A sight of the Aoleang festival in Mon, Nagaland. (Courtesy: bharatdiscovery)
Dimapur, march 3 (MExN): Green Pastures is a travel and tour agency based in Dibrugarh Assam. It provides a number of tour packages in the North East of India. One of the tour packages involves an eight day trip to the Aoling festival of the Konyaks in Mon. The aforementioned tour starts in Dibrugarh and travels to Mon to witness the festivities.
In this tour, tourists get a chance to take part in the Aoleang Festival. They visit sustainable villages and houses of the Konyaks in and around Mon, such as Lungwa, a village where the chief’s hut is bizarrely located half in India and half in the Union of Myanmar. Naturally, the village folk here have dual citizenship. In some of the villages, tourists will be left astonished by the great collections of human skulls which act as a reminder of the Konyak Tribe’s savage history. But above everything else, you will get ample time to interact with the people, learn about their unique culture and be delighted by their simple ways of living life.
During the first week of April after having completed the sowing of seeds in their new jhum fields, the Konyaks celebrate their most important festival; the Aoleang Festival, which marks the beginning of spring season and a new year. It is a time when the Konyaks are at their most jovial mood, displaying a huge appetite of fun and laughter.
The first day of the festival is called the Hoi Lah Nyih. It is spent in preparing for the festival where the villagers collect firewood and vegetable items, prepare rice beer and weave new traditional cloths and ornaments. On this day, every family partakes in the ritual of soothsaying, where chickens are sacrificed and the future is predicted by the shape of the intestine. The rest of the two days, Yin Mok Pho Nyih and Mok Shek Nyih, are spent searching and gathering domesticated animals which will be killed in the festival. Young tribal boys are also trained during this period in traditional male practices.
The fourth day, Lingnyu Nyih, is the most important and lively. Men and women of the Konyak Tribe wear their charming colorful traditional dresses and ornaments. The entire day is spent celebrating through beautiful dances, singing, heavy drinking, community feasts and endless merrymaking. The ancient headhunting ritual of the Konyak Tribe is also reenacted during this day, where Konyak men start dancing from the village gate, shoot their guns in the air and appear to hold their enemy’s head in their hands as a display of victory.
The remaining days of the festival, Lingha Nyih and Lingshan Nyih, are spent honoring and meeting each other’s families and relatives, and remembering the loved ones who have passed away.
