Naga

The Naga religion is held by the many hill tribes known together as the Naga, who live between Assam, the Manipur valley and the upper Chindwin. They venerated natural elements such as the sun, moon, trees and stones, and believed in a Supreme Being and lesser spirits tied to nature, which they appeased with rituals and sacrifices.

Folk songs and dances belonged to festivals and religious occasions, and headhunting and intertribal raiding were part of the old order. American Baptist missionaries introduced Christianity to the Naga Hills in the mid-nineteenth century, and the British tried in the same century to abolish headhunting; the missionaries opposed the old songs, which they linked with spirit worship, war and immorality.