His facial tattoo has faded over the years, but Nokying Wangnao can’t forget the first human head he took six decades ago. It was the head of a young boy.

Wangnao is one of several hundred former headhunters still living in the mist-covered Naga hills along the wild frontier between India and Myanmar. When I met him in his thatched hut in the village of Hongphoi, he was weaving a bamboo basket and wearing a necklace of five bronze skulls—one for each head he took.