Skipping the Industrial Revolution: From Head Hunters to Global Entrepreneurs

In America, we talk a lot about the self-made man. The story goes that he/she grew up in a trailer park and then pulled themselves up by their own boot straps to become the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company. While no one can deny that the upward mobility of the American Dream is real--I reject the "self-made" concept. As Malcolm Gladwell writes about in Outliers, even the “self-made man/woman" had help. They were given amazing opportunities at fortuitous moments in their lives—like access to a magnet school or a dedicated family member that pushed them to pursue their talents. No one emerges from the trailer park or the gutter to elite status without fortuitous and powerful interventions.

So—how does an indigenous community completely cut off from other societies and the modern world emerge from their head hunting past to become global entrepreneurs in less than 100 years? Since spending time with a brilliant, humble and visionary community of Nagas in northeastern India, I still cannot get my mind around this society’s rapid transition from living as warriors, hunters and primitive agriculturalists just 100 years ago to progressive modernists today.

British colonizers and Southern Baptist missionaries began to reach the first tribes of Nagas in the area where Mike and I are staying around 1850. Yet many tribes remained relatively untouched by outside civilizations until the 1960s. Today, in major Naga cities like Kohima where Mike and I are staying, Nagas are launching international exchange programs, studying fashion design in London, producing animation videos for Indian VH1, and traveling, working and studying around the world.

Modern Day Kohima, capitol of Nagaland, India

Computer courses are everywhere. Many Nagas have internet access through their cell phones.

Major push by Indian government to promote sustainable energy to help address water scarcity and land erosion.

No one is homeless in Nagaland. A mixture of traditional Naga family values, Christianity, and significant funding from the central Indian government keeps most of the community above the poverty line. Literacy rates have also soared from maybe 20% 30 years ago to more like 70% today (and this is from a people who up to 100 years ago had no written language.) 

Is head hunting what it sounds like? Yes. Nagas warred with other tribes and sub clans over land and resources. Each tribe had a warrior class of men who would accumulate skulls of other Naga tribes to prove their power. Those who killed women and babies--who were protected in the center of Naga villages--were considered the bravest warriors. They tattooed their bodies with pride to display the number of heads they took.

Based on the Naga animus religion, those who were murdered by Naga warriors could not rest in the afterlife until their killers were avenged. And so the Nagas were engaged in a never-ending cycle of head hunting and murder that left many tribes so concerned with issues of protection that they had little time for anything else.

As the British gained greater influence over the Nagas around the turn of the century—particularly those in the southernmost regions of what is today Nagaland—the British penalized acts of head hunters by burning down their villages and fining the Nagas. This political action was coupled with the emergence of the Southern Baptists who were quickly converting Nagas, introducing the English written language, and beginning to challenge head hunting traditions from thousands of years before.

Despite this real gradual shift away from head-hunting and towards Christianity, Nagas continued to maintain many of their traditional ways of life. And some Naga tribes remained in such remote areas of the mountains along the border with today’s Myanmar that they maintained their ancient societal traditions as warriors and head hunters through the 1960s. There was a head-hunting attack as recently as the 1990s.

So when American teenagers were spooning over the Beatles and beginning to raise their own consciousness against the Vietnam War and against segregation, racism, and sexism, these Naga tribes were wearing traditional dress, living in small villages without electricity or running water; they relied completely on their oral language.

What happens when you skip the industrial revolution on the path to modernity?
I haven't been in Nagaland long enough to have the answer to this question. And of course any answer I might find is also very specific to the customs and values of the Naga people. But there is no doubt that Mike and I are here at a major transition for the Naga people (more on their political conflict with India and the transition later).

Most Nagas over 65 grew up wearing their traditional dress and living the traditional Naga way. That generation of Nagas who were born around WWII (which had a major impact on Nagaland which I will write about later) began the process of modernization that we are seeing today. These Nagas interacted more and more with the Indian government and the outside world. While fighting and advocating for Naga sovereignty from India, they sent their children to school; they began to speak English; they united increasingly with other Naga tribes; and they began to integrate modern practice with their ancient practices that had remained untouched for thousands of year. Slowly, some Nagas began to lose touch with their ancient traditions.

Today, Naga businessmen and woman and political strongmen and woman are working within the Indian government to strengthen their communities. They are also becoming increasingly curious about their ancestry. Many of the Nagas we have met with incredible talents, abilities and possibilities to travel around the world have chosen to come back home to live and work in Nagaland. Perhaps skilling the Industrial Revolution means that Nagas skipped the community and family fragmentation that commonly took place in the West? Regardless, it seems that for the Nagas modernization has happened while maintaining a sense of community and family values. This could change with the next generation. But for now, I hope that Nagas continue to modernize and change as every society does while also maintaining their unique identity.  

