Senapati Mao Naga Rice Terraces Cotton Manipur Hill District

Senapati district in northern Manipur is dominated by Mao Naga, Maram Naga, and Poumai Naga communities whose terraced rice paddies on steep hillsides are a cultural landscape combining subsistence agriculture with traditional knowledge. The Mao Naga weave cotton shawls with warrior patterns and produce rice beer (zutho) from glutinous rice — central to social and ritual life. Senapati's market town Mao Gate (where NH-2 crosses from Nagaland into Manipur) is a trading hub for hill produce, livestock, and woven goods between the two states. The district's Papao forest area contains subtropical and temperate forests with hornbills, langur, and the rare clouded leopard.