Noklak: One of the last surviving warriors of the bygone Naga head hunting era credits Christianity for his survival. “I wouldn’t be alive and talking had I not converted to Christianity,” Khon Khiam said sitting on a chair on the veranda of his house in Noklak village of Nagaland, northeastern India.
In his twilight years with a declining memory, Khon Khiam (short for Khiamniungan) cannot remember his exact age. He can only recall patches of his life.
Khon now spends most of a day inside a smoke fuming kitchen hearth and guzzles black tea. He is happy to answer questions so long as he can connect the bits and pieces of his life.
“I never thought it important to determine my age,” Khon ponders for a while and remarks. Life, he says, is not counted in years but in deeds.
But he is certain he has crossed 100 years. Certain details still flood back. He was around 17-18 years old when a team of British Administrators passed Noklak while on their way to Pangsha, a Naga village bordering Myanmar. That was supposedly in early 1930s.
Despite his age, Khon now looks lithe and able with fascinating tattoos marking his wrinkled torso; a reminder of his tumultuous head hunting days.
“I might have died early…I am happy I converted to Christianity, it saved my life,” he repeated and added that many friends of his youthful day had chosen to follow the head hunting path and had been killed by the enemies in bloody battles.
More memories came flooding back. Khon was one of the best warriors of his village and he had felled heads of five enemies with his dagger. “I remember I never walked behind, I was one who always led the way,” Khon recalled to stress his status of being a warrior.
That was of course before he found Christ and chose to follow his path of peace and reconciliation.
But converting to Christianity was never easy, Khon admits.
“I cannot recall exactly when, on one occasion, I converted and rejected Christianity merely because I did not want to quit drinking rice beer. Then I again reconverted in 1966.” Khon can recall the exact year and the name of the missionary who baptized him-one Imti from the Ao tribe.
That was when Khon quit rice beer and head hunting for good, reports The Morung Express.
Khon was also one of the warriors who represented Tuensang district ina dance troupe at the Nagaland Statehood inauguration in 1963 at Kohima, the state capital.
The troupe journeyed all the way from Noklak to Tuensang, Mokokchung and to Assam by foot. From Assam, they were taken on a train until Dimapur. They then proceeded to Kohima on motor vehicles.
What was the fondest memory of the journey? Khon is asked. “I can still clearly remember the scrumptious food we had in Assam,” Khon said with a hint of smile.
Yes, there are certain memories even age cannot erase.