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.