Naked Warriors and Dancers: the Recent Naga Past

Mike and I recently toured the Kisama heritage village outside of Kohima that was established 12 years ago to preserve the customs--design, art, dance, festivals, etc--of the 16 Naga tribes. Every year, the government of India helps to fund the Hornbill Festival to feature the traditional music, dance, games, and artistry of the distinct Naga tribes. Sadly, Mike and I missed the festival--but here is my attempt to give a snapshot of the recent past of these 16 curious tribes that inhabit Nagaland, India.

Pre 1900
Before Nagas came into contact with the British and/or Southern Baptist missionaries between 1850-1900, the 16 Naga tribes and their many sub-clans lived in isolation from the outside world—and sometimes even from each other. They did not trade with the nearby tribes that were part of the Assam Kingdom (in what is now the Assam state of India) or the Kingdom of Manipur (now Manipur state) to the south. They were cut off from the cosmopolitan silk-road trade route. Instead, they lived in ornately carved wooden huts, hunted, cultivated rice, believed in natural spirits, weaved, made pottery, held frequent harvest festivals with music, dance, games, etc., and warred with each other, cutting of human heads and keeping the skulls (more on this later.)

The origin of how Nagas came to settle in the hills at the foothills of the Himalayas is still a mystery. The presence of sea shells on the dress of some Naga tribes has led some to wonder if the Nagas migrated long ago from an island community in southeast Asia. But how and why would an island people migrate to a landlocked area in the hills? Their features remained distinct from other nearby tribes and very distinct from the features of nearby Bengalis or Northern Indians. Nagas look more Asian with their almond shaped eyes, straight black hair.

Wood carving of Ao woman in traditional dress. The Ao tribe was in the Northwestern area of today's Nagaland.

From what archeologists know from Nagas’ oral traditions and broader study of Northeastern India, Nagas lived in isolation even among themselves. Though different tribes were separated by as little as 20 kilometers, their languages and customs were so different that they could not communicate.  Their world was small. But their world was also rich with customs, ornate festivals to promote the growing season and celebrate their warrior prowess. They carved ornate wood sculptures, wove shawls and clothing (that slightly resemble some of the works of the indigenous communities I have come to know in Peru, Mexico and Guatemala). They hollowed out larger tree trunks to make large drums that they used to communicate from far distanced. They domesticated a native Buffalo called the Mithun. They made rice beer, smoked tobacco and sometimes opium. They sang and danced. And of course, they head hunted (more on this later).  

Here are a few photos from Kisama village highlighting the way Nagas lived as recently as 50 years ago.

Our wonderful host Theja outside of Kisama Heritage Village 9 km from Kohima

Final rest at the ridge of the Mountains in Kohima, Nagaland

As most folks know, the purpose of our trip to India was for Mike to participate in an artist residency in Nagaland. Nagaland is a far eastern Indian state in the foothills of the Himalayas that borders Myanmar to the east and is still relatively unknown even to Indians.

Nagaland has a completely separate ethnic, religious and political history as the rest of India. It is made up of 16 distinct tribes (with many more sub-tribes) that until about 100 years ago lived isolated in these rugged subtropical mountains. They survived as warriors, small-scale rice cultivators and hunters with little to no trade with the Kingdoms of Assam and Manipur around them.

The Naga tribes had/have distinct dress, language and customs and lived throughout the subtropical hills and valleys of Nagaland. They are known for hunting, colorful festivals, skilled weaving, wood carving and also for "head hunting." The tribes fought frequently and the more human skulls a warrior accumulated--particularly of children and women--the more respect and power he earned.

About 150 years ago the Southern Baptist missionaries came to what is now Nagaland to convert the Naga people. (This is also about the same time that the British came to colonize this area--but I will write more on the later.) The missionaries were quickly accepted and Christianity became a powerful, unifying influence. The embrace of the southern Baptist, conservative Christian faith began a rapid process of modernization and a move away from tribal warfare. Still today, Nagaland is the largest Baptist state in the world. Religion plays an integral role in the formation of the Naga community. In fact, the word Naga (which also has an unrelated and separate meaning in the Hindu faith that worships the snake Naga spirit) only came into existence 150 years ago when the Souther Baptists came. 

