News Highlight:
Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar attends the inauguration ceremony of Nagaland’s Hornbill festival. The 23rd edition of the Hornbill Festival will be held from December 1 to 10.
Key Takeaway:
VP Dhankhar along with the Governor and Chief Minister of Nagaland sounded the inauguration gong to declare the ‘Festival of Festivals’ open. Vice president Dhankhar, who arrived on his maiden tour to Nagaland, was felicitated with Tsiiphie (traditional Naga headgear) and Amula kaxa (Naga shawl) at the opening ceremony.
Hornbill Festival:
- About:
- Hornbill Festival is celebrated in Nagaland to encourage inter-tribal interaction.
- The Hornbill Festival also known as the ‘Festival of festivals’ is a celebration held every year from 1 – 10 December, in Kohima, Nagaland.
- The festival was first held in the year 2000.
- It is named after the Indian hornbill, the large and colourful forest bird which is displayed in the folklore of most of the state’s tribes.
- Festival highlights include the traditional Naga Morungs exhibition and the sale of arts and crafts, food stalls, herbal medicine stalls, flower shows and sales, cultural medley – songs and dances, fashion shows etc
About Great Indian Hornbill:
- IUCN status: Vulnerable(uplisted from Near Threatened in 2018).
- CITES Appendix I
- The great hornbill (Buceros bicornis) also known as the great Indian hornbill or great pied hornbill, is one of the larger members of the hornbill family.
- The great hornbill is long-lived, living for nearly 50 years in captivity.
- It is predominantly fruit-eating, but is an opportunist and preys on small mammals, reptiles and birds.
- Its impressive size and colour have made it important in many tribal cultures and rituals.
- A large majority of their population is found in India with a significant proportion in the Western Ghats and the Nilgiris.
- The nesting grounds of the birds in the Nilgiris North Eastern Range are also believed to support some of their highest densities.
Ecological significance of the Great Indian Hornbill:
Referred to as ‘forest engineers’ or ‘farmers of the forest’ for playing a key role in dispersing seeds of tropical trees, hornbills indicate the prosperity and balance of the forest they build nests in.
Cultural Significance of the Great Indian hornbill:
- The great hornbill is the state bird of Kerala and Arunachal Pradesh in India. The Great Indian Hornbill is also considered sacred among the tribal cultures of Nagaland.
- The beaks and heads of these birds are used as head-dresses and charmes while their flesh is believed to possess medicinal properties. Tribesmen in Nagaland and other parts of Northeast India also wear feathers and skulls as decorations. There are other festivals among the tribes of Nagaland which are considered incomplete without a hornbill feather.
Threats:
- Hornbills used to be hunted for their casques, upper beak and feathers for adorning headgear despite being cultural symbols of some ethnic communities in the northeast, specifically the Nyishi of Arunachal Pradesh.
- Illegal logging has led to fewer tall trees where the birds nest.
Pic courtesy: The Economic Times
Content Source: The Hindu