Traveller Stories · France

Thierry's Journey to the Hornbill Festival

Thierry travelled from France on a nineteen-day journey across Northeast India, of which four were spent in Nagaland for the Hornbill Festival at Kisama — the morungs, the arena dances, the smoke and songs of a Naga December. This is his journey, kept in photographs.

Thierry from France at the entrance of Kisama Heritage Village during the Hornbill Festival in Nagaland — Arrival — Kisama Heritage Village, Kohima

Thierry travelled from France to see Northeast India for himself — a nineteen-day journey across Assam, Meghalaya and Nagaland. Four of those days were spent in Kohima for the Hornbill Festival at Kisama, the reason he had come this far east with Living Roots.

The photographs on this page are from those four days above Kohima. We publish them not as a testimonial, but as a record — one traveller's short time inside the festival, kept honestly in frames.

The Arrival

He arrived in Kohima on the tenth day of the journey, in the cold, bright light of a Nagaland winter morning. The carved gateway at Kisama, with its crossed mithun horns, is the first thing most visitors photograph. Thierry was no different.

Thierry with young Naga women in traditional red and white attire at the Hornbill Festival craft bazaar — A meeting at the craft bazaar

Meeting the Hosts

Inside the grounds, each of the seventeen Naga tribes keeps its own morung — a wooden longhouse that serves as a living room, kitchen and stage for the ten days of the festival. Over his four days at Kisama, Thierry moved between them slowly, accepting introductions, tasting what was offered, and taking his time with each conversation.

Naga warriors in white and red feathered headdresses preparing for a Hornbill Festival performance — Before the arena dance

The Performances

The arena programme is the loud, public face of the festival — warrior processions, log-drum calls, the deep unison singing that seems to travel further than the microphones. Thierry watched from the arena rim, from morung doorways, and occasionally from the ground where the dust settled between sets. He photographed less than he watched.

A Naga performer in a bamboo headdress and red-blue striped shawl holding a spear at the Hornbill Festival — Portrait, between performances

The Food

Naga food is not designed to impress a visitor. It is smoked, fermented, foraged, and served plainly on a banana leaf. Thierry ate as the hosts ate — smoked pork with bamboo shoot, sticky rice, boiled greens. The morung kitchens were warm and full of woodsmoke; nobody hurried him.

Interior of a Naga morung at Kisama with sides of pork smoking from bamboo rafters — Inside a morung — pork smoked over the hearth

Onward

After four days in Kohima, Thierry left Nagaland and continued his journey — down to Jorhat, across the Brahmaputra to Majuli, and further east into the tea and oil country of Upper Assam. He flew out from Dibrugarh on the nineteenth day. The Hornbill Festival was one chapter of a longer route through Northeast India, and the photographs on this page belong to that chapter.

Women in red and green traditional shawls at the Hornbill Festival at Kisama — At Kisama, between sets

Journey Timeline

Nineteen days across Northeast India

Day 1GuwahatiArrival in Assam; the journey across Northeast India begins.
Day 2Guwahati → CherrapunjeeDrive south into the Meghalaya hills.
Day 3CherrapunjeeLiving root bridges, waterfalls and the Khasi plateau.
Day 4Cherrapunjee → ShillongReturn north to the hill capital of Meghalaya.
Day 5Shillong → Wild MahseerCross into Assam; heritage tea bungalows at Balipara.
Day 6Wild MahseerA slow day among the tea gardens.
Day 7Wild Mahseer → KazirangaEast to the floodplains of the Brahmaputra.
Day 8KazirangaMorning safari in the one-horned rhino grasslands.
Day 9KazirangaA second day in the park, at a quieter pace.
Day 10KohimaDrive up into Nagaland; first evening in the Angami hills.
Day 11Kohima — Hornbill FestivalFirst day at Kisama; introductions at the tribal morungs.
Day 12Kohima — Hornbill FestivalArena performances, warrior processions and the craft bazaar.
Day 13Kohima — Hornbill FestivalA last day inside the morungs before leaving Nagaland.
Day 14JorhatBack into Upper Assam; the tea town on the Brahmaputra.
Day 15MajuliRiver crossing to the world's largest inhabited river island.
Day 16MajuliThe satras — Vaishnavite monasteries and mask-making villages.
Day 17DuliajanFurther east into the oil-town country of Upper Assam.
Day 18DuliajanA quiet day before the long return.
Day 19DibrugarhDeparture from Northeast India.