Aoling festival

Aoling Monyu or Spring festival is the main festival of the Konyak tribe. It is celebrated every year from 1-6 April after the completion of sowing seeds in the jhum fields. This is done to seek the blessings of Yongwan,  the supreme God in order to have a bountiful harvest in the upcoming agricultural year. Along-with it, the advent of the spring season is welcomed as the ‘coral-trees’ start to bloom which signifies the arrival of the new year cycle. For this occasion, the people brew rice beer in advance and slaughter cattle as meat consumption is a vital part of the celebration. The Aoling festival is an opportunity for the young and the old, male and female to dress and decorate themselves in brightly coloured traditional embroidery and bead jewellery.Red, black and white are the dominant colours in all their weaves, jewellery and art works. Dressed in traditional attires they dance, sing folk songs and beat log drums. Friends, neighbours and relatives are invited to the lavish feasts where sticky rice (nyük nye) is steamed in clay pots specially for this occasion. Meat is cooked in abundance in different styles and rice beer (yu -shei) refilled in the mugs nonstop. The men perform war dances wearing their headgears decorated with hornbill feathers and boar’s tusks, and brass skull necklaces dangling around their necks. The brass skull necklace or yanmeeng was worn only by warriors during the heydays of headhunting. All throughout  Aoling  people play log drums that echo all over the Konyak land with a booming sound. This is also the time when the family of the deceased of the past year bid their final goodbye to the loved one to end the period of mourning.