It was a Sunday without rain. We were excited because we
were finally going to meet some villagers. The school was next to a village and
school staff regularly visited the place. This visit had two things on the
agenda. One was to visit a few households and try to start a process by which
the ladies could supply the school some vegetables, pickles and such foodstuff for
which the school had to go far and buy from the market.
The other purpose was more sensitive in nature. Early
morning, we had heard sounds of gunshots from the village. An old man from one
of the more prominent houses in the village had died in the night. The gunfire,
we were told was part of the rituals. A good way to spread the word around. Later, when we met him, the dead mans son told
us that his father had mixed this gunpowder himself, specifically to be used
for this purpose after his death.
The inhabitants of this village were a community called
Digaru Mishmi . Primarily subsistence agriculturists, but this village
benefited perhaps from being so close to the road. Most people in the dead mans
home were educated and at the next house we went , the husband was a road
building contractor.
In spite of all this progress, no one had bothered to make
permanent houses. Even the educated and the well off lived in traditional
bamboo long houses and wore the traditional dresses. There were still weaving
looms on all the verandas, chicks and pigs under the raised floors and skulls
of animals sacrificed earlier still decorated the walls.
We asked someone later, why every one prefer these bamboo houses.
There is always the danger of fire and they need to be maintained and rebuilt
frequently.
Maintenance and rebuilding is not a problem, they said. The
whole village pitches in and helps building a new house. Bamboo is plentiful
and it just takes a few days to get the whole thing done. And there is a pooja
and a big party afterwards!
The main reason why people still live in bamboo houses was
quite interesting. The people of Arunachal do not have a religion. They do have
a lot of poojas, that is their hindi translation for rituals performed by the
shamans, again, translated as pujaris. They do not believe in Gods but in a
variety of spirits which the shamans invoke and try to please during the
rituals and sacrifices. The good thing about bamboo, we were told, is that the
spirits find it much easier to come and go as they please through the slits in
the thin walls, especially during a pooja.
The road outside the school was lined with gigantic silk
cotton trees. Beyond these, a green tangle of saplings, trees and vines of all
sorts. We perceived a movement and crossed the road. A huge dark animal crashed
into the undergrowth away from us. We had seen our first Mithun.
Larger than cows, almost as large as the Gaur but with
straight flat horns and similar in appearance and colour, Mithuns are
fascinating creatures. Wealth in Arunachal is not counted in terms of bank
balances but in the number of Mithuns a family owns.
Mithuns are never milked or worked in fields. They are
sacrificed during important poojas and are essential to determine the family’s
wealth when arranging marriages.
Mithuns are never fully domesticated . They are free to roam
the jungles as they please, yet, they recognize their masters and respond and
come close when he calls them.
These giants are tamed by salt. A young mithun is kept at home
for some time and along with fodder is fed salt and its ears are clipped for
identification. After it is old enough it is set free . It always remembers its
master as the one who gives it salt. The
master visits his mithuns in the jungle from time to time and feeds them salt
to renew their bonds. Some times the mithun visits the masters home if it is
nearby and wants some salt.
The entrance to the village is marked by a low bamboo gate.
Once a year this gate is closed for a few days and outsiders are not allowed
in. Rituals take place for the overall wellbeing of the village.
First , we visited
the home of the old man who had died to offer our condolences. It was a
prominent household in the village. We were asked to enter the house form the
back door as is the custom during such a visit.
The houses are elevated and stairs to the house are
generally in the form of a single log with large notches cut for footholds. The
houses are almost entirely made of bamboo. The roof is thatched . The thatch
varies from village to village as a locally abundant material is used. The
house can be compared to a railway bogie. It is long and narrow. A corridor on
one side and the other has a number of square partitions , much like rooms
without doors . Families are large and joint . Each couple in the family uses
one such room. In the center of each room is a small square plastered in mud
for a small fire . On top of the fire hangs a rectangular wooden frame. This
can be used to smoke meat and dry fire wood. It would also keep any stray
sparks from reaching the roof. Before the partitions start is a small portion
that is used as a living room . This too has a fire place. And a wall of this
portion of the house is decorated with long rows of skulls of all the animals
sacrificed by the family.
The Digaru Mishmis
cremate the dead. The method for disposal of dead bodies varies from tribe to
tribe. The Digaru Mishmis are close to the plains and have probably been
influenced by Hinduism. But they told us of some tribes that are so practical
that they just leave the bodies at the place of death while some are so
impractical that they bury the dead Egyptian style with all their movable
property. This latter we did not believe at first , but later at Guwahati , we
saw a video clipping of such a burial with the pit being dug by a bulldozer and
the dead one being buried with, among other things, a double bed mattress and a
Yamaha motorcycle!
The old man was laid in his room . Knees are folded on death
. It is easier to transport a bundle than a long stretcher in the thick jungle
and undergrowth. In the living room section of the house sat three or four old
men not looking much different than normal old men. They sat around a fire
smoking opium. They were pujaris getting ready for the rituals. There was
hardly any grief and no crying anywhere. The young people had erected a
beautiful pagoda like hut in the front of the house. Some one was adding
finishing touches and some were deftly carving figures of birds out of soft
wood with a knife. Some more decorations made from knotting bamboo strips were
being made. All was going to be needed for the rituals. A few of the dead mans
possessions would be kept in the miniature hut for a few days as part of the
last rites.
We did not disturb the family further. We had a word of
condolence with the eldest son , an educated city man , but still rooted to his
village , and walked ahead to meet the next family on our list.
Our next stop was at a more modest dwelling. A similar house
but smaller and this time we could enter it from the front door. A far less
number of skulls greeted us here.
Mishmi men are notoriously lazy. The ladies of the house
have to take care of home, fields and kids . Men come into the picture only
when a house needs to be built or a new plot of land needs to be cleared. These
are rare occasions so most of the time is spent roaming around fishing or
hunting , smoking and drinking Apong.
Apong is a drink all Arunachalis love. It is a simple beer
made from rice or millet , some herbs and ‘medicine’ a cake like but brittle
fermenting agent that is bought from the market. Apong is drunk by young and old.
School teachers were baffled since some kids in the KG class always slept
during school hours. The secret of this sleep was discovered much later . The
kids had a glass of apong everyday for breakfast.
The tribals are not blood thirsty meat eaters
as perceived by the average city dweller. Their diet is mainly some vegetables
and rice. Hunts rarely put large animals on the table and domestic pigs and
chickens are too few to be slaughtered frequently. So apong also adds to the
meager nourishment they derive from their simple meals.
Apong also has social significance. Apong is offered to
guests when they enter the house and it is considered impolite to refuse. The
teachers and staff of the school visit this village home often and to most of
them , drinking is taboo . In order to diffuse this tricky situation the smart
mishmi homemaker had found an ingenious solution. She had got two tea plants
from assam
and planted them in her yard. So we were offered home grown tea laced with home
grown black cardamom. This was the best tea we had ever tasted but since
the teachers don’t drink black tea either, only two sips of this was offered to
each of us in a tiny glass.
This whole story of
the teachers' taboo and why the tea was served and not Apong was told to
us when by a teacher who herself was from a tribe in Assam .
She was the strictest teacher in the school and had not been
as open with us as all the other teachers in the school. When , to her utter
surprise , we told her that we too don’t drink but are willing to follow the
local custom , her face changed completely. It was as if a wall that stood
between us had been broken. She was smiling and our hosts were overjoyed .
Bigger glasses were brought out and all seriousness was lost. Later ,the strict
teacher who did not even look us in the eye even invited us to her little room
in the hostel and showed us her family photos.
