Nagaland Culture and religion

Culture and religion

The (14) tribes of Nagaland are Angami Naga, Ao, Chakhesang, Chang, Khiamniungan, Konyak, Lotha, Phom, Pochury, Rengma, Sangtam, Sumi, Yimchungru, and Zeliang, of which the Konyaks, Angamis, Aos, Lothas, and Sumis are the largest Naga tribes. Tribe and clan traditions and loyalties play an important part in the life of Nagas. Weaving is a traditional art handed down through generations in Nagaland. Each of the major tribes has its own unique designs and colours, producing shawls, shoulder bags, decorative spears, table mats, wood carvings, and bamboo works. Naga Tribal dances of the Nagas give an insight into the inborn Naga reticence of the Naga people. War dances and other dances belonging to distinctive Naga tribes are a major art form in Nagaland. Some of these are Moatsu, Sekrenyi, Tuluni, Tokhu Emong, and Gan-Ngai.

Christianity is the predominant religion of Nagaland. The state's population is 1.988 million, out of which 90.02% are Christians. The census of 2001 recorded the state's Christian population at 1,790,349, making it, with Meghalaya and Mizoram, one of the three Christian-majority states in India and the only state where Christians form 90 percent of the population. The state has a very high church attendance rate in both urban and rural areas. The largest of Asia's churches dominate the skylines of Kohima, Dimapur, and Mokokchung.

Nagaland is known as "the only predominantly Baptist ethnic state in the world." Among Christians, Baptists are the predominant group constituting more than 75 percent of the state's population, thus making it more Baptist (on a percentage basis) than Mississippi in the southern United States, where 52 percent of its population is Baptist.

Catholics, Revivalists, and Pentecostals are the other Christian denomination numbers. Catholics are found in significant numbers in parts of Wokha district as also in the urban areas of Kohima and Dimapur.

Hinduism and Islam are minority religions in state, at 7.7% and 1.8% of the population respectively. A small minority, less than 0.3%, still practise the traditional religions and are mainly concentrated in Peren and the Eastern districts.

Languages

Almost all the tribes of Nagaland have their own language. Nagas speak 60 different dialects belonging to the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. The traditional languages do not have any script of their own. The Christian Missionaries used Roman script for these languages.

In 1967 the Nagaland Assembly proclaimed English as the official language of Nagaland and is the medium for education in Nagaland.

Nagamese, a creole language form of Indo-Aryan Assamese and local dialects is the most widely spoken market language. Every tribe has its own mother tongue but communicates with other tribes in Nagamese. As such Nagamese is not a mother tongue of any of the tribes; nor is it written.