Portrait-collage of the Nocte Tribe, Khonsa, Arunachal Pradesh, a friendly happy yet fierce tribe with headhunting ancestry.
Hi res images available on http://www.jainamishra.com
My other related articles
Back to the Future – Tribal Life in Arunachal Pradesh
The Tribal Hornbill Festival, Nagaland
jm
January 2012
The lifestyle of Apatani hilltribe of Arunachal Pradesh fascinates a cultural traveller on several aspects. But the one that hit me with the greatest intensity are the 2 tribal signatures of the tribe : face tattoos & nose plugs.
Getting a first glimpse of these on the internet created a desire to go and see them in person. And so I set out on this logistically challenging trip in December to satisfy the frenzy created in my head with all the readings.
I expected that seeing them and experiencing a spectrum of their lifestyle would quench my curiosity. But instead, it fuelled it. The reason for this unexpected reaction is the stark truth that was revealed as I spoke with the Apatanis – that their unique traditions are breathing their last breath.
Legend has it that the women of this tribe used to be kidnapped by neighbouring tribes because of their beauty. To prevent this the tribe began to tattoo the faces of the girls and put on nose plugs – either to repel or to brand their own young girls.
This practice was abolished after soon after India’s independence when the government provided security against kidnappings. As a result, no more faces have tattooed for the past 30 – 35 years.The youngest tattooed face I saw was about 45.
The next generation of the world, therefore, will see a rainbow of human diversity that will be missing one color – a very unique and intense color.
And the only glimpses available to the future will be through the few photographs taken since the camera was invented!
Here I present a few:
Face tattoo of an Apatani tribal woman from Arunachal Pradesh
Nose plugs of the Apatani Tribe – one more tribal signature
A village headman with a tattoo on his chin
The elegant and gorgeous Apatani woman with her signature beads
A photo-lifescape of the Apatani tribe will follow soon…
The images above are a small preview of the Hi-res full size images available on my photography website www.JainaMishra.com.
My other articles on Arunachal Pradesh are linked below:
Glimpses of a contented People
A chance encounter with a Shaman Priest during a sacrifice ritual
The Gaanv Boodhas or Village Headmen of Arunachal Pradesh
jm
Jan 2012
Dreamt of spending time with nomads for a long time. To experience their minimalistic lives, to observe the mental strength with which they embraced the harshness of nature, to learn from their solitary non-community based living, to understand the near-absence of the need to possess material things, to keep moving tirelessly to unfamiliar new places out of their comfort zone….
An attempt last year to go to visit the nomads in eastern Tibet near Xining was a failure.
This September when I boarded the plane for Leh, I came looking to experience the beautiful culture of Ladakh – the dances, the costumes, their traditions and the mentality of the people of the Ladakh valley, the Nubra valley and the Zanskaar valley.
But I did not expect to experience the life of the nomads of the Changthang – a desert region of Western Tibet that extends culturally beyond the political India-China border into Ladakh, India.
Here is the double threaded experience – with the nomadic children of Changthang and with a nomadic family :
During the magnificent Ladakh festival, I watched the children of nomads perform on 2 days.
This was their very first performance before an audience – they had never performed before this, even within the comfort of their own school.
They had come from a school in a remote area in Changhthang 200 km away from Leh (of deep and treacherousHimalayan roads – not a 6 lane highway) and 20 km from the nearest village.
Coming from nomadic families that moved constantly, no regular day-schooling was possible – hence a residential school was set up specifically for nomadic children aged 3 – 13.
Of all the cultural performances and events presented during the festival by the various folk groups of Ladakh, the most striking one was the one put up by these children, and much more noteworthy because it was their first performance ever.
They danced in complete happiness, and their glee and enjoyment was obvious through their eye contact with each other and the communicative smiles they shared amongst themselves.
They were having the time of their life as they danced, and as a result, we, the spectators enjoyed the biggest visual feast of the festival.
The idea of connecting with these children, struck me as I walked to my car after their final performance was over and everyone had gone home.
As the idea grew to obsess me, I realized that I had to act quickly otherwise I would lose the already slim chance of establishing contact.
