December 5 – Hornbill Festival

The area has 17 distinct tribes.  The Hornbill Festival celebrates these tribes, their culture, customs, song and dance and their lives. The native costumes are highly colorful and several tribes feature the tail feathers of the hornbill bird in their headdresses.

The festival site has a large arena with a large performance area and lots of seating.  When we arrived, there were large numbers of the tribe members lining the area into the arena…and lots of people taking their pictures.  Including us.

Each tribe was introduced individually with each group rising and performing a short chant or cry. 

The costumes are colorful and many of the headpieces featured the very large tail feathers of the hornbill.

Then the performances started.  Eight of the tribes performed.  The focus for today is on community and agricultural customs.  Some of the demonstrations included "plowing" with hand held hoes.

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Video of plowing
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They set up a rice thrashing station...

and thrashed (as in stomped on) rice.

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Video of thrashing
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A different tribe set up a station to thrash millet.  Again they stomped on the stalks.  

After getting the millet grains off of the stalk (they had a mat underneath to catch the grains) they would scoop up the grains in a large shallow tray and gradually pour it back onto the bamboo mat. while others would fan the grains vigorously.  This would help blow away the debris from the stalks and leaves.

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A lot of the performances included song and occasionally dance.  Some of the planting activities are accompanied with song.  Guess it makes it seem like less work that way.

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Video of dancers
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One group demonstrated a "dance" with four sticks.  Two sets of long poles were set across each other and four people tapped them down and together in time with some drums.  Then one or more people would dance between the moving poles.  No ankles were whacked. 

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Video of stick dance
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A group of warriors "killed"a straw enemy during a traditional archery game.

And in some sort of ritual to ask for a bountiful harvest a poor chicken has some of his feathers plucked.  Guess is that in the olden days it was sacrificed.

We spent some time walking around the Heritage Village and the festival grounds.

There was a huge tree with lots of hornbills (not real ones) on the branches.  They were life sized.

We later took a walk to a lookout where there were great views of the surrounding mountains.

After a quick lunch we headed out into the mountains...

to the local tribal villages, Jakhama.  In the local language “ma” means village.  So most of the town names end in “ma”.  It was pretty quiet in the village but there was plenty to see.  

Large Storage Baskets

There were beautiful mountains in the background...

and small, windy streets.

Some of the houses had lots of flowers..

In what appeared to be the main square there was a community building with a front facade in the local architecture.

One woman was “cleaning” rice.  She used a special wicker tray and tossed the rice into the air.  The breeze would then blow away the chaff leaving much cleaner rice.

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Video of cleaning rice
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There was a lot of rice drying on mats along the lanes.

We also chatted with a couple of men who were working on carving small wooden wheels that would be used on a cart.

There were lots of chickens wandering around

and one wall had a large display of goat (or cows??) skulls.  The animals were sacrificed for a reason that now escapes us.  

Rice was drying on mats in the main square and along the streets.  

In the afternoon we went back to the Hornbill Festival grounds where we wandered through a very nice craft bazaar.

Want to buy a large knife?

Hornbills at the Hornbill Festival

Colorful but fake flowers

Learning how to carve

String bead for decorations

We also visited the World War II Memorial Museum.  A major battle was fought hear in 1949 between the British and Indian troops and the Japanese  The Japanese were basically stopped here.  The Nagaland tribes people also fought against the Japanese. 

On the way back to the hotel we were stuck in a major traffic jam…very slow moving.  Along the way we saw a nativity scene.  The manger was in the style of houses of one of the Naga tribes.