India's Boundary-less Village Longwa-One Village but two nations
Longwa Village – One village, two nations
Longwa village lies in the northernmost part of Mon District of Nagaland state. It is one of the largest villages in Mon district .It is located 42 kms from the main Mon town at the Myanmarese border .This village has traditional large houses made of wood with thatched roof. It is quite an interesting place for sight-seeing for its natural beauty. You would be stunned by knowing that, the boundary between India and Myanmar passes across this village dividing the chief’s house into two- half of Chief’s house in India and his other half of house in Myanmar.
Main aborgines
of this village is Konyak Tribe. The Konyak tribe holds the largest numbers
among the sixteen officially recognized tribes in Nagaland. The Konyak Nagas speak
the Tibetan-Myanmarese language in their self-modified version. However, the
Nagamese is also spoken by some of the
people, residing in the village.
The Konyak tribe is very famous
for their violent head hunting with their tattooed inked faces. Among the Konyak
warrior who have the maximum numbers of his enemies’ heads is considered to be
the mightiest of all. They always wear some traditional jewellery like brass
skull necklace and most of the men use inked to ink their faces .The brass
skull necklace denotes the number of
heads taken by them. They still use hornbill beaks, elephant tusks,and skulls
to decorate their houses.
It was believed by the Konyak warriors’ that taking heads increases the fertility of the crops as well as the well-being of the warrior who took the head. They would spare someone from being headhunted only if that person had eaten something from the house of a Konyak Naga or he had offered them a gift. The Christian missionaries arrival has helped to restrain the tradition of skull-hunting as the village people have embraced Christianity. The religion has now become the interconnected bond between the Nagas that helped them to keep aloof from constant fighting with each other.
The Angh” is the hereditary chief or the king
of the Konyak Naga. The interesting feature of Longwa village is that – the
Angh of the village has 60 wives and he rules over more than 70 villages
extended up to Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Arunachal Pradesh.
The king with 60 wives and the villagers moving freely to Myanmar without a visa
Though
the Villagers of longwa do not require a visa to move around freely to Myanmar.
Even a village chief’s son has joined the Myanmarese army. Technically, the
villagers of Longwa have dual citizenships- one for India and another for
Myanmar. So, some of the Konyak families in Longwa have their kitchen in
Myanmar while sleep in India. People from both sides of the boundary work
together in Angh’s field.
If we can
look into the spectacular festival .It would be
the Aoling Monyu festival of Konyak observed every year during the first
week of April.It is most colourful festive of the state. The Aoling Festival celebrates
the arrival of spring and prays for a good upcoming harvest.
In this quiet village of Longwa, it is a case of oneness – one village, one identity but two nationalities. Konyak people live on two sides of the boundary line but the emotional bonding among them stays strong.
Comments
Post a Comment