British Operations in the North-East Frontier

The North-East theater of India is one of the most obscure topics of the colonial era in history. The North-East Frontier sits next to Burma, and it is inhibited by aggressive headhunting hill tribes like the Nagas, Chin-Lushai, Abors, Garos, Daflas, Shingphos, Akas and many other countless tribes. In order to rule these unruly tribes, the British had to resort to frequent punitive operations against them. Such a task was almost impossible since headhunting was a way of life for these tribes that a huge part of their culture was to raid other tribes for slaves and heads. The North-East frontier required as much military operations as its more famous counterpart, the North-West frontier (which I will cover in a future post), but the operations were on a much smaller scale. Most punitive forces, due to inhospitable jungle terrain, were just several dozen to a few hundred in numbers. The most famous incident in the North-East frontier is some Chin-Lushai tribesmen kidnapped Mary Winchester, some tea factory owner's 6 year old daughter after the Chin-Lushai warriors killed the factory owner himself.  Mary was soon rescued in a punitive operation. These tribes have been known to have practiced headhunting as late as the 1940's, and some isolated tribes are still believed to have continued to have practice it to this day.