Nagaland Selfie

I captured this image in Hongphoi, Mon district of Nagaland while doing a portrait portfolio of the last remaining generation
of headhunters in the world...
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I captured this image in Hongphoi, Mon district of Nagaland while doing a portrait portfolio of the last remaining generation
of headhunters in the world. I spent 5 days in their village and at the end, created a slide show, which I invited three of them to watch with me. The men are al in the late 70s & 80s and took trophy heads as prerequisite to their coming of age ceremony. Headhunting was deemed totally eradicated in Nagaland in the late 1980s, while being banned in the late 1960s. The three brass head necklace worn by the gentleman in the middle indicates he took 3 human heads back in the day. The fellow on the left isn't wearing his tribal bling as he has converted to Christianity. They can only be tattooed after returning to their village with a head. Only chief's wives were permitted to perform the tattooing.
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