They number about 111,679 (Census 2011), mainly found in the Patkai hills of Tirap district of Arunachal Pradesh, India.

Ethnically related to the Konyak Naga, their origins can be traced back to the Hukong Valley in Myanmar, where they migrated from between the 1400and 1500.

As per the location of the village, the Ahoms called the Noctes as Namsangya or Namsangia, Borduaria or Bor Duris, and Paniduaria.

Four years later in 1780, Robert Kyd, who founded the botanical garden at Kolkata in 1787, started experimenting with tea cultivation in India with consignments of seeds arrived from China.

[3] Decades later in 1815, Colonel Latter, a British army officer, reported that the Singpho people gathered an indigenous species of tea, and ate its leaves with oil and garlic.

[4] In 1820s, Maniram Dutta Baruah, an Assamese nobleman who was hanged for his role in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, informed the British cultivators - Major Robert Bruce and his brother Charles Alexander Bruce - about the indigenous tea growing in the jungles of the Nocte and the Singpho countries, which was hitherto unknown to the rest of the world.

Teams of wild elephants were harnessed to clear the dense forest, toppling trees with a girth of 25 feet.

After two years of negotiation, the Namsang Chief and the Government of British India reached an agreement, and the latter sanctioned this settlement,---vide letter No.

That this payment shall cover claims not only in respect of the tea gardens of Hukanjuri and Namsang, but of all the tract of country which will come within the "Inner Line," and over which the Namsangias have hitherto asserted rights.

A 66-page book, it consist of more than 730 vocabularies and 47 reading lessons each in Nocte (Naga), Singpho, Assamese and English languages.

[12][13] The last ruler of united Namsang, Borduria and all the Nocte Naga villagers under the Ang of Namsang and Ang of Borduria including those friendly villagers of Wancho area of now Longding district, Lotha Khunbao was known for his spirituality and accepted tenets of Vaishnavism in early 15th Century.

In 1972 Lt: Governor late Col. KAA Raja honored Lotha Khunbao by naming (Namsang-mukh) as 'Narottam Nagar', where now, the reputed institution, Ramakrishna Mission School was established and funded by Namsang-Borduria Fund (from the revenue arising out of Namsang & Borduria people reserve Forest).

[14][15] The Nocte were followers of Theravada Buddhism and Animism, although they have adopted Hinduism[16] since the 15th Century, under the influence of Narottom Baap or Shankardeva.

On 2 August 1993, Mother Teresa visited Borduria village and inaugurated the first Catholic Church of Arunachal Pradesh.

[20] Of late, Baptist missionaries have converted about one-fifth to one-third of the Nocte to Christianity, principally those living in Khonsa.

As an act of blessing and to ward off evil spirit fresh single ginger neckless is garland by the female members of the maternal clan.

"Woo-soak" ceremony is also performed on the last day by the chief assisted by 'tan-waa' (priest) village elders "Ngoan-Wang" and council members to understand the fortunes of the new year by reading the formation of eggs tenderly pouring the eggs yolk on a specific type of leaves called "Nyap-lin".

After a 'jhum' is selected the council of Wiseman will also see the prosperity of the "Sala-jaah and Thingyan-Jaah" the last egg would be for the good omen of going to the plains for trade and labor contract works.

Owing to the humid climate, the menfolk will wear a loincloth in front with cane belts, which acts as a waistband.

The womenfolk tend to wear a short cotton skirt that measures from the waist to knees, and a blouse is worn to cover the upper body.

The Nocte followed an age-old tradition of keeping bodies of the deceased relatives in the open, either near a river or just outside their houses.

Inevitably, the decomposed bodies would attract bacteria, insects, and germs lying in the open that produced a terrible stench.

Owing to public health education by reformers, the burial of the deceased in proper coffins have completely supplaced this traditional rite since 2004.