Traditional beliefs of the Tangams, a vanishing tribe of Eastern Himalayas, aids in biodiversity Conservation. (original) (raw)

2018, Contemporary Research in India

Owing to its rich biodiversity, India finds its place in the list of megadiverse countries of the world. The major regions of the country which attribute to this are the Western Ghats and the Eastern Himalayas. The state of Arunachal Pradesh covers a major part of the Eastern Himalayan and Indo-Burma hotspots located within India. Arunachal Pradesh is inhabited by 28 major tribes and 110 sub-tribes. One such tribe, the Tangams, with a sparse population, consisting of very few individuals was found to be settled in the central northern part of the state. They are one of the minor tribes of the state concentrated primarily in one village with very few instances of migration to other villages. The Tangams resides on the northern Bank of Siang river, known as Brahmaputra in the lower belt of India. The early Tangams depended solely on local resources including agriculture and hunting. The study was performed in the Tangam inhabited Kugging village of Upper Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh from August 2014 to July 2016. In their interactions with the nature, they extracted their needs from nature. However, a detailed study about their beliefs revealed that in spite of resource extraction, they followed certain customs and taboos which resulted in sustainable utilization of resources and prevented their indiscriminate destruction. The Tangams worship the nature in the form of god of animals, plants and soil in various forms and perform various rituals to please them. They believe that that offending them in any way may lead to unleashing the wrath of these spirits upon the villagers, which may lead to disease and death. Such beliefs related to animals, plants and other natural resources plays a very important role in resource conservation including biodiversity conservation. Such sustainable use of resources by the indigenous people is one of the major causes of Eastern Himalayas being one of the Megabiodiverse regions of the world. In the present times, when many conservation efforts are not successful upto the mark, the traditional means of conservation practiced by the Tangam people seem to be efficient in conservation of resources and may be encouraged by the government and local people for retaining the biodiversity. Keywords: Tangams, Vanishing tribe, Eastern Himalayas, Biodiversity, Conservation