This bamboo drinking mug from Nagaland, in Northeast India, has been elaborately carved with human figures, elephants, and skulls. This vessel belonged to a head-hunter – the skulls represent heads taken by him. Head-hunting was practised amongst the Nagas until the twentieth century. It was part of ritualized warfare, in which heads were taken to gain status and encourage fertility. This vessel was made some time before 1936 by a man called Kaolun, who was a Phom Naga.

View database record 1936.36.53