Hornbill Festival

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