almost mythic status. Who are these headhunting tribes that inhabit the Eastern Himalayas south of the Brahmaputra?
Well, the truth is nobody seems quite sure. The first thing that strike us as we land at Dimapur airport is that the whole place is teeming with a squadron of battle-ready squaddies. And I don’t mean a sleepy uniformed guard sitting by the roadside with a Lea Enfield, I mean a group of hard-core combat troops, that make French riot police look like traffic wardens. Are these the warlike Nagas? I ask Teiso our guide.
‘No. No, it is just the heightened security for the elections,’ he replies. But before we can leave the terminal building, we need to present our special Nagaland visas to an officious woman in uniform, who once sure that everything is in order, waves us through with an Manipur bon voyage.

Now we do start to see Naga people and my first thought is that they don’t look Indian. I accept that this comment would probably get me chucked off the BBC sports desk, but the Naga features are mongoloid. I am transported further East, to Thailand or Burma perhaps, rather than the other Indian states we have visited. Furthermore the dress changes; no saris, lungis or shalwar kameez but trousers and T shirts for women, and jeans and a shirt for men.
We turn south from the airport heading for Kohima, and very soon start to climb the foothills of the Barail Mountains. It is 42 miles but Teiso estimates 2½ hours. We soon understand why: the road is appalling. Barely half is potholed tarmac, the remainder potholed dirt, but that is where it is where it is supposed to be. Quite frequently it has either fallen over the cliff or been blocked by a landslide. The problem in great part, seems to be the friable sandstone of this range, which is more sand and less stone, and vulnerable to the deluges of the monsoon. All along the route workers are attempting to repair it, (in an Indian fashion with random men in flip flops and dirty shirts, with shovels or brushes, doing very little). But the journey gives us time to ask Teiso about the Nagas.
No one is certain about where the first Naga tribes originated. It may have been in China or perhaps further south around Malaysia, but at the time of the Ahom nation, (in the 13th century, in what is now Assam) Nagaland was known to be inhabited by various warring tribes, but they may not have been known collectively as the Nagas. Today there are 16 tribes who all have their own language, customs and festivals, but who come together once a year for the Hornbill Festival in Kohima, a joyous two weeks of dancing, drumming, drinking rice beer, and getting dressed up in tribal costume. Sounds all sweetness and light, but it isn’t so simple. Despite their history and differences, the Nagas now identify as an ethic group with a single voice. The Naga people extend beyond the current borders of Nagaland (an Indian state ratified in 1963) with some tribes in the neighbouring states of Manipur, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and as was, Burma. So, like the Kurds they were divided by arbitrary political boundaries to diminish their claim for statehood, another unwanted consequence of the partition of India which the Nagas blame on colonial rule.

In fact, the Naga National Council, formed and led by Angami Phizo, declared independence on 14 August 1947, the day before the rest of India, in the hope of avoiding becoming part of a greater India. Not surprisingly the deal was rejected but because of the decision Phizo led a guerrilla insurrection in 1950, which generated a punitive and crushing repost from Delhi. There followed many years of continued guerrilla activity, eased by ceasefires brokered by the Baptists in 1966 and 1975. But further fighting broke out in the 1980s until another truce as late as 1997. The point is that the Nagas are uneasy bedfellows with the State of India, and there are many who still seek an independent Nagaland. Now we understand how this history explains the battalion of infantry at the airport. (In fact the election passed relatively uneventfully with just a few farms being torched, with a victory for Modi’s BJP party.)
The 16 Naga tribes are now 97% Christian, mostly Baptist, which must surely have contributed to their giving up headhunting, the endpoint of the perpetual intertribal conflicts which seemed to dominate the average Naga’s diary for several hundred years. One tribe was always stalking and ambushing another, the prize being an enemy head. These trophies were carried home, the site, according to Naga belief, of the soul of the beheaded warrior. The instrument of war and beheading was a spear and razor-sharp machete (with a serrated back edge to help get through the cervical spine). Status as a hunter was confirmed by tattooing. Tribesmen who had been on a warring party were facially tattooed, using the spine of a spiky bamboo with charcoal ink. The higher status of having killed a man and bringing home his bonce allowed for further tattoos on torso and leg.

