Ziro Today, Was a Swamp

When the first Apatani came down the mountain, the land that is Ziro today, was a swamp. There lived a crocodilian species named the B'uru. The first Apatani and the B'uru lived in peaceful harmony, where the humans would even entrust the reptile to babysit their children while away gathering or hunting for food. On one such occasion, as the folklore goes, enemies of the Apatani came and took the children from the house of one of the Apatani men. The B'uru try as they might could not help prevent this treachery. The man in his anger took a Tibetan bronze plate called Talloh and smashed the B'uru to its death. After chopping it to death, the man realized, the child was not consumed by the B’uru. When the search party, finally found the child, the man was ashamed as, in his haste, he slaughtered all the B'uru in the land. He was terrified of the spirit of the B'uru and ever since hid his face using white paste made out of rice. This custom is practiced even today when the Apatani plaster the Talloh plates with white-rice paste. 1 Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Nina Sabnani for giving me an opportunity to work under her and for her invaluable guidance, and my sincerest thanks to Paulanthony George for his help throughout the duration of the project Swati Addanki December 2015 1 CONTENTS I. Introduction II. Origins III. Process IV. People 1. Kojmama Taman 2. Punyo Tamo 3. Hibu Tagia 4. Takhe Rido 5. Takhe Tatung IV. Way of Life 1. Governance and Law-keeping 2. Community Spaces 3. Bamboo 4. Agriculture 5. Army 6. Education and Commerce 7. Religious Practices 8. Inter-tribe Relations 9. Tattooing and Truths IV. Conclusion I. Introduction This is a project undertaken to try and understand the mutual impact of people and the spaces they occupy on each other in India. The Apatani people have traditionally practiced agriculture, it is a rare opportunity to try and understand a civilization of people who have flourished for many hundreds of years with their own principles of economy and society and are now on the verge of a paradigm shift. The lives of the Apatani have been documented via visual ethnographic methods of sketches, photos and stories. 1 II. The Apatani History The Apatani, or Tanw, also known by Apa and Apa Tani, are a tribal group of people living in the Ziro valley in the Lower Subansiri district of Arunachal Pradesh in India. The Apatanis have a tribal population of approximately 35,000, most of whom live in a valley at 5,000 feet in the Himalayas. In this valley, only 5 miles long and two miles wide, they practice wet-rice agriculture, plant small gardens and tend large pine and hardwood plantations. Apatanis, like their neighbours in central Arunachal Pradesh, speak a Sino-Tibetan/ Tibeto-Burman language and follow a form of animistic faith (called Donyi Polo), although recently some families have converted to Christianity. Although sharing a common base Tani language and the Tani religion of Donyi Polo, the Apatani have been known to be distinct in their customs and practices compared to their neighboring Tani tribes. 1 Ziro Valley Ziro is the district headquarters of Lower Subansiri district and is one of the oldest towns in Arunachal Pradesh. Home primarily to the Apatani tribe, the Ziro valley is famous for its pine-clad hills and rice fields. The valley is divided into two major townships, Old Ziro (the original Ziro, as the locals insist) and New Ziro or Hapoli , which is the centre for economic activities and houses the administrative offices. Smaller apatani villages dot the rest of the landscape. Early morning sketch of Hapoli from the guest house. Map of Ziro Valley, as drawn by Kojmama Taman, our local guide. View of Ziro Valley from Ziro putu Farms in the valley; sketch of Hong village Houses in Hong village surrounded by Miding, the rice nurseries The Blue Pine forest in Ziro Valley Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf (22 June 1909 – 11 June 1995) was an Austrian ethnologist and professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London. He spent forty years of his life studying tribal cultures in Northeast India. Much of what people know about the Apatani today is based on observations made by the professor in the 1940s and is documented in his 1962 book, The Apatanis and their neighbours: A primitive civilization of the Eastern Himalayas. The people of Ziro , specifically Hong village, remember Haimendorf for his friendship with Punyo Tamer (who gained notoreity for both his vast wealth and his multiple marriages). Haimendorf and his wife Betty stayed at his house in Hong village while conducting ethnographic research on the tribe. They’re remembered fondly as “Laling-Yalu” by the locals for their repeated use of the phrases “Darling!” and “Ya!”. Since their contact with the outside world through Haimendorf, The Apatani have shown an impressive rate of progress and are sometimes dubbed "Japatani" by their neighboring tribes, presumably as an allusion to the fast-paced technological evolution of Japan. Map of Ziro Valley, as drawn by Haimendorf. III. Process This visual ethnographic projects aims to understand the lives of the Apatani people and their day to day activities in the context of the Ziro valley that they live in, it does not aim to dispel or validate findings. As an ethnographer the findings are from a few specific sources: Informant accounts: The study was conducted with the help and participation of a few of the villagers from the Ziro valley. With their help, an account on religion, agriculture and in general the Apatani life has been recorded. From the beginning the aims of the research has been made clear to the villagers and hence would fall under overt ethnographic research. At times different accounts may conflict, yet as an ethnographer it is a lesson that has been well learnt to accept that the 'truth' is not often absolute but comes in varying shapes, sizes and colours. Ongoing events: The study was conducted during the first two weeks of December, which in the Ziro valley is a time of great cold. This month is often meant for repair and maintenance of houses, preparing for festivals in January and March. As outsiders we have tried to observe and sometimes were permitted to be a part of some of the events, like house warming, temple visit and rituals, animal sacrifices, neighbourhood celebrations. Perception of culture bearers: By being a spectator (fly on the wall observations) to many of the moments through out this project, we were able to understand the relevance of many of the rituals and functions of many of the day to day practices Through many of the conversations with the villagers we come to understand how the Apatani way of life has been evolving since the first anthropologists and ethnographers had come. This bit of information gathering was the tougher one as our understanding of the world we live and theirs are often at logger heads when it came to practices like animal sacrifices, totems and the place that the elders had for nature and how it has changed amongst the younger generations. Documentation: The time that we spent there, involved us meeting with our guides Koj Mama Taman and often Hibu Tagia. We spent majority of the time walking through the villages or travelled by a 4 wheeler to get to villages. Through photographs, sketches on the spot, field notes and voice recordings we gathered most of our data. This was collated every evening to understand and plan for the next day. The ability to sketch made up at most places for the lack understanding the language or even appearance wise as strangers. This project would have been poorer in stories and observations had we been armed (pun intended) only with a camera. Analysis: As a guide we had Christopher von Fürer-Haimendorf's seminal work : The Apatani and their neighbours. This allowed us to keep a track of the changes that had been happening over the years. The map of Ziro and the names of villages bear testament to depth of change geographically and linguistically. Largely the data is qualitative. IV. People Introduction This section details the people we met while navigating through Ziro Valley . Most of the data presented here is primarily through conversations and stories held with the people in the following pages A majority of these people belong to Hong village, as a lot of our time was spent there. 1. Kojmama Taman, Dutta village/Hapoli We found Kojmama through facebook initially and he agreed to guide us through Ziro. He owns a travel agency in Hapoli and also lives there. On our first day in Hapoli, he invited us to his house for breakfast (which was a sort of rice congee with fried fish and eggs) where we met his son , S’rang. He also had a pet puppy, Piper and a stray cat that would slink around the hearth. Kojmama is the youngest of four brothers. He is an Tani from Dutta village. With his wife he has two daughters, Risso (meaning fragrance) and Riingo( meaning incomplete necklace), and one son, S’rang (pillar). His wife recollects that Risso and Riingo when young looked like twins. While Kojmama practises the Donyi Polo faith, his wife is Christian. Also, his older daughter Risso wears a rosary around her neck. Upon talking to Kojmama, we realised he was an avid birdwatcher and photography-enthusiast.

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