So back to our journey here. On December 27, after two flights, a long layover in the loud and unpleasant Kolkata (Calcutta) airport, we landed in Dimapur, the transportation hub of Nagaland. Our lovely host, Theja, picked us up and drove us on a three-hour, windy and bumpy car ride up into the mountains where the Nagaland capitol, Kohima, sits on the ridge of green, subtropical mountains. After the grime and chaos of Delhi, the chill and confusion of Agra, and the exhaustion of the nearly 36 hours of cumulative travel time from our home in Washington, DC—it was brilliant to rest in the Nagaland hills of Kohima. 

Though we are 10.5 hours of difference from Washington, DC, the time distance is more like 12 hours (India has one time zone despite spanning nearly as wide as the U.S. from east to west.) We are literally on the other side of the world.

Here are some photos of where we are staying.

Stay tuned for more photos and posts about our Nagaland experience in coming days. (Internet is spotty. So expect delays:)

Delhi: Chaos Wrapped Up in Grime

Mike and I are on day 5 of our India adventure and what a whirlwind it has been!

2:00 a.m. Dec. 26 – Delhi: complex and broken - We arrived into Delhi after leaving Dulles at 10p.m. on Christmas Eve. After travelling all day via London on Christmas, we got to Delhi at 2a.m. When we woke up at our hotel in Delhi later in the morning on the 26th we were greeted by this Elephant walking on the highway outside of our hotel room. That was pretty awesome.

The rest of first day in Delhi was…well bizarre. The entire city is covered in a haze of fog and pollution that makes it feel as though you have walked into a post apocalyptic, fallen city.  Beneath the fog (which is unique to the December-January months), buildings are vacated and falling down. People are squatting in parks, in the streets, and making little fires to keep warm. Scrawny, mangy dogs are lying around in pools of dirt; and people, bikes, mopeds, cars, rickshaws, and the Indian helicopter (a 3 wheeled taxi that is something like a hybrid between a car and a moped) are fighting over the same road. It’s complete chaos. 

3 p.m. Dec. 26 - Once we learned that we couldn’t walk around anywhere in Delhi (without being hit by a car or picked up by an aggressive taxi driver) and we couldn’t find any authentic open-air markets to explore, we spent a couple of hours at the house where Gandhi lived for three months before he was assassinated. It was a beautiful sanctuary in an otherwise crazy, broken, and chaotic city.  

7:00p.m.  Dec. 26  - Fighting through jet lag and sleep deprivation, Mike and I made it to dinner at a restaurant called “BBQ Nation.” We chose it because it was highly recommended among a very short list, and it was in walking distance to our hotel. A bit atypical, the restaurant was known for its "exotic meats." In a misguided pursuit of a wow kind of dining experience, I thought it might be fun. BBQ Nation was hidden in what appeared to be an otherwise shuttered mall and cinema house. As we gathered, fancy restaurants where tourists and wealthy Indians go to eat are hidden within the grime. Food was ok. They placed a charcoal grill right into the center of our table. We didn't get sick. Background and loud Karaoke and dance drove Mike out.

5 a.m. Dec. 27 – TO AGRA AND THE TAJ MAHAL – Mike and I head to Agra for a day trip to see the Taj Mahal. Since www.weather.com reported that it would be a high of 75 when we were there, we dressed rather inappropriately. It turned out to be a high of 55. The fog was so dense and low that the Taj Mahal appeared even more mystical and otherworldly.

The Taj Mahal and the sprawling Red Fort built by Islamic Moguls in the 1600s are amazing landmarks. Indians are very proud of it. In particular, the stone inlay and the carving of the marble of the building is spectacular.

8:00 p.m. Dec. 27 – we were supposed to board our “fast” train to return to Delhi—but it was delayed 3 hours. Worried that 3 hours might turn into 6 because of the fog, we decided to get a taxi back to Delhi. We were told the drive would take 3.5 hours. But the actual 7.5 hour drive turned out to be the coldest, scariest, and most frustrating driving experiences of either of our lives. First, the fog was so dense that the driver couldn’t really see at all. Second, it was freezing. Third, traffic was so bad that we were driving about 25 miles per hour—that is until we were about 5 miles from our hotel when the traffic completely stopped. We spent the last 2 hours of the treacherous drive in standstill traffic on the main highway into Delhi. At this point, we knew that our driver was almost out of gas and also had no idea where our hotel was. It was somewhat of a miracle that we got back to our hotel that night. It was 1a.m. – a few hours before we were to take off for the airport for our daylong journey to Kohima, the capital city of Nagaland.