Hornbill Festival

The Festival of Festivals

Nagaland, in the far northeast of India, is home to many ethnic groups, each with its own festivals — most of them tied to farming, which supports more than sixty per cent of the population. To encourage the tribes to meet and to promote the state’s cultural heritage, the Government of Nagaland has organised the Hornbill Festival since December 2000. Because it brings all the groups together, it is called the “Festival of Festivals”.

The festival is named after the hornbill, the large, colourful forest bird that appears in the folklore of most of Nagaland’s peoples.

Kisama

The festival is held at the heritage village of Kisama, about 12 km from Kohima. Its heart is a cluster of seventeen houses built in indigenous style — morungs, the traditional youth dormitories — each representing a different tribe. For visitors, the organisers say, it offers a ringside view of all the Naga tribes, their cultures and their distinctiveness in one place.

Ten days of culture

The programme mixes songs and dances of the different tribes with crafts, food stalls, herbal medicine stalls, flower shows, traditional archery, Naga wrestling, indigenous games, parades, ceremonies and evening concerts. Paintings, wood carvings and sculptures by Naga artists are shown and sold. Many older people travel in from their villages to meet people from other parts of Nagaland they have never met before — part of what the festival was created for.