Naga Hills · Northeast Hill Massif
People
| Name | Years | Field | Known for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Temsula Ao | 1945–2022 | Poet, short-story writer and ethnographer | Wrote the region's oral tradition into English prose and verse, including "These Hills Called Home", and published an ethnographic study of Ao oral literature. Received the Padma Shri in 2007 and the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2013. |
| Easterine Kire | b. 1959 | Novelist and poet | Published the first Naga novel in English, "A Naga Village Remembered", built on the history of Khonoma, and won the Hindu Prize in 2015 for "When the River Sleeps". Her work is the principal literary route into Angami village society. |
| Talimeren Ao | 1918–1998 | Footballer and physician | Captained India at the 1948 London Olympic Games and practised medicine in Assam and Nagaland afterwards. The stadium at Kohima and a generation of local sport are named for him. |
| Machihan Sasa | — | Potter | Tangkhul master of Longpi pottery from the Nungbi villages of Ukhrul, who kept the wheel-less serpentinite-and-clay technique working and trained a generation in it. Awarded the Padma Shri in 2024. |
| Moa Subong | — | Musician and instrument maker | Ao musician who devised the bamhum, a bamboo wind instrument played by humming into it — a rare instance of a new instrument entering the region's family rather than leaving it. |
| The Tetseo Sisters | — | Musicians | Chakhesang siblings from Phek who perform Li, the Chokri folk-song repertoire, with the tati fiddle, and who took the form onto recordings and national stages without translating it out of its language. |
| Chekrovolü Swüro | — | Archer | Chakhesang archer who competed for India at the 2012 Olympic Games — the region's traditional bow culture converted into a modern competitive discipline. |
| Edwin W. Clark | 1830–1913 | Missionary and linguist | American Baptist who settled in the Ao hills in the 1870s and produced the first printed material in Ao, including a dictionary. The choice of the Chungli variety for the press is the reason it became the Ao literary standard. |
| J. H. Hutton and J. P. Mills | 1885–1968; 1890–1960 | Administrator-ethnographers | Wrote the monograph series — "The Angami Nagas", "The Sema Nagas", "The Lhota Nagas", "The Ao Nagas", "The Rengma Nagas" — that remains the densest single record of the pre-Christian village order. They are colonial documents and are read as such, but nothing since has matched their detail. |
People from Naga Hills who shaped its history, arts, science, sport and public life. (9)