The locus of Naga culture is the hill country of northeast India between Assam’s Brahmaputra Valley to the west and the Myanmar (Burma) border to the east.
While folk traditions regarding the history of the various Naga tribes abound, they have not reached a scholarly consensus concerning their origin. Lhotas, Semas, Aos, and other Naga tribes use jhum cultivation almost only.
The Naga people are various ethnic groups native to northeastern India and northwestern Myanmar. The groups have similar cultures and traditions, and for most of the population in the Indian state of Nagaland and Naga Self-Administered Zone of Myanmar; with significant populations in Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and Assam in India;
Sagaing Division and Kachin State in Myanmar. The Naga people love color, as is clear in the shawls designed and woven by women, and in the headgear that both sexes design. Clothing patterns are traditional to each group, and the women weave the cloths.
They use beads in variety, profusion, and complexity in their jewelry, along with a wide range of materials including glass, shell, stone, teeth or tusk, claws, horns, metal, bone, wood, seeds, hair, and fiber.
There are two forms of marriage in Naga, one ceremonial, the other non-ceremonial. The ceremonial form is desired as a symbol of status and comprises an elaborate ritual involving the services of a Marriage broker, the taking of omens, and the negotiation of a marriage-price (usually nominal).
The Lhotas are polygynous, a husband having three wives. Young girls are preferred and bride-prices are high; they are paid in installments over ten years.
The Semas are also polygynous. A Sema husband may have five to seven wives. Sema women have freedom of choice in mate selection. As among the Lhota, marriage-prices are high. Marital residence practices seem to differ among the various Naga tribes.
Part of the Angami marriage ceremony involves the giving of land to the new couple by the bridegroom’s parents. The new couple works and eats on this land.
This may show a patrilocal postmarital residence pattern. Part of the betrothal process involves the husband’s construction of a marital home (location not showed) with materials gathered from the fields of his parents and the parents of his wife.
