Wild Side

Photographer Nirvair Singh Rai recounts his trip to the misty hills of the northeast to document the Konyaks, Nagaland’s famous headhunters.

In early June, two friends and I set off for Nagaland to document its Konyak tribe, famously known as the last living headhunters. As a photographer my job usually takes me places, but this was the first time I was going to come face-to-face with such a remote tribe—one that lived so deep within the hills of the northeast that it was totally cut off from modern life. After a long plane ride to Dimapur from Mumbai via Kolkata, we hopped into our taxi and began our journey through the lush countryside.

Along the way, we passed through many small villages that reminded me of the paintings my brother and I would draw as children—green hills, a blazing sunset, birds, and a hut with a well-lit door waiting to welcome you.

After hours on the road, passing gentle-faced men, and women in neat white red-bordered saris, we reached Sonari near the border of Assam and Nagaland. I saw many frames that would make for beautiful photographs, and I stopped to shoot whenever I could—a herd of deer feasting on white flowers, women in the tea fields gracefully throwing buds into their conical baskets…