A wooden house perched on a Tuensang hill catches the late afternoon light, its thatched roof faded to the colour of dry hay. Smoke curls from the hearth. The time-darkened walls hold a deep stillness, the kind that slows the body and softens the voice.

Houses like this are rarely built now. Concrete has reshaped Nagaland’s skylines, supplanting timber with cement and thatch with metal sheets. But a few families still choose wood, driven by preference, philosophy, instinct or longing. This choice begs a simple question: what is a wooden house worth beyond its walls?

For many, the answer is not nostalgia alone. Rev Dr Chingmak Chang, who spends weekends in a modest wooden home in Tuensang, describes the feeling not as comfort, but nourishment. “We feed the body with food, we feed the spir

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