The beginner's buck

The Bomdo village is located close to the Siang river, the river half-circumambulates around the village owing to the terrain. The village area extends till an area the Bomdians call Arbo, located below the Ganging Mouling peak towards the south-west and the right bank of the Angong river that originates from this peak towards north-west. The eastern boundary of the village is the Siang river across which are found Pugging, Gette, Likkor and Palang villages. But this not all. Being the oldest village in the landscape; the nucleus of norther villages like Migging, Pango and Ningging all the way till Tuting, Bomdo also owns hunting territories close to the northernmost frontier with Tibet west of the Siang river. This area, that is approached from the Sirapateng or the Siggong river is called Bandhi and is accessed once a year by the Adis in Bomdo for takin-hunting.

The access is not simple: one does NOT go alone, one goes in a group of 10 – 15, the group books a vehicle till the point where the Sirapateng meets the road to Tuting, close to the Pango village and then walks for three days to reach the camp where they stay for close to a week. One also carries enough rice for 15 days, alcohol, food supplies: rice cakes called Ettings and dried meat; