At 90, Nokkho Konyak can barely see beyond a few feet, his facial tattoos marking him as a warrior are fading and his frail body needs support. But his eyes light up and his hands become animated when he talks about "those simpler times."
"We witnessed our brave elders cutting off enemies' heads and participated in many battles," he told AFP.
Nokkho is a Konyak, a small but fierce and respected warrior community in northeastern India's Nagaland state. The Konyaks were the last to give up the age-old practice of severing enemies' heads in this remote, hilly and densely forested region close to the Myanmar border.
"I am lucky to still be alive, to be around my extended family, and I feel that today's generation is too privileged," he said at Chi village, about 360 kilometres (225 miles) from the regional capital Dimapur.
'Heads were trophies'
Nokkho is an old man from a dying breed that practised or witnessed headhunting before it stopped half a century ago. "Human heads were trophies that earned you respect," he said, sitting in front of a wall decorated with the skulls of animals sacrificed by his family.
Warriors were inked with different tattoos signifying anything from participation in a battle to killing someone and actually taking a head. As a young boy, he practised lopping off heads on large puppets, though he never severed a human one in battle himself. The last two headhunters in the village, his two elderly friends, died about 20 years ago.
Most tribal fights happened over land and limited resources, with warriors carrying spears, axes and machetes ambushing their enemies. Wherever possible, enemies' headless bodies were tied to a bamboo pole and taken back to the victor's village. The head itself was taken and paraded about for the village to see, hailed as a sign of bravery to be celebrated.
"My youth was a time of great transition," Nokkho said, referring to the arrival of missionaries, who denounced headhunting and gradually converted most people from their traditional animist beliefs to Christianity. Nokkho remembers World War II, the end of British colonial rule, the formation of the Indian state in 1947, the first roads and power lines, and now, finally, the arrival of mobile phones.