Now…that’s something to blog about

I met an old lady in the village Bomdo this time who has walked to Tibet, which is only 50 km beeline distance but takes more than a week to reach on foot! 

She along with fifteen others walked for 12 days to reach what they call ‘Mimet’ around the year 1950. The walk was mainly for bringing back salt although various other barters would take place, I have listed here a few based on the information from her. Rice and rice beer were exchanged for wheat powder or salt. The exchange rate was pretty simple; 1 cup rice beer fetches a fistful of wheat powder or a cup of salt. Various other things that were exchanged were bamboo combs and other artefacts and ginger for Dao (a knife), wool and certain fruits. The old lady, who is actually my field guide Gekut's mother very enthusiastically brought a spin that is at least 60 years old and posed for the picture to depict how they extract thread to weave clothes.

Other interesting facts were that people with heavy bags were invited to rich homes whereas people with lighter bags were invited to poor homes. Naturally, people carried a lot of weight and she told me people would carry 50–60 kg of goods! The other strange thing about the trip is that people who pass away on the way are not brought back owing to the logistics. She also mentioned that throughout the journey the group is happily singing and walking.

So, basically people from Bomdo village were walking at least a distance of 150 km, including up and downhill, through tough terrain full of forests and snow near the Indo-Tibet border to bring back salt and knives. I already knew that Adi people are physically tough but now I just think they are incredible! I have also learnt from this to savour basic amenities such as salt, spices, knives, and other such items that I usually take for granted.

Headhunters’ ball – Reyee Gaye

The ‘Aran’ festival was going on this time when I reached the Ramsing village. Reyee Geye dance was the feature that interested me; I reached the place outside the Naamghar (a large hall in the village where all group activities take place) in the evening where the young as well as old men would do the war-dance, a practice continuing for hundreds of years. 

A bit of background—Adis were headhunters even just a century back, intense conflicts amongst sub-tribes of Adis existed although they are all at peace now. The headhunters would all gather in the Naamghar with their sheaths and knives and leave for the war.

As good rock shows and concerts go, folks did come out late and the light was low, but I got a few pictures; because of the low light it seems like the men are shaking vigorously but they really are on a slow four-by-four beat with “huh huh huh huh” while heavily thumping the ground. You really have to be there to know that this indeed is ‘war’ dance; the air is full of dominance and a display of strength. Notice the camouflage with leaves and bamboo, the knife carried is called Yoxa and the sheath is called Tamkum, though it looks a bit weak, it is made of bamboo and reinforced with cane knittings and a knife cannot make through it with one stroke. The Yoxa that one of the men carried while dancing was the actual one used many decades back for head-hunting. Now, of course the dance is a cultural event every year and the practice of headhunting has phased out.

Itanagar meet and buy wild meat market

This I had to post sometime, it’s been on the back of my mind. About 2 km from the Forest Department office in the State capital Itanagar is the meat market where I have had more sightings of mammals than in the forests in my field site. Here I saw my first ever Binturong. The other species I have come across; giant squirrels, giant flying squirrels, crestless porcupine, macaque (either Assamese or Rhesus, cannot make out from the lump of meat), muntjacs, civets and even a wreathed hornbill.

Some may call it hunting for subsistence, who has the right to stop them from hunting in their own community-forests, don’t they have the right to eat meat, and so on. But when it is sold this way in the biggest capital city of the State, it is definitely not for subsistence and is for income. Why can't the rare species be spared: binturongs, hornbills and few other species. I think there should be a clear distinction between hunting for the pot and hunting for money. Well, each time I walk out of this market having seen some species being sold like I did today after seeing the crestless porcupine I wonder what could ever be a solution to this. I do not feel this bad when I see a species being brought back in the remote village I stay in for my field work where certainly not a gram of the meat is sold, it is distributed amongst the clan and family members.

In my opinion, hunting has at least three tiers to it. 1) hunting for consumption, 2) hunting for selling the meat such as the case here in this blogpost, 3) hunting for fur/ skin/ bone trade. I think the last form of hunting is the least justified one in comparison to the first.

I managed to take a picture of the porcupine yesterday, but I wonder if anyone could take pictures all the time in the market and keep interviewing the people without getting physically abused by the locals. I always leave the meat market quite morose and angry.

PS: The local newspapers covered this issue well and the Forest Department raided the market too. It seems like the issue is being taken up more seriously these days (May 2012).

See this article from 21st December, 2023 too: https://arunachaltimes.in/index.php/2023/12/21/wildlife-officials-seize-carcasses-of-wild-animals-from-ganga-market/

I hope the issue is being addressed; it is indeed a very disturbing one.

How the tangkum lost its tail…

The rufous-throated partridge here is called the Tangkum by the Adis. It has a very interesting call Whee-Wooo with an ascending tone according to Grimmett’s bird book. We hear it in the forests here every other day. So one day, the partridge went Whee-Wooo and a squirrel dropped a fruit it was eating. A barking deer got alarmed when the fruit fell on him and scooted and thereby caused almost a landslide. A crab in the river was peacefully basking down below in the river when a pebble hit its eye and the crab lost its eye.

