The Nagas: Hill Peoples in Northeast India (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

A valuable pictorial supplement...will be welcomed by students of highland Northeast India and Burma. -- American Anthropologist

An indispensable volume. -- Ornament

Product Description

The Nagas of Northeast India, radically different in culture and beliefs from the better-known Hindu peoples of the plains, were renowned in the years before Indian independence for their fierce resistance to British rule and for their practice of head-hunting. Although sharing many social and cultural traits, the thousands of small Naga villages often vary greatly from one another, and the Nagas display both unity and diversity in their dress and ornament. Their vibrant material culture is generously illustrated here in color photographs that display textiles, basketry, jewelry, weapons, metalwork, and carvings. Drawing on a diverse range of historical materials, the authors examine how the notion of tribes came to be applied to the Nagas and point out its subsequent importance in the development of contemporary Naga nationalism.

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Thames & Hudson (February 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0500974713
• ISBN-13: 978-0500974711
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 8.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,216,999 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant beautiful book, July 8, 2006

By	Mark Dowie "Investigative Historian" (Point Reyes Station, CA, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Most illustrated "coffee table" books about indigenous peoples are fluffy and romantic. Julian Jacobs book is a noticeable exception. The photos are excellent, realistic and informative, and every word of the book is worth reading .... a great backgounder on am intriguing and reamarkable people.

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ilike the pictures, June 14, 2000

By	akhai Shimray (New Delhi) - See all my reviews

The photographs were amazing . I wondered how they got all that stuff together. I sat for hours going over each one of them,trying to imagine how eachone of them must have been taken by the various individuals in their own time and space. Ok Ok so I got carried away a little, they are just pictures taken by people who had come to the Naga area either as tourist or as administrators but since there are such few photographs depicting the life of the naga people in the begining of the 20th century it was an amazing experience going through the photographs. So much has changed since then, both good and bad and like all tribal society that came into contact with the outside world only in the later half of the 19th century the Nagas also had to go through the usual problems symptomatic ofsocieties going through changes that came too fast at times. And in that process of getting educated and westernized and christianized somewhere along the way we lost touch with certain aspects of our tradition and culture. Lets just say the Nagas were victims of a histirical process demanding too much change. This loss was not just spiritual or intelectual but also material.In fact, to give a small example there was a shawl in one of the photograph worn by the Tangkhul tribe which is now no longer weaved because nobody knows how to anymore.I think it is important to know our roots because only then can we define ourselves and move ahead as a` people' in the ever changing dot com world we live in. This book is about how the world saw the nagasand also an attempt to undestand our way of life(the chapter on Fertility is interesting ) Of course only the Nagas can really know who they really are as people and as a nation but it is enlightening to be defined and analyzed by others especially if it has lots of pictures taken by them and all the good ones are brought together in one such book.(oh! so this is how my great granpa dressedup for the big hunt....) I think now that i have written about it I should buy a copy for my mom. She loves old photographs.

4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The modern-day Nagas, November 21, 1999

By	"shia" (Hongkong) - See all my reviews

So little is written about the Nagas - Tangkhuls, Maos, Kabius etc living in the Manipur State, or elsewhere in the north-eastern states of India. So this book doesn't represent 'all of the Nagas'. The modern-day Nagas are warm, friendly, very hospitable and peaceful folks. Music runs in their soul and they've got the voice to match! Yes, they are indeed, beautiful people.