of the fields have been planted by now
and the Konyak eagerly await the arrival
of the rejuvenating rains. Through
elaborate feasting they give thanks to
all of those friends and relatives who
provided them with assistance in the
previous year, including the spirits
of the ancestors. But above all, they
celebrate and give praise to Wangwan
until the six-day festival ends.
In bygone days, Aoling was also
the time for tattooing boys and girls
who reached adulthood. These ethnic
markers were applied to various parts
of the body by skilled female tattooists.
Men who had participated in combat
and who had taken a human life were
entitled to unique tattoos, usually on
the neck or face, which proclaimed their
status in Naga society.
One of these men is Lalang, a
striking Konyak elder who is now blind.
He is uncertain of how old he is, but
puts himself at around 90 years old.
Despite his great age, he springs into
combat mode with ease: crouching,
tracking, circling, then thrusting his
spear into the chest of his make-believe
enemy. Once injured, his imagined
victim is beheaded with a swift blow of
his razor-sharp, machete-like sword or
dao – a tool he has used to this purpose
three times before the Naga stopped
headhunting in the early 1960s.
Across the Naga region, April was
a month for war. Able-bodied men
were compelled to take human heads
because they believed them to be a
source of future prosperity. For the
Naga, these macabre tokens were
like containers of seed that, upon
germination, could increase the fertility
of the crops and of the men and women
in the village community. In order to
receive this life-giving power, village
shamans performed rituals throughout
the year to ‘please’ the heads, which
eventually came to rest in men’s
houses (morungs), caves, logdrums,
or in sacred banyan tree groves that
can sometimes still be seen in these
remote villages.
T op RighT Tattooed
Konyak Naga headhunter
Lalang with his weaponry
boTTom RighT Yonkon
Naga women bear some
of the most unique facial
tattoos in the world65