Naga

The Naga are Tibeto-Burman hill tribes in the ranges between the Assam and Manipur valleys and the upper Chindwin; each tribe speaks its own, often mutually unintelligible language. Their neighbours called them Naka, meaning pierced-ear people, in Assam, Hao among the Meitei and Nakas in Burma.

They had settled their mountain village-states before the Ahoms entered the Brahmaputra valley in 1228, and in 1337 lived by shifting cultivation, inter-village raiding and headhunting, with status displayed in woven shawls and beadwork.

The Burmese chronicle Tagung Yazawin records that Samlongpha, the first saopha of Mongkawng, overran the Naga country in the mid-1300s; an inscription of Ava king Minkhaung I, who reigned from 1400 to 1421, shows Ava's reach extending to Naga lands. British expeditions in the 1800s moved into the hills to end the raiding and head-taking.