Fascinating portraits have captured the few remaining headhunters of ancient North East Indian tribe that used to behead people and display their body parts as trophies. Who & where. The Konyak are a major Naga ethnic group centered in Mon District, Nagaland (northeast India) with villages spilling across the India–Myanmar border—famously at Longwa, where the Angh’s (chief’s) house straddles both countries.
Why “headhunter.” Until the mid-20th century, Konyak war parties took enemy heads, which were displayed in men’s houses (morung) and in the Angh’s compound. The practice carried spiritual and social weight—linked to fertility, prestige, and rites of passage.