We approach Kohima and I am struck by how large it is and its precarious situation perched on a snaking ridge at an altitude of 1500 metres. This is the ridge that General Slim had chosen to be his defensive position against the advancing Japanese army. The colourful buildings have been flung onto the hillsides at random, and cling precariously to the steep slopes, one atop another. Many are only half finished, but that it a surely a pan-Indian phenomenon. The market is buzzing, thronged with Asian looking folk wearing the ubiquitous uniform of T shirt and baggy trousers, selling sustenance and surprise in equal measure. The live mini-frogs in plastic bags are matched by slimy grey snails and buckets of eels next to other dubious aquatic fauna, grubs, insects, vegetables and foliage that none of us can identify. But it is lively and jolly, and apart from a sign directing us to dog meat, which sadly was meat not destined to be eaten by a pooch, the market is, as always, a place to get to know a city. But the sun is going down and as we are so much higher than the plains in the distant mist, it was getting cool.

Vibu, our guide for our visit to the tribal Angami village of Khonoma the next day is delighted to see his old mate Teiso, as he brings him a bag of Betel nuts. We witness the warm reunion cemented by handing over two quids worth of nuts, not available in the village. Surprisingly Vibu does not wait for a quiet moment later in the day to get his kick, rather stuffs a large nut into his gob followed by several betel leaves (which are chewed with the nut, along with slaked lime) and commences his diatribe. Chewing the nut has two effects; he becomes almost incomprehensible as he crunches and chews on a nut the size of a large grape, and secondly he starts to perspire profusely and salivate, due as I now know, to the parasympathomimetic effects of the tannins and alkaloids found in the areca nut. His diatribe is now interrupted by constant brow mopping and flapping his print cotton shirt.
This is a functioning community with many collaborative activities. Rice is grown in steeply terraced paddies on the steep hills, with each family having several plots. They keep a few animals, including cows which they eat, the Nagas being exempt from the strict Indian laws about killing cattle or handling beef, which can result in a 5 year prison term. The houses are neat and tidy with rows of pot-plants and none of the familiar fringe of plastic and litter that lines southern Indian villages. The women weave the traditional coloured cloth that forms the basis for many of the traditional costumes.

To our collective relief Vibu finishes his nut but without pause immediately scoffs another and continues his gob-stoppered explanation of Naga history. We all find it slightly disarming, as if he was snorting coke with total disregard to our presence, but his message is clear; the colonials had shafted the Nagas. He is probably forty, and wears, like a lot of Nagas, an apology for a beard, comprising no more than thirty stringy hairs under his chin. He is either rugged or just unkempt, I can’t decide, but certainly he isn’t muscled or warrior material. He speaks good English with a remarkable vocabulary, so I ask him where he had learnt it. He smiles a sideways smile and replies that he had been a janitor in Edmonton, and then moved swiftly to talk about the village Kuda or fort, with its monument to Major Cock, who died in the hands of the Nagas in 1876 after being told they must pay taxes. Later I ask Vibu when he had visited in England. ‘In another life’ he replies with a quizzical look. Later still, I check with Teiso. ‘He has never left India,’ he says smiling. But his sense of nationalism emerged even through half a bag of betel, and this village was the birthplace of Angami Phizo founder of the Naga Nationalist movement, who fled to England and ended his days in Bromley. I Just wonder if his aspirational visit to Edmonton wasn’t homage to his hero’s suburban demise.
The houses are wood with thatch or tin roofs, and lovely woven palm panel walls, but more and more are being replaced by concrete and brick. Wood, used for cooking and winter warmth, is collected from the forest that encircles the village. The villagers grow their own rice and vegetables and try to be self-sufficient. However, here they are not denuding the forest with short term cash crops, as is a problem over much of the Eastern Himalyas. Children start their schooling in the village but then go to Kohima or further afield for secondary education. I ask if there was a depopulation problem and am reassured this isn’t the case, many of the young wanting to return to the village with its sense of community and eco-credentials. It seems to work but we are left with some uncertainty about what they do to earn the little cash that they need. But it is time to leave Vibu to the last of betel nuts as we head back to Kohima and the brilliant war museum.

We had hoped to travel to Mon, our next stop, via the town of Mokachong, but Teiso informed us that the road was particularly bad, and the trip would take at least seven hours, and so we diverted back the way we had come, to spend a night in the plains on a tea plantation near Sibsagar, the ancient capital of the Ahom people. It was a joy. Back to shirt sleeve warmth and huge high-ceilinged rooms with clunky fans. I love these ceiling fans especially the old ones that gently stir the air as if making meringues. Turning them up is hopeless as they sound like a Lancaster bomber on take-off, but at walking pace they waft over you and keep the mosquitoes on the move even if doing little cooling. The best are the ancient brown ones, all on the wonk, that wobble and clank with frayed wires and peeling brown paint, best seen in railway ticket offices.

