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In Wanching I sit round a fire in a kitchen with a grandfather who was a member of the grandfather of the current rebel groups. “I am not an Indian, no Naga is an Indian, a Naga is not an Indian, do we look like Indians? Is our culture Indian? We have never been conquered by the Indians.” Next to him sits a man in near full Konyak gear plus underpants, a red sash across his neck, hair dishevelled, bundles of thick red string hanging from each ear, a patterned blue loin cloth, a sandlewood belt supporting a sandlewood strip protecting his bum. Hanging from his neck are an assortment of animals teeth and paws and a bronze coloured metal head. Rice beer powered he recounts the 1981 war against a neighbouring Konyak village. In 1974 their Ang, hereditary chief of the village, and his cousin, had been in Wakching for some discussions. Whilst inhaling from an opium pipe a man silently approached from behind and took the Ang's head in one slash of a machete. His village plotted and swore revenge for seven years before they invaded the liable village. He and another cousin had killed two men and exacted punishment on the plotters, executioners and their people. In 1989 he had gone to war with the Chang, a bordering tribe of the Konyak, fellow Nagas. The shouts and sound of a drum called us outside before I could ask whether he marched on Assam. In Wanching village each Morung or khel of men move around the village, at first it is an advance group of three men with spears, flanked by two gongs banged in time with chants informing a coming event, they jump together in time, thrust spears in the air and flatten shields. Later the entire Morung moves around the village, dancing, a song, an intoxicated chant repeated, led by elder men and replied by the boys, guns fired, crackers exploded. Each Morung moves around the village in turn, a meeting of two Morungs necessitates a clash and a 10,000Rs fine for each participant. It is the men with their embroided sashes of red, shorts, tracksuit pants, jeans, a mish mash of two worlds attire, with the trophies of their families past glory on their heads, hanging from their necks, banded around their arms and legs, it is the men who dress to impress. The women hold children looking on as boys to children and drunk men jump, dance, chant a song and fire their guns into the air.

A warlike beat permeates the air from five metre long log drums carved into a Hornbill bird. They are lined by two rows of men hammering the hollowed out log with the bottom of wooden mallets, each side competing, beating a drunken rhythm. It is the public announcement system, a beat is played throughout the Aoling festival, another for a death in the village, for an initiation ceremony or to warn the village of attack. The log drums are placed inside or alongside the Morung, the male dormitory whose entrance is adorned with carved wooden motifs of tigers, elephants, hornbills, women with giant breasts and men with gargantuan penises enhancing the fertility of the village. In a time not so long past the unmarried men would sleep with their weapons ready. Each village has a few Morungs, each clan will be aligned and its members belong to a Morung. Phejin's brother was initiated last year with the boys of his age group. For Aoling festival the log drum is pounded throughout the day and into the night. The Morungs compete for the best beat, filling the village air with a sense of expectation.

The villages of Wanching and Chingtang have sat in the darkness of life without electricity for the past five years. The electricity conducting cable is cut and turned into various kitchen utensils. One time a man from a neighbouring village went to cut the wire to Wanching for its aluminium and other conducting metals not realising that the wire was live and had half an arm near burnt off. When the other villages asked what had happened he claimed he had been in a stream one metre wide dynamite fishing and had half his arm blown off, but everyone knew. Villages ring the hilltops, houses packed together, a fortress retired, commanding the fields below. A jungle nearly decimated, a land tamed by villages dotting peaks who can see another from every side. Pork and beef smoked hanging from the shelf suspended above the fire strung from the ceiling. Rice covered in its husks is smoked before it is separated on top of the shelf. The fire is in the centre of the kitchen surrounded by stools. Pigs, cows, slaughtered, divided up into parcels of bamboo leaf, distributed by Phejins mother, it is a present giving time. Into the fire whose embers will never fully turn to ash is placed pieces of bamboo, encasing a crushed mix of pork fat and rice that cooks, then cools into a Konyak sausage. Over the fire boils a pot of water in which sticky rice will be cooked then left in its liquid, covered in the sun to ferment for a few days before the result is strained into milky coloured rice beer. Phejin's nephew plays with a dead animal that I have never seen before, her brother drank blood directly from a dog's neck to cure an illness, a friend with a sick dog gave it to another who likes the taste of dog meat. In Shiyong, Phejins village the student union makes a tour to each house in the village on the night before the start of the Aoling festival and warns each household of a punishment, a fine for the selling of liquor. In the festival of drinking alcohol has found itself banned. The violent indiscretions of boys and men in previous years involving groups and machetes has led some to a distaste for alcohol induced bad behaviour.

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