The Call of Home: Rediscovering my Roots on the Indo-Myanmar Border

“We had to walk for two days to reach Noklak,” my mother would say when we were little and living in Nagaland, India. She belongs to the Khiamniungan Naga tribe and was raised over the border in Myanmar. Like many others, my mother came to India for education and eventually settled there. Since 1967, the Khiamniungan tribe has been split between the two modern countries of India and Myanmar, with more than half of the population in Myanmar.

I was born and raised in Kohima, Nagaland, where we frequently hosted people from my mother’s village across the border. I vividly recall waking up in the dead of night, eagerly rubbing my eyes to see our guests, but mostly eager to see what they had brought. It was always exciting. They would bring chicken in a bamboo basket, smoked venison and bushmeat, aromatic Sichuan pepper, intricately woven Naga baskets, mats made of cane, and beautiful ornaments.

The guests’ journeys were arduous, including two days traversing rugged mountains and a day’s bus ride to reach Kohima; they came for trade, medical treatments, or occasionally, to entrust their children to affluent households as helpers in exchange for education. For those with nimble feet, Noklak could be reached in just a day.

For my siblings and me, the following days would include a series of fascinating stories about were-tigers and spirits rumored to snatch away village children. For our parents, it was a more somber affair, exchanging news about who was alive, who was ailing, and who had passed away. With no Internet connections in the village, our only means of staying informed about distant relatives was through occasional visitors. To me, these were stories of a distant world. The village, its houses, and its people only existed like a painted picture in my head.

I never saw my ancestral village because it lies in an undeveloped part of Myanmar where, even now, there are no proper roads. I remember my sister telling me upon her return from the village that an elderly man had asked her, “People who went to town came and told us that the roads are very wide and covered in black; is it true?” As I grew up, I had the chance to visit other cities in India for studies and tours, but I always felt a sense of detachment from the land of my origins.

Going Home

Last year, in March 2023, we had the chance to visit Noklak as a Canada-IDRC Myanmar Research Fellow on the “Earthkeepers” project. Noklak is a district in the eastern part of Nagaland that abuts the Indo-Myanmar border and is predominantly inhabited by the Khiamniungan tribe. The preliminary fieldwork aimed to establish relationships with the communities, introduce our work, and broadly assess the local farmers’ understanding and experience of global climate change.

My team and I hopped into our faithful Gypsy(SUV) and headed out for our first fieldwork. The tightly packed streets gave way to scattered houses, and the forest greeted us as we drove further. Along our route, we traversed numerous villages and small settlements, often finding ourselves surrounded by nothing but towering mountains and lush foliage, with few signs of human presence between these remote outposts.

Upon reaching Noklak, I was immediately struck by the fact that I could understand every word spoken around me, everyone spoke the Khiamniungan language. I found it amusing, because in Kohima, only a minute proportion of the population conversed in the language, and the chance of hearing it spoken on the streets was rare. This moment marked the beginning of my journey to uncover and embrace my cultural roots.

In the following days, we travelled to four different villages under Noklak— Dan, Wui, Peshu, and Langnok. Of the four villages, only Peshu did not share a boundary with Myanmar. The villagers welcomed us very warmly. Beyond Noklak town, the paved road disappeared; narrow and dusty roads led us to the villages. The unforgiving sun was high up in the sky— a little too warm for April, we thought. We learned that these roads become treacherously difficult to navigate during the rainy season and envisioned the challenges posed by the muddy, slippery terrain and the perilous cliffs.

The houses in the villages were typically constructed from wood or bamboo, with roofs made from palm thatch or tin. Churches were often the only cement structures. However, in Peshu village, we observed that stone slates were used for roofing, a typical feature of traditional Khiamniungan homes. The granaries in the villages were built in a similar style to the houses, mostly situated a short distance away from the main dwellings. They are lifted from the ground with poles to protect the grains from rodents and insects.