So here in Adi community, for any justice they have a formal meeting called Kebang. So the forest organised a Kebang and the Kebang’s verdict was to fine the stone. But the stone said, this dumb barking deer slid over me and therefore I rolled, mine not to reason why. Hmm said the council, call that deer, let’s fine him and get this over with, we got other work to do. The barking deer barked that he was only doing his morning foraging duties when he was alarmed by this seed that fell off the sky. The seed was summoned, the seed said, I was only hoping my fruit is eaten and I get dispersed peacefully somewhere till the rains when this silly squirrel dropped me half-eaten, mine not to reason why. “Summon that squirrel”, council said. Squirrel bickered that he also as the deer was doing his early morning feeding when he heard the Tangkum call and don’t know why today the ascending tone was really at an ascent.

“Get tangkum here, double quick”. Tangkum came Whee-Whooing and quickly figured there was no way out, although he begged the council’s mercy that early morning is the time he calls for a pretty girl tangkum and really it wasn’t his fault. Yet, he had to give up something, causing this whole ruckus. “Take my tail with twelve beautiful feathers”. And that’s how the tangkum lost its tail, a fine Adi story.

This is the picture of the beautiful bird, no tail as per the tale.

Image from Wikimedia Commons by JJ Harrison

The walk to the village by the river

Having spent three peaceful days discussing my plant work and visiting shifting cultivation sites from Ramsing Inspection Bungalow, I headed this morning to Bomdo village to carry on the birding aspect of my research. So early morning I woke up like good birds do for worms and got to the bus stop; this is any arbitrary place where you find a stone to park yourself and where the respective driver can see that you have been waiting long. So I waited long from 630 to 830 am but only found a tipper truck and got myself and my two bags beautifully cemented, but the trip only lasted halfway. I was headed 25 km from Ramsing to Bomdo whereas the tipper tipped me off to a place called Hawa camp, only 9 km from Ramsing. So I park myself again and wait for more helpful wheels. Two hours later, I came up with a thought and start walking towards the village: ‘The main difference between an opportunity and a difficulty is the one to be ignored!’

One may wonder why I did not walk to the village since morning because most wildlifers will agree that 25 km is walkable in four-five hours. The only thing, things actually, were my two bags in front and back of me, and they were heavy. 

About six km later I saw a beautiful stream and someone had left a bambo mug for me to drink, so I drank from the cup of life and some of the tiredness vanished!

Birds on the way, many; golden bush robin, sibias, harrier species, among many others. The reason I kept walking was hoping that some vehicle will give me a drop of at least ten of the remaining 15 km. I did not know it then but that did not happen at all! The usual Border Road Organisation vehicles were not dropping many civilians because one of their tippers had dropped from the road until the Siang river and four civilians had died. So for the next two weeks at least, I think no long-lifts for civilians by BRO.

The only other thing that happened was that at some point after climbing a short cut for half an hour or so I realised I had dropped my binoculars cover. So I cached my two bags in the forest somewhere and literally ran back more than a kilometre to retrieve it. I am a good retriever usually, my old Jawa motorbike I took back from a mechanic after keeping it with him for a year, I retrieved my job at Greenpeace, my drum kit which I am yet to retrieve from a friend (which I am sure I will) and certain other examples.

Well, I puffed and panted and could not find the binoculars cover, so I need to buy this sometime when I go to a town like Guwahati. Anyway, that was another significant thing during the walk. Then when I came back out of the shortcut to the tarred road, I met this old lady from Bomdo who keeps sending vegetables for me at the place I stay, very sweet lady. So I walked with her a km, she kept talking and I kept saying things in the bits of Adi I have picked up. Later I figured that for a large part of the conversation she was telling me which all veggies were available at her home in Bomdo which I can gladly go and pick! Then she took a detour to collect fire wood, I kept walking.

The last significant incident, on another shortcut to the village I saw this 50+ year old woman and her family walking in front of me. Here, in the Adi landscape, it is a custom to greet people and generally ask them if the day is tiring, whether they went very far or that you are tired or that you have come from very far; basically small talk. So I asked her how she is and she gave me a surprised look, I thought she had seen me coming because for almost twenty minutes I was trailing them. When I looked closely I figured she was taking a standing pee. When I was young and in fact even now, I thought women could not pee when they are standing! But this lady just stood-at-ease with her legs about 1-m from each other and peed! I walked on, embarassed for invading her privacy.

I reached the inspection bungalow where I was to stay…somewhere during the journey I’d realised that I had not brought sambar powder, the ultimate mom-made panacea for flavouring food; a bit of home in every meal! But when I reached my camp, I realised that I had stashed some from my last visit in November and this will be more than enough for the next ten days. And then there was rice, dal, salt, oil, batteries, among other small things. Nice…very nice, thank you Karthik from November!

In the meanwhile a kid came to the IB with a basket full of vegetables the old woman had sent! I think the first thing she did after she returned home, she dispatched some with her grandson, so my first meal here was sambar-rice, ghee and some lovely powder (for you Andhrites reading this, Putnalu podi, also called Gunpowder in general!) we eat with rice from Andhra. And I was thinking a walk may be uneventful!

By the way, the house-Mithun of Dungé Yalik is home again after last May, when I was here in the village too! They only come around once/twice a year in this village it seems, these are some real feral cattle they have here. No feeling like reaching a place that feels like home after walking 15 km through a beautiful landscape with tall trees and a gushing river; nothing is uneventful here as long as I keep my attitude up!