Nagaland is a state in northeastern India.  It is a remote and hilly territory, lying to the south of the Brahmaputra River, with Burma to the east.  The state is best known for its once warlike tribal population, which took part in the practice of headhunting until the early 1900's. 

The population of Nagaland consists of several groups of tribes that originated in Tibet and Burma.  These include the Angamis, Aos, Chakhesang, Chang, Konyaks, Kukis, Lothas, Phom, Pochuri, and Semas.  

The Nagas' reputation as headhunters made them greatly feared among their neighbours.  They were noted for their fierceness and the regular raids they made on Assam and Burma.  Their villages are on hilltops and ridges and are still protected by stone walls.  The main building in a village is the morung, a long house which may be as much as 20 metres long and 10 metres high.  Its roof is supported by a single crossbeam.  The morung was once the most important house in the community.  It was a boys' dormitory and an armoury for storing weapons and displaying the prizes of war.  These took the form of enemy heads, often as many as 150 in a morung.  When fire destroyed the timber-and-thatch long houses and the skulls inside, the Nagas carved small replica skulls as substitutes.  By each morung stood a huge, sacred drum, which the Nagas hollowed out of a tree trunk and carved to resemble a buffalo head.  The history of their culture and practices is shown in wooden images, masks, jewellery, and headgear.  In some villages, women had the female equivalent of a morung.  Women still take an equal share in the work and government of Nagaland today.  

More than 90 per cent of the population are Christians.  The rest are Muslims or Hindus.  The main languages spoken are Nagamese and English.  

Nagaland has one elected member in the Lok Sabha (lower house) and one representative in the Rajya Sabha (upper house) of the Indian national parliament.  The state legislature has 60 members. 

The various tribes and tribal groups making up the people of Nagaland came from various regions including Burma and Tibet.  They settled in the remote hill country of Nagaland long ago, but experts do not know precisely when.  The Nagas have rich and colourful collections of poetry, folk songs, and tales that preserve many ancient legends.  This folklore has been passed down from generation to generation.  But there is no written account of the early history of Nagaland.  

The earliest written references to the Nagas date from the 1200's.  At this time, a people called the Ahoms settled in Assam and came into contact with the Naga tribes.  According to Ahom chronicles, there were occasional conflicts, but Ahom and Naga chiefs generally had friendly relations.  However, raids by one Naga village against another were a feature of life in the hilly areas, and the Nagas decorated their morungs with the skulls of enemies slain in battle.  

Until the 1800's, the Nagas led a fairly isolated existence, untouched by the great historical development that affected most other parts of the Indian subcontinent.  Then, in 1819, the Burmese invaded Assam and occupied it for seven years.  In 1826, the British extended their rule to Assam.  They sent out the first of several expeditions to the northeast region in 1832.  Although fiercely resisted by the Nagas, the British eventually annexed the area, known as Naga Hills, in 1881. 

The British occupation brought about many deep-rooted changes in the life of the Naga peoples.  The British administrators put a stop to headhunting and raids between villages.  They also encouraged Christian missionaries to enter the region.  The missionaries successfully converted most Nagas to Christianity and set up educational centres.  

With education came the growth of political awareness among the Nagas.  Many Nagas sought political independence for their highland territory.  In 1946, the people formed the Naga National Council with the aim of uniting the whole region in its fight for political rights.  In 1947, some sections of the Naga people demanded full political sovereignty as a state separate from India.  The government of a newly independent India refused to accept such a demand, and some Nagas took to armed rebellion in an effort to gain independence.  The area remained in a rebellious political condition for much of the 1950's.  

Eventually, negotiations between the Indian government and the Nagas led to the integration of the region into the Indian republic.  Nagaland became a full state of the Indian Union in 1963.  Some rebel forces continued to press for full independence, carrying out guerrilla warfare and bandit raids.  But their political influence gradually declined.  

Since the 1960's, the central Indian government has provided Nagaland with essential aid, and the state has quickly developed commercially.  A nationalist party, the Naga National Organization, won power in Nagaland just after it became a state in 1963.  But its influence soon gave way to that of the Congress Party.  

In March 1992, the governor of Nagaland suspended the state assembly.  In April, the Indian government imposed president's rule.  In 1993 and 1994, ethnic strife surfaced again in the hills of Manipur as Nagas wanting independence clashed with Kukis, who have been living in the region since the 1700's.  The clashes left hundreds massacred and many villages destroyed.