Hornbill Festival
Nagaland, India

People everywhere tend to stereotype the inhabitants of other countries when they think of them. It’s not a demeaning or racist practice so much as it is a natural human short cut. When people think of Italy, most of them imagine dark-haired people, forgetting the blond descendants of the Germanic Langobards (“long beards”) that form a substantial part of that country’s northern part.

In China (see this month’s article, “Indigenous China), most people visualize the majority Han Chinese, forgetting that the vast country has scores of non-Han ethnic groups, including Central Asian Caucasian tribesmen. 

And so it is with India. Though many of us tend to think of Indians as a homogenous-looking people, their nation of 1 billion is home to dozens of different nations, ethnicities and tribes. This is especially true at the country’s far reaches, such as its eastern state of Nagaland on the Burmese border, a verdant, hilly land that varies from subtropical forests to 12,000-foot mountains. 

The state boasts 16 major tribes, all of them as distantly related to India’s dominant Aryans as Japan’s aboriginal Ainu are to the dominant Japanese. In other words, very distant. The names of the tribes are not ones you’ll encounter in a typical recitation of Indian ethnic groups: the Angamis, the Aos, the Chakhesangs, the Konyaks, the Kukis, the Kacharis, the Sumis, the Changs, the Lothas, the Pochurys in October. All the tribes are noted for their penchant for celebrating at the drop of a hat, and Nagaland’s calendar is filled with various tribal fests throughout the year. 

Fortunately, India is a land that, despite its occasional outbreaks of inter-ethnic struggle, is incredibly proud of its diversity. In 2000, Nagaland’s government decided to have all of the state’s tribes engage in a common festival. Thus was born the Hornbill Festival, which is celebrated the week of December 1 in the city of Kohima.  

Named after the hornbill, a universally respected bird that shows up in the folklore of most of the state’s tribes, the eight-day festival brings them all together in one giant color-splashed hodgepodge of dances, performances, crafts, parades, games, sports, food fairs and religious ceremonies. The festival both exposes tribal people to their “over-the-yonder-hill” counterparts and reinforces Nagaland’s identity as a distinct state in India’s federal union. 

While Nagaland is not a mainstream Indian tourist destination, it offers a range of accommodations from spare and simple to deluxe.

Some useful URLs: 

http://www.flonnet.com/fl2001/stories/20030117000206800.htm
http://www.whatsontheplanet.com/wow/ptnr/discovery/page.jsp?fx=event&event_id=78519

— Patrick Totty