Mon is a town grown from a village which has avoided any buildings of more than three stories, save for a monumental Baptist church of white marble, still with the bamboo scaffolding in place. It is hard to know how fervent is Naga Christianity, but my impression is that it is more in the background than foreground, but they sure forked out big-time for a glistening new church.

We are on the way to Langwa the home of the Konyak tribe, those most famed for their tattoos and headhunting. The drive takes us higher through these forested hills, but it is apparent from the out that there is a problem. Increasingly we can see deforested areas, where either cash crops like pineapples are growing, or there is nothing save scrubby grass, what happens to the land when they move on to a new patch. Teiso explains the problem, familiar to us all from our TV screens; clear the forest, plant crops for two years until the soil is exhausted and then move on. The government is trying to check the process, but I wonder how much control they have over a tribesman with a machete on these remote hillsides.

We are welcomed in Longwa by dozens of free-range kids with no evidence of parenting, who scuttle away when a camera is pointed in their direction. The parents are working in the fields we are told, and later have evidence of this as women trudge homeward with baskets of wood hanging from a strap across their foreheads. The men walk separately with just their machetes in beautiful sheathes.
The high point of our visit is an audience with the King. We enter his longhouse and sit on low stools and a plastic chair or two, around the open fire pit without a chimney. A smoky haze fills the room, which we are told is crucial to making baskets and thatch last. Various bits of dead animal and baskets hang from a frame over the fire pit.

The King expresses little either in word or facial expression and sits beatific and distant from the whole process. He is though happy to put on his ceremonial necklace and pose for photos. I find it all rather demeaning, but I guess it’s worth the bung slipped into his palm by Teiso.

We were also supposed to meet the Queen, but she claims a headache, although not so bad she can’t sit to one side of the room playing with her mobile phone. She is wife number two. Men are allowed to take more than one wife, but quite sensibly the inheritance only passes through the official, regal wife, who must be from a noble family. The other wives are for fun. Before we leave the building, we stand in the threshold with half of us in Myanmar and half in India, the border passing through the middle of the property.
There are now only a handful of tattooed warriors left, the last few now in their eighties, but we did find one who stood willingly, elegant and imperial, for a photo opportunity. He reminded me of a stork, perching on his skinny legs, propped by his spear, totally immobile but with a faraway look in his eye, dreaming I imagine, of chopping my head off.

Before we leave the village, we visit the local gunmaker, still making muzzle loading muskets favoured by these erstwhile warriors. The stock is fashioned from a piece of hardwood, the barrel from the steering column of a Toyota, the other bits hammered from broken springs from a Tata truck. He proudly shows us a finished item, a terrifyingly Heath Robinson affair, which is charged with black powder with a piece of cardboard wadding and given to Michael and Willa to fire into the sky, enveloping us all in a cloud of white smoke.

Our time in Nagaland draws to a close. We descend the mountain dancing down the hillside to avoid the worst of the potholes and oncoming trucks, and head for the lush tea gardens of Assam, but first we must check out of our simple but appealing, hotel perched high in Mon, where the nights are filled with baying dogs, cockerels, and a vibrant dawn chorus. The courteous staff seem pleased with their tips but are not as gushing or smiley as they would have been in Tamil Nadu or Kerala, nor as ingratiating and cynical as smooth Rjastanis. There is still virtually no tourism here, but that might change if they ever finish the road, with huge potential for niche hotels offering Tatler friendly chanting, and aruvedic colon cleansing. Maybe our girls are serious because they have something to say that hasn’t yet been heard. The language in the schools is English so the kids speak well and that will only get better.
Don’t rule out further calls for an independent Nagaland, with Vibu at the vanguard. Keep him away from the betel nuts and who knows what he could achieve!

So interested in your reflections on the war cemetery in particular and the history lesson. My father was a chindit with Orde Wingate and I’m pretty sure he may have been ADC to General Slim st some point. Need to research this properly. Amazing trip.
Charles - this is splendid. I look forward to hearing all about it upon your return ( hopefully with a bag of nuts! ) Your photographs are brilliant - which camera phone do you use? I am about to upgrade and camera quality is top of the list.
GN motor now balanced to within 2 microns so expect transformation.
Bon voyage mes amis , Robin. x ( Almond blossom just out ... spring is here)