The Naga ended headhunting in the 1960s after the village adopted Christianity.
And nothing can be more offensive than cutting off your enemy’s head and exhibit that in your village. The headhunters weren’t cannibals, they just believed in good offence to protect their lands. The Chaita or the queen of the clan was entrusted with the job of tattooing the warriors. With every new head, the tattoos on his body would grow bolder. ‘It is a hard job to cleave a human head off his body. He then adorned his necklace, which has metal-carved human skulls on it and showed me the machete he used to cut off the heads. ‘I killed 10 men’ he recalled, with an obvious pride. I am in Longwa, a small village on the Indo-Burma border in Nagaland and conversing with a nonagenarian headhunter, who has suddenly revealed his warrior mode, stabbing the air with his spear.
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