It occurred to me that some lodging and boarding arrangements for this group (0f 50 kids) must have been made somewhere in Leh, and since the evening’s performance had ended at 8pm, my guess was that they would spend at least that night in Leh.
So my driver was given the assignment of finding out where these kids were housed. And the resourceful man that he was, the next morning he had the answer!
At that point, I had no clarity of what I wanted out of this connection and hence no proposal or Plan A and Plan B, as taught to me at management school. I was going in completely blank and letting destiny unfold.
So at an appropriate time, under the guidance of my driver, I presented myself at the government building in which they were housed, sought out the adult organisers – the teachers – and attempted to articulate my interest.
Am not sure whether my jumbled and excited expressions of my interest in culture, of my fascination of the nomadic lifestyle, of my naration of the un-forgettable experience with Kutchi nomads, my account of the failed visit to Tibetan nomads, my testimonials of awe of their textiles and jewelry, or my brief verbal biodata past work with the working on developmental skills of children made any sense to the teacher …but maybe my excitement at being able to interact with these beautiful little people did get conveyed effectively to him. Or maybe it was just his kind and generous nature that eventually let me have my way.
I went and sat with the kids who had gathered in the hall. We chatted open heartedly. 
They talked about themselves. I talked about me. As I praised their dances, they got up, pulled me up and began teaching me the steps and we all danced around in a circle – them with natural grace and rhythm and me clumsily trying to follow their steps and their spirits.
I learnt that each had flocks of sheep or goats or yaks that numbered in hundreds. I asked what would happen if one gets lost – how do they track these animals. They replied almost in one voice, that if a sheep gets lost, it bleats and cries until it is re-united with the flock. As we sat on the floor in the dim light of a single 40 watt bulb, they told me of the wolves and the snow leopards they had seen. And of the 4 months of severe winter (-30 degrees C) they face. That most had not seen vegetables until they came to school, and how one of them cried when he was asked to eat a banana. The 13 year olds knew how to milk their goats and shear the wool off the sheep (I do not even have the right vocabulary for these activities!) and light fires using wood and call out to their flock with mere whistles. They know how to set up tents and how to assist in childbirths.
Instead of quenching my fascination, this chit-chat was leading to an explosion of awe, as I was getting more and more attracted by their lives.
Again, it took a brief moment to stop and realize that I could not let the interaction end here, and that I would have to push my way into their life some more.
And so I went back to chat with the teacher. Over tea and biscuits, I said that I would like to visit the kids at the school. This request was unusual so he tried to understand it better and over the next half an hour I animatedly expressed my desire. Finally we agreed that I would visit the school the next day, arriving around the same time that the busload of kids would reach back. We agreed that I would spend the night at the school in one of the rooms and he wrote me a note of introduction for the lady teachers who were stationed at the school, since he planned to stay back in Leh and did not intend to return to the school for the next 2 days.
And so, the next day, dropping all other plans, I set off for their village, filled with happiness and gratitude. Carrying gifts of chocolates and photograph prints of their performance.
Tashi the resourceful driver, knew his way and after passing through golden landscapes lined by the Indus river, we arrived at the village at 5pm. The rest of the children who were not part of the Leh performance, were perched up on the walls of the school compound and on the gate and they greeted us with happy shouts – but it was not us they were waiting for.
They were eagerly waiting for the school bus to bring back their friends. Soon enough this bus arrived and the happy reunions consisted of shouts and screams and animated chatter and some wild running about. 
No teacher was in sight. Not on the bus and not on the premises of the residential school building.
The kids got together and unloaded the sacks of food raw material, the stoves, the kerosene, the packages of clothing and other materials used for the performances from the top of the bus, cooperating and collaborating as a single one unit.
The oldest child was 13. Only 13.
This endearing show of responsibility, this complete self-dependence – this format of no-nanny, no-adult-care-givers (on long distance journeys or within the hostel) – surprised and delighted me. It made me realize that in the urban world we place too much importance on our own roles as parents. Here I saw perfectly responsible kids who needed no one to tell them what to do or not do. They simply knew. And they did what was required without any direction from some authority above.
the youngest
The cook who had gone with the bus, found the lady teachers who lived in a separate building. I showed them my note of introduction. After very hospitable chit chat, they took me to the school staff room that would be my sleeping room for the night. A mattress and a lamp were brought in and I was shown the Ladakhi toilets (this is a quaint eco-friendly system that I will describe later) that were in a different section of the building. Over tea and chit chat, a whole group gathered around us as we sat on the floor. Cooks, assistants and other teachers heard about the arrival and came in from their hostels.
I asked about the nomads that I had seen in the valley within a km of the school. I wanted to go spend time with them and asked if they knew the families. Fortunately one of the children of that family studied at this school. So we – the lady teacher in charge, another lady and I set – out for the valley along with my driver.
It was past sunset and the dusk chill had begun to set in as we walked through the grass dodging patches of yak dung and puddles left by the stream.
Walking in my constant breathless state, at this altitude of 14000 feet, carrying my beloved nikons and wearing heavy clothing wasn’t easy, but for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I was willing to walk all night!
The first two families we came across were across the stream that was about 3 feet deep – this would mean wet shoes and clothes….so we walked further hoping that as the stream curved, we would find a family on the grassland on our side of the stream. Luckily we did.
As we approached, all I could see was a flock of long haired goats standing neatly in two rows with facing each other in a tight formation. I marveled at this discipline- that I thought was voluntary, until I was informed that they had been tied in this way for the night.
Milking the Pashmina goats
A few steps onward, I had my first sight of a nomadic scene : a lady all wrapped up in a cloak, milking the goats.
We’d hardly exchanged smiles when I noticed the little bundle on her back ….a baby!! She went about her daily milking jobs with this little bundle tied to her back. She was totally comfortable with his presence on her back – almost oblivious of his being a separate entity, and he seemed totally content to be an extension of her body - a variant of the ‘baby bump’.
Washing vessels at the hot springs… along with her baby
Through all the interactions I had with the family over the next 12 hours, the baby-bump remained firmly in its place – whether the mother washed vessels in the stream or carried loads from one spot to another.
Over the week that followed I visited 2 other rural areas in Ladakh and this mother-child format was constant all across. The single and stark observation across these approximate 3 dozen toddlers that I encountered over a collective observation period of over 12 hours – is that I did not see a single episode of crying or tears or tantrums or bawling. This observation over a reasonable number of data points is so different from urban kids I encounter in buses and trains and planes or in parks and malls. My own 3 kids must never have spent 12 hours at a stretch without at least one of them shedding a few tears! I wondered if this continuous physical bond with the mother made these nomadic children more settled.
But I am digressing…
Coming back to the mother milking the long haired Pashmina goats. Once the pail was full, the second lady in the family, the wife of the second brother, collected the milk and poured some of it into a long goat skin sack called ‘Mashk’ about 4ft x 1 ft holding the narrow ends with her two hands. She held it in her lap and rolled it back and forth, back and forth repeatedly. This constant churning would result in butter floating to the top, which could then be collected and stored separately. Each batch of milk needed to be churned for at least half an hour for any butter to appear and the longer the churning, the more complete the extraction.
Churning the milk in a goat skin ‘Mashk’ to obtain butter ….note the self woven Gabbeh rug on which the lady is seated
The family tent in which the lady sat was probably all of 50 square feet in area and about my height – which isn’t much at 5 feet something. This space had to hold them AND most of their material possessions – not for a week or two but for all their lives! It shows me how my whining about living out of a suitcase on my travels is completely unjustified.
Outside the tent, hanging from one of the ropes was a large white wet pouch. It was being used to make cheese or laabo – that would be used during the harsh winter.
making cheese – “laabo”
A little fireplace at the centre held a large kettle – that probably held black tea that is had throughout the day. The fire had been put out for the night but the tent was extremely warm and cosy.
Ranchen Aangdu who let me in to his home and his life
His son
Two small gorgeous gabbeh rugs were immediately visible inside the tent – one on which the lady sat, and another on the opposite side. I need not have asked, but I did, simply to confirm whether these had been woven by the ladies themselves. And when they answered in the affirmative, I couldn’t believe that I was actually seeing a nomadic rugs being used by the nomadic family that had woven them!!
The gabbeh
This is a dream I have had since my rug collecting days – to visit a nomadic weaving tribe and see the origins of the weavings that I loved so passionately. And here I was in the very moment in which this dream was fulfilled. After years of fantasy, this thought had become a reality. It is not always easy to be aware enough to grasp that a dream is fulfilled in the moment in which it happens – usually the realization dawns after the episode is no longer a ‘current’ event – but I was fortunate to be conscious of this dream being fulfilled in the very moment in which it happened. I was thrilled and I was grateful. I hope that this experience and the delight and the discovery of a dream fulfilled will remain etched in my memory forever.
After many happy hugs and clicks, after carrying the little chubby baby nomad, we finally left as it was late and the night had completely enveloped us
Back to the school to spend the night.
Dinner with the 110 kids – A simple meal of masoor dal and rice – Cooked by the hostel ‘mothers’.
Woke up in the room with a view – the teacher’s staff room.
The children bathe once a week at the hot springs nearby. There is neither the physical nor the social need to bathe more often.
The environment and the circumstances dictate the lifestyle. Practices that have evolved over generations within a system are usually mutually consistent, coherent and complete within their context and solve all the problems that the inhabitants of that system face. And there is no scope for criticism or judgement from elements outside the system since these criticisms usually only address a single dimension and do not provide more than a partial and incomplete solution.
Chatted with the nomadic children about their lives over breakfast. Had some fun in their dorms and fooled around a bit with them all.
Their lives have impacted me greatly and these hours spent in their presence will provide me with food for thought for a long time to come.
Packed and Left.
Stopped again on the way to say good-bye to the nomadic family in the field. Today they will move into another pasture as dictated by their council. Their time here is over. A hired car will take part of the family across, while the herd of 500 goats and a few donkeys and yaks will walk across the valleys between the Himalayas.
We will never meet again.
Am taking with me a little of their spirits. And leaving behind a little of my spirit.
Have amassed enormous wealth on this journey!
Am grateful.
The Gallery of professional nomadic portraits will be available in October on http://www.jainamishra.com.
jm
Sep 2011
More articles about Ladakh : ‘Costumes of Ladakh’, ‘Polo and Archery – Folk sports of Ladakh’, ‘Bactrian Camels of the silk route’, ‘Chamms Masked Dances of Ladakh’, ’10th century Alchi mural’
An image from 1870s
Nov 29th, 2010
Am setting out to explore Nagaland – home to over 20 distinct tribes characterised by two intriguing lifetsyles: headhunting and minimal clothing.
In the 1800s this area was once a part of Burma and is now part of India.
The Hornbill festival is more of a tourism fest than a social / religious fest. Sixteen tribes gather at Kohima and celebrate their art and culture in Kisama, situated on the outskirts of this modern city.
***
Planning the logistics has not been too easy as travel within the North East of India is restricted and requires a permit. Further, hotels are booked out months in advance for the hornbill festival.
I was fortunate to have friends in the region, who offered to make all the travel and accommodation arrangements and made this trip possible.
***
Dec 10th, 2010
This is the best cultural trip I have ever made! I wish I could stop the whole world, and make them see the wonderful place that Nagaland is. A place where the purity of the tribal culture remains unadulterated even as Pink Floyd is sung to perfection by the local bands!
This has been the most extravagant feast of my life – textiles, jewelry, lifestyles, habits, gorgeous women and handsome men, and finally rustic primitive dances and music!
***
Although the experience was an integrated confluence of several separate domains, for the sake of organised writing, I have split it up into the following threads:
Traditional Naga Bamboo Climbing and Fire Making
Naga Textiles Part I: Red, White and Black – Tribal Textiles of Nagaland (published on Jozan)
Naga Textiles Part II: Tribal Textile and Bead Art of Nagaland
Naga Dance, Music performances
Naga Portraits (professional quality images)
I hope that through these articles, the hornbill calls out to you loud enough to sit up and take notice of Nagaland – easily one of the most interesting states of India!
jm
dec 2010
Every tribe has unique ways of celebrating festivals – some that are common to all Nagamese, others that are unique to each tribe.
A collection of images of various tribal groups is presented below.
Once I have read more, I will provide more details on the who, what and why of these dances…but in the meanwhile, images of the visual feast that I enjoyed in Nagaland are presented below:
Links to two very basic videos (many better ones available on youtube) that I took on my phone
More photo-travelogues on Nagaland
Traditional Naga Bamboo Climbing and Fire Making
Naga Textiles Part I: Red, White and Black – Tribal Textiles of Nagaland (published on Jozan)
Naga Textiles Part II: Tribal Textile and Bead Art of Nagaland
Naga Portraits (professional quality images)
The wovensouls collection of antique Naga beads is showcased here.
jm
December 2010
Pineapple plantation
Buddies chatting on a ‘puliya’
Local Backpacks
Dimapur market: Small intertwining lanes that would challenge the map-drawers skills; Shops spilling out onto the streets with wares stacked in sacks and baskets on the road.
Salesmen-owners sitting on a makeshift arrangement outside the store, crowding up the space for pedestrian-shoppers. The road holds enough space for 3 humans to stand alongside each other, with enough room for a dog or goat or an occasional bicycle. Color, noise and smells ambush the senses and drown out any semblance of order, and the brain of the casual visitor is forced to be on high-alert at all times.
Exactly the same as any market in any city in small town – Agra or Meerut or Panaji – a complete experiential feast!
In Dimapur, live silkworms caterpillars and pupa are sold as food items, alongside dried eel and little frogs and snails of all kinds….
Round snails
Spiral snails
Silkworm Larvae for snacks
And silk worm pupa for snacks
Dried eels
“Raj Mircha” – the king of chillies – and one of the hottest in the world grows in Nagaland
***
I used to think that the oriental features came from the proximity to China, but after seeing enough local faces, it is clear that this is the Japanese influence.
In WWII, the Japanese had reached Kohima, and were defeated by the British at Kohima.
The inscriptions on the gravestones of the British soldiers who at Kohima made me cry. It did not matter that these men were from an alien nation or that they lived and died so long ago. The grief of the people they loved and left behind, contained in the inscribed words, travelled across history to touch me. A photoessay on these stones is posted here.
***
Cane and Bamboo play a prominent role in the lives of Nagas:
Trash can
Bamboo walls – perfect for the earthquake prone region
The local dress – Mekhla -Chador
Tribal shawls in a city store
(More about tribal textiles in a separate article dedicated to Naga textiles & jewelry)
A local store
A local resident
Local transport
Local Menu …note the interesting “Wild Squirrel” and “Wild Rat”
Wild Squirrel / Wild Rat curry
Closeup
Banana Tree Pith curry
My friends – the restaurateurs
I sampled the ‘Anishi’ curry made with fermented Yam leaves offered to me by a friend from the Ao tribe. A new flavor, a new experience for my tastebuds!
The Napfa flower spice – a key ingredient
Local Kitchen
Cutting Supari
Taamul, the raw supari offered to guests as a token of hospitality, is a potent stimulant and is consumed almost constantly, in small portions by all.
Rice Wine
Traditional Bamboo Mug for rice wine
Smoking some herbs… (that are less harmful than tobacco)
Liquid container
Local band singing Pink Floyd to perfection!
Roof with signature tribal trimmings
Home decor
Grinding grain
The amazing all-natural raincoat
Raincoat insides
At the festival, a raffle draw offers the grand prize of 3 bisons…. am totally smitten by every single thing on offer here!
The omnipresent paramilitary
Other articles on Naga costumes / textiles/ jewelry and on Naga dance and music performances are given below:
Traditional Naga Bamboo Climbing and Fire Making
Naga Textiles Part I: Red, White and Black – Tribal Textiles of Nagaland (published on Jozan)
Naga Textiles Part II: Tribal Textile and Bead Art of Nagaland
Naga Dance, Music performances
Naga Portraits (professional quality images)
jm
Dec 12th 2010
