UPSC Articles
Hornbill Festival
Part of: Prelims
- It is annually held from 1 – 10 December. The first festival was held in 2000.
- The festival organized by Nagaland Government is an annual tourism promotional event to showcase the state’s traditional and rich cultural heritage in all its ethnicity, diversity and grandeur.
- The objective is to encourage inter-tribal interaction and to promote cultural heritage of Nagaland.
- Highlights of the Hornbill Festival include witnessing the cultural performance of different tribes of Nagaland and Northeastern States, indigenous games, city tour, night carnival, art exhibition, photo-fest and many more.
- One of the major highlights of this festival is the Hornbill International Rock Festival where local and international rock bands perform.
Hornbills:
- India is home to nine species of hornbills: three of them, the wreathed hornbill (Aceros undulatus), the brown hornbill (Anorrhinus austeni) and the Rufous-necked hornbill (Aceros nipalensis) great hornbill is the state bird of Arunachal Pradesh and Kerala. India also has Narcondam Hornbill, found only on the island of Narcondam.
- Hornbill festival celebrated in Nagaland is named after the bird – Hornbill which is the most revered and admired bird for the Nagas.
Do you know?
- Hornbills used to be hunted for their casques — upper beak — and feathers for headgear despite being cultural symbols of some ethnic communities in the northeast, specifically the Nyishi of Arunachal Pradesh.
- But a 20 year-old conservation programme entailing the use of fibreglass beaks reduced the threat to the birds to a large extent.
News Source: PIB
