Text by: Bhavendu Joshi, Tsuseki Yimkhiung, Divya Vasudev
Photos by: Tsuseki Yimkhiung
On a breezy January winter in 2021, the small village of Fakim, near the Indo-Myanmar border in Nagaland, had just finished celebrating Tsüngkamnyo, the annual harvest festival. This year, the festive mood continued as one colony of the village geared up for the unique tradition of placing a log drum or “sangkong” in their village “kheang”, the dormitory. The sankong is a traditional musical instrument made from a large tree trunk and has martial significance. The dormitory is where young boys gain knowledge about the customs and traditions of the village.
Fakim village is nestled amidst contiguous forests of Mount Saramati, an ultra-prominent peak at a height of 3,826m in Nagaland, Northeast India.
Cover: Villagers prepare a log drum from a bonsum tree sourced from community forests.
Preparation of the log drum/sangkong
Making the log drum starts with a small group of men searching for bonsum trees (Phoebe spp) within their community forests. Drums made from this species are said to produce a superior and mightier sound. The selected bonsum tree is felled with great coordination with a machete (dao). The men then carve out the trunk so that when pounded from above, it produces deep reverberations. The entire process takes 10-15 days, and at each stage, prayers are offered to the guardian spirit.
It is traditionally mandatory for the men to stay deep inside the forest until the sangkong is ready to be taken back to the village. The journey back from the forest is a victorious one, with the entire community singing folksongs and offering prayers. A small ritual follows, and the sangkong is finally placed in the kheang, a symbol of might to inspire the youth.
(Left) Transporting the log drum to the village is a festive community activity. (Right) Preparing the log drum.
Significance of the sangkong and kheang
Nagaland is a state of immense cultural diversity, with at least 16 major tribes, each having their own unique language and traditions, and many more minor tribes with their own dialects. People from Fakim village belong to the Yimkhiung tribe, for whom the kheang and the sangkong are sacrosanct.
Shri Tangjuvmiu, a village council member from Fakim explains that the kheang is an age-old sacred institution where able men, from adolescents to adults, learn how to live well and take on civic duties and social responsibilities. Earlier, war strategies, fighting, and making weapons were also taught here. Today, the kheangis where village leaders make decisions about the administration and governance of the village. It also acts as a centre for rituals and celebrations. Overall, the kheang symbolises the continuance of traditions and culture governing Naga life. Placed in this important location, the sangkong is a symbol of victory, sacrifice, and truthfulness, for the Nagas, who are historically warring tribes. While the sangkong was typically pounded during times of dangerin earlier days, such as during emergencies or war, today, the instrument epitomises the community’s unity and has become a central part of the spiritual and cultural life of every member of the community.
The dormitory where the sangkong is placed in the village.
Culture, Forests, and Nature Conservation
The tradition of sangkong is neither uncommon nor the only traditional Naga custom that is deeply connected with nature. A profound respect for nature and a strong sense of place and belonging are common threads that run through most Naga tribes and communities. For them, dependence on forests for livelihood, economic needs, and basic day-to-day needs is high, and forests are a focal point around which the lives of local people revolve.
In Nagaland and other hill states of Northeast India, forests are under the collective control of communities. Management of forestland is through self-organised governing institutions like the village council, which oversees ownership and resource rights under customary tribal laws. This makes the region unique compared to much of India and emphasises collective thought and decision-making for land and forest management. Such collective thought and action has likely contributed to the still high percentage of forest cover in Nagaland.
Social customs and the community-centric approach towards forest governance have shown some degree of resilience against global drivers of forest loss and align well with current themes of participatory, inclusive, and just conservation. They also make these tribes stout proponents of conservation movements in the region.
(Left) Village men performing a celebratory folkdance wearing their traditional Yimkhiung attire. (Right) Fakim village elders.
Values that Shape People-Nature Relationships
Relationships that the Naga tribes share with nature are quite intricate and complex. Nuances stem from the multiple ways tribes perceive nature and place value on it. These values may be instrumental (viewed from the perspective of utility), social (relating to a collective), relational (arising from intrinsic people-nature bonds), and intrinsic (relating to moral or ethical motivations). Each of these values has a place in shaping people-nature relationships in Nagaland.
Naga tribes depend on forests for material benefits such as food, timber, fuelwood, and water, as well as for non-material benefits such as recreation and tourism. These benefits fulfil economic and livelihood needs and underpin the overall quality of people’s lives and their well-being. Such tangible benefits reveal instrumental (utilitarian) values. Naga customs and traditions such as the sangkong and kheang bind community members to work collectively towards shared goals, while community governance and indigenous knowledge help construct societal philosophies rooted in nature. These cultures are rooted in people’s relationships with each other and with nature (social and relational values, respectively, as described above). Knowledge about forests and diverse floral and faunal species acquired through centuries of living amidst nature fosters a sense of moral values, a responsibility towards protecting nature for its own sake, referred to as the intrinsic values of nature.
The wet temperate forest surrounding Fakim village is a Himalayan subtropical pine forest. The majority of this forestland is under community ownership. Fakim Wildlife Sanctuary spanning ~6 sq km was established to protect the Blyth’s tragopan.
As a conservationist, one has to ask, how do we acknowledge and account for these diverse values such that our efforts are inclusive and long-lasting? Non-tangible links that people have with nature are critical. But it is difficult to set a monetary value on these benefits and values. As a result, conservationists have argued over the years for an expansion of economic approaches to the valuation of nature’s benefits towards a more pluralistic approach that embraces non-monetary benefits from nature. In recognition of this, over the last decade or so, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has broadened its framework to now also include culture and indigenous knowledge in understanding Nature’s Contributions to People. What remains is for this broadening of scope to permeate into policy discourse at regional and local scales.
Redefining the Path of Future Conservation Efforts
Conservation policies in places like Nagaland, where the local community plays a central role in managing forests, need to be inclusive and participatory. The meaning of conservation can be different for different people based on their focal values, and this can sometimes lead to multiple or conflicting goals. Explicitly accounting for this diversity of thought at the very outset could mitigate potential conflict and should aim to facilitate, reinforce, and strengthen collective decision-making. Conservation and research projects can borrow approaches from multiple fields such as ecology, economics, social sciences, and the humanities, and from traditional knowledge and customs as well. This will help us understand which values drive people’s motivation to conserve forests and nature across regions, and how such motivations can be integrated into conservation, climate and sustainability goals. There is likely no place that epitomises this need as much as Nagaland.
Bhavendu Joshi, Tsuseki Yimkhiung, Divya Vasudev are conservationists at the Northeast India-based NGO Conservation Initiatives. Bhavendu is a PhD student studying the role of ecosystem services in conservation in Nagaland. Tsuseki is from the Fakim village and dedicated to conserving its rich biodiversity. Divya is a landscape ecologist and conservationist and co-leads Conservation Initiatives.
