This chapter makes a transition away from what I have discussed until now on the history of Naga's relationship with the colonial state and the ways in which the frontier was managed through limited direct administration and tactical political intervention (annual pacification raids and building patronage through political go-between dobashis and village headmen). Here, I introduce the village where I conducted fieldwork and generated my field-based knowledge on jhum and the Yimchunger Nagas’ everyday toil with farming, the land and labour relations, patronage with clans and the relationships villagers build with key village institutions – church, village council and the village development board. But more specifically, I shall discuss changing land relations that have become the basis of farming and livelihood for Yimchunger villages.

The village where I conducted fieldwork is located in the Saramati mountain range (Image 5.1) just 60– 70 kilometres from the India–Burma international border and about 300 kilometres from Kohima by road. It was established in the mid-1940s by Shamator, Shiponger and Sanghpur villagers. All three villages contributed land for the new settlement. In return, the first settlers who established Leangkonger had to offer mithun and a feast to the villages that contributed land. Villagers narrated that headhunting had continued in this part of Nagaland up to the 1950s. It slowly stopped with the preaching of Sema and Ao Baptist evangelical missions that toured the region since the early 1950s and instilled brotherhood through the message of the gospel.