North East Frontier (original) (raw)

A Hill Miri tribal woman

It is another world. Another universe.” As we drove down the snaking mountain road towards Daparijo in Arunachal Pradesh, past strangely built tribal huts on stilts and curiously attired tribal women, I read again the lines from a poem that an Afghan mullah, accompanying an invading Mughal army in Assam, had composed some 350 years ago.

“Its land is not like our land, its sky is not like our sky,” wrote Mullah Darvish of Herat, after visiting the fringes of what is Arunachal Pradesh today. “Its roads are frightful like the path leading to the nook of Death. Its forests are full of violence like the hearts of the ignorant/ Its rivers are beyond limit and estimate, like the minds of the wise.”

Today, of course, Arunachal’s roads are no more frightful, and its forests no longer full of violence. But its “otherness” still remains; Arunachal, or NEFA as it was called before, still seems so uncannily different from mainstream India, so enchantingly mysterious.

As darkness fell and our vehicle negotiated sharp hairpin bends, a thousand twinkling stars flashed from the roadside forest, a thousand tiny fireflies. There was the buzz of a million insects, adding up to a continuous drone at places.

And ever so often, the headlights picked out the lumbering mithuns, huge strange cow-like animals that are of great religious and economic value to the tribesmen.

The tribesmen: more than Arunachal’s eerie jungles, its blue-green rivers and wild tangle of mountains, it’s they who make this remote corner of north-eastern India so amazing and wonderful. With an area almost equal to West Bengal’s (but a population not exceeding one-seventieth of that state’s), Arunachal is home to about two dozen major tribes, each with its own language, culture and attire.

But if there are differences, there are also similarities. Apart from the Monpas and other tribal groups of Tawang and adjoining western districts, who are Buddhist, most Arunachal tribes are animist, believing in a supreme god called Danyi-Polo (Sun-Moon).

In the region where we were travelling, from Ziro to Daparijo in Subansiri district, there were totem poles and shrines to Danyi-Polo, the Sun-Moon god, in virtually every village. The tribesmen here were called the Hill Miris and every so often we would spot memorials to the dead: bamboo poles with many symbolic structures on top.

The Hill Miris believe wiyus (spirits) cause death (they can’t quite come around to the idea of natural death). The Nishis, who number over 1,25,000 and form the state’s second largest tribal group, are not the gentlest of tribes.

When their men put on their traditional headdress (now rarely), they look quite formidable. The hair is gathered up in a topknot (called pudoom) in front of the forehead with a brass skewer stuck horizontally through it; a flamboyant cane hat with feathers arching at the back completes the headgear.

A tribal engineering marvel near Daporijo, a cane suspension bridge

The Nishings and Hill Miris, who unlike the Apa-tanis aren’t blessed with a flat plateau for a homeland, must depend for crops largely on jhum cultivation: setting the forest ablaze on a mountain slope and sowing the seeds in the ashes, then moving on to another tract next year (even as the forest grows back again in the previous slope).

All along our journey, we saw many bald stretches of hill slopes; they weren’t very pretty to look at, but then people have to survive.

What were pretty, though, were the thatched houses of the tribal folk. Standing on stilts with a jungle of timber and bamboo poles supporting the floor, the houses are typically thatched with leaves; the floor is a meshwork of split bamboo strips resting on a timber frame.

A balcony opens into a large room, often 60 ft long, with a hearth in the middle. A rectangular tray hangs over the hearth containing much of the family’s possessions.

Against the backdrops of the hills, the houses, mostly in small clusters on the slopes (for the Nishing and Hill Miri villages are small), blend naturally with the surroundings, looking like part of the landscape.

By evening we were in Daporijo, the district town on the banks of the Subansiri river. The tribe most prevalent here are the Tagins, a once ferocious community who, in the deep interior villages on the road to Tibet, still remain a wild primitive people.

Even in the early 70s, said the chowkidar of the Daporijo Circuit House where we stayed, “the Tagin tribesmen wandered about the town virtually naked”.

We took the road north next morning, following the Subansiri river towards the Tibetan border, reaching a rock cave some 22 km away that army jawans had chanced upon some years ago, now a minor Hindu pilgrim spot.

On our way back to Daporijo, we ventured into a swinging suspension bridge of cane and bamboo that spanned the green waters of the Subansiri and was clearly a marvel of tribal engineering skill.

Near the town of Along, where we reached next day, there was an even better cane bridge spanning the Siang (Brahmaputra) river; the Adi tribe who live here in Siang district are considered past masters in bridge building.

The Adis are famous for their kabengs or village councils and the moshup, the dormitory-clubs for young men. There is great community bonding among the Adis and we got some idea of their fellow-feeling at a village we visited near Along where all the men had congregated to help build a house.

“The house owner has only to provide the materials,” our guide explained, “and, of course, the mid-day meal.”

Along has a superb riverfront: the Siang river is a lovely blue, and very wide with many sandy islands in between. Not far from the city is a famous Ramakrishna Mission school.

Founded in 1966, the school is a virtually self-sufficient establishment with its own bakery, dairy, poultry farm, agricultural gardens besides workshops, printing press and, of course, a meditation centre.

We visited the school on our way back from Along; the last stop on our long journey was Likabali, famous for the ruins of the ancient Hindu temple called Malinithan.

Only the exquisitely carved base of the temple survives besides several carved images of gods and goddesses, now housed in a nearby museum.

Before you go

Getting there

Subansiri and Siang districts are best reached through North Lakhimpur in Upper Assam which is now connected by air (Lilabari airport) to Calcutta. Alternatively, take the overnight bus from Guwahati to North Lakhimpur. Taxis are available from North Lakhimpur for onward journey to Ziro, Daporijo, Along and Likabali.

Accommodation In Daporijo, Green View Hotel is the best option unless you can get rooms in the Circuit House. Along has several hotels including Magson, Yombo and Holiday Hotel.

Inner Line Permit No outsider is allowed into Arunachal Pradesh without Inner Line Permit. The permit is issued by Arunachal government offices in Delhi, Calcutta or Guwahati on production of voter card, driving licence or any such identifying document.