Former headhunters embroiled in a decades-long fight for independence, the Naga tribes inhabit the remote, mountainous borderlands of Northeast India and Myanmar. For centuries the Naga perched on their hilltops in near isolation but today, more than a hundred years after the first soldiers, surveyors and missionaries invaded these wild borderlands, their culture is fast disappearing. The last living headhunters will soon be dead and many of the Naga’s rich cultural traditions are being swept away by external influences.

Having first encountered the Naga during my travels across Arunachal Pradesh, in late 2019 I headed off to spend two months exploring the Naga tribal territories of both India and Myanmar.

Travelling by motorbike, boat, foot and local transport, I met former headhunters, traditional healers, Baptist preachers, Naga rebel commanders, hunters and conservationists and, in doing so, gained a rare outsider’s insight into the Naga and their lands today.

While much has been written of the Naga tribes in India, very few foreigners have travelled to their villages over the border in Myanmar, and this was the really interesting bit. Most of these villages remain unmarked on any map and the jungles around them boil with wildlife and Naga rebels. As one Burmese Naga told me, these villages are so hard to get to that only ‘serious enemies or true friends’ can reach them. I soon found out what they meant!

If you’ve been kind enough to read my last book, Land of the Dawn-Lit Mountains, you’ll know I’m an ardent fan of Ursula Graham-Bower. This ‘pert, pretty’ Roedean educated debutante set sail for India in 1937, aged 23, with the vague idea of going to Nagaland to ‘potter about’ with her camera and maybe write a book. A few years later she was captaining a 150-strong Zeme Naga guerrilla unit against the Japanese Army – and with great success. Not only did the Zeme Naga worship her as a goddess, but many an Allied pilot shot down in these remote jungles owed her their life. To this day, Ursula remains the only female guerrilla commando in the history of the British Army. What a woman!

While I decided against writing a book about this journey, I did produce a number of articles and radio features about it for The Telegraph, BBC Radio 4, The Guardian, Geographical, Wanderlust and more. Two of my Naga stories featured on From our Own Correspondent, with one subsequently being chosen for Radio 4’s Pick of the Week. My documentary about community-based conservation in Nagaland was aired on BBC Radio 4’s Costing the Earth in March 2020. 

If you’d like to see photos and stories of my journey please follow me on Instagram and Twitter @AntsBK.

Much gratitude to the Royal Geographical Society, who funded this expedition, and also to Arakan Travel,  Native Route, Montane, Osprey Packs, Thermarest and Water to Go for their support. And thank you also to the countless Naga who showed me kindness and hospitality, and shared their homes, food, stories and laughter with me. Very soon after I returned home from this trip, Covid-19 closed international borders and prevented any more travel like this for two long years. How lucky I was to have memories and stories of the Naga Hills to feed my soul.