Migam and the Muntjac

Today, I visited Ramsing village after two days at the forest camp about 2 km away from and 150 m above the village; it takes a good 30 minutes to get to the village from the camp. Watching a movie strangely felt like connecting with the rest of the world in those field days in remote sites. So I thought people from the village and I could catch a movie at Parme bhaiyyas home. Half way through the boring Hindi movie we were watching, I was invited to someone else's place who had taken down a barking deer or a muntjac, at about 3 pm. I was told its a Serow (Sibé) so I hurried over. When I reached, it turned out to be an adult muntjac quite big in size; they mentioned that it was about 35 kilos in weight.

The deer was shot while feeding on Castanopsis or Indian chestnut fruits and the hunter waited for it after seeing its hoofmarks. When I saw the body, as usual I was shocked but kept calm. I had two paths of conversation ahead, obviously I couldn't keep quiet, something had to be said or asked. The first path that was tempting enough for an urban human like me was to ask him why he hunted down the animal and if it really was necessary to eat wild meat when meat of pig and mithun, a feral cattle, was available, with the occasional local or brouler chicken and duck. The second conversation path was to take in details; as many as I could about this species and others he has hunted down in the last few years; perhaps the hunter was in a mood to show off his hunting skill and history. A little buzzed on millet beer, I went for the latter and the details were intriguing. This hunter claimed he was one of the five expert hunters in Ramsing; a Migam, as they call in the local Adi language.

Ramsing has had the highest turnover of muntjacs this season, since October 2007 the hunters from the village have taken down about a hundred of them, its a record for the last five years. The number dwindles between 20 to 60 since the year 2000, with the highest this season. If these numbers are indeed correct, it does seem that the number of muntjacs in the forest surrounding the village hasn't gone down. So I ask him further about Serows and Takins, 'they are both found closer to the snowy areas', he said. The Migam told me that once he had seen five muntjacs together; a family, which is a large number for a muntjac. He also reported that he had seen at least 10 more individuals in the surrounding forest. He had noted the place where the deer was feeding and posted his brother-in-law at another point and both of them sat patiently from noon till 3 pm. The outcome was a 35 kilogram or heavier muntjac.

The broth in the pot was cooking as all the times I had been here and some wild meat cooking in the pot. It also turned out that today too I was invited to have a sumptuous meal there; lucky me. I again refused the offer. However, after another two mugs of beer, I tasted a piece of the liver, tasted alright. The conversation went on further and the grandma there who actually knows no Hindi and I know very little Adi liked me and named me ‘Ruksan’ after a memory of someone she had seen before. Now at the end of her meal she offered me a piece of the stomach; an offer I could not refuse if I didn’t want to hurt her sentiments, I took it, tasted alright too!

At the end of these events enters my good friend Obit with some kids who had brought a frog alive to cook and eat. I looked at migam and said, ‘since you have 30 kilos or more of wild meat, can we let him go’ and he smiled and let him go. A small victory. Thats that for now.

Mouling reprise!

The next trip to Upper Siang district was really a continuum to the last trip; more hunted animals and more varieties of local beers. This time I approached Ramsing village from the Upper Siang district headquarter Yingkiong accompanied with a friend, Robin Abraham. After two days of travel we reached Yingkiong and crossed the Siang River on a bamboo raft.

The raft was indegenously made with Bambusa gigantica. Although water is welcome from the front it leaves from the back of the raft which has gaps in the bamboo. I was slightly tense with my camera, laptop, lens, binoculars and books on board. But we reached; we had to cross only about 40 m but with the Siang, a river with a characteristic of rapids, it took about 20 minutes.
So there we were back in slightly familiar terrain. The evening was spent with a forest department watcher, Abot, who cooked a decent rice-dal meal which was followed up with a decent sleep of 7 hours. The next morning started with a view of snow capped mountains north-east of Ramsing village, possibly of the mountain range Eko Dumbing, an area rich in toxic aconite and one considered spiritually important by the Buddhists.

The plan of the day was to walk towards the Siring river, which originates from Mouling National park. We did some good birding along the way and reached possibly a 100-m height waterfall.

The walk was mostly aside rocks and ravines and we spotted at least 30 bird species, many of which I had not seen before. The evening was spent at the village homes, one of them being of the village leader who was just about to prepare his dinner. He definitely has the calmness and the know-how from what I gauge of the last time I met him.

The last time I met him I was overwhelmed with the skinning of a rhesus macaque and this time three different species of mammals; one of them a parti-coloured flying squirrel (the right most), two hoary-bellied Himalayan squirrels (top and centre) and a relatively large rodent I could not identify. Some of these were stewed while others were to be roasted.

With his permission, I took a picture of his catch over the last few decades.

Of the ones I could recognise, there’s wild boar, serow, muntjac, rhesus macaque, langur, Asiatic black bear, among others. I felt a bit giddy and lost as to where does all this stop or whether it does. Whether to raise awareness in city for people to use less electricity, recycle stuff, promote locally-made products OR to tell these communities to spare the rare species, the Serow, Black bear, Clouded leopards, and others. Perhaps both. Perhaps humans are just as invasive a species as the IUCN’s list of worlds 200 most invasive species, the list doesn’t feature the one species genius enough to ensure extinction of everything else along with it!