Focusing on the Naga Hills, this article looks at the significance of colonial writings on the Nagas in the nineteenth century. It examines some of the complex ways in which colonial writings became an important practice in framing and representing the Naga Hills and its inhabitants, and in the process linking the people and the territory to a range of ideas. Colonial writings comprise an important genre which provides interesting information to examine the relationship between writing, knowledge forms and representation. While various complex facets can be explored regarding the colonial writings, this article focuses primarily on three interconnected aspects: one, how colonial writings were instrumental in producing the idea of the Nagas as “savage”; second, the construction of the Naga Hills in the official writings as spaces of “disorder”; and third, the ways in which the hills were depicted as spaces of “isolation” in colonial writings.
Lipokmar Dzüvichü (Sun,) studied this question.