AHP 45: REVIEW:IMAG(IN)ING THE NAGAS

This beautifully executed work is a reexamination of thousands of photographic images of Naga peoples from North East India collected by Hans-Eberhard Kaufmann (1899-1986) and the ground-breaking visual anthropologist Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf (1909-1995). The book cover is dominated by the arresting image of a brooding man, crouching in full warrior garb consisting of rattan loops covering his forearms, hands clutching the bamboo shaft of a spear, bone arm bands about his triceps, wild boar tusks framing a tiny monkey skull and cluster of feathers atop his head, and large bone or shell discs above his ears. His eyes seem intently fixed on something outside the frame. This image seems to convey a way of life now regulated by polities and technologies beyond the purvey of the uplands, an image that appeals to modern sensibilities towards the wild and untamed