One of the highlights of our trip was a visit to the Hornbill Festival in Nagaland. It takes place annually during the first week in December in a stadium in Kisama and celebrates the vibrant culture of some of the many diverse tribal groups; 16 in Nagaland and more than 25 in Arunachal Pradesh.We arrived in Kisema and stayed with a family having negotiated a very precipitous road, so not for the faint-hearted! We had planned to spend several days in the area as there is so much to see and arrived early in the cool of the morning to see the beginning of the day’s programme at the festival.
It featured a succession of tribal groups performing their traditional dances, music and songs. It was a spectacular day of colour, costumes, jewellery and music all in a beautiful mountain setting. This remote region is sometimes called Nagaland: Song of the Misty Mountains and it does have a mystical quality as you can see from the image taken from our home stay balcony.

After watching some of the performances there was an opportunity to mingle with the crowds of people in their traditional costumes and visit their displays of textiles and crafts.
This was a perfect opportunity to buy some examples of weaving and have them packed up and posted back to England – another parcel to open on our return. Let me know if you would like to see more of the performances at the festival.

Next time I can start to show you some of the textiles from Nagaland and also tell you about the wonderful time I had as a tutor at  Urchfont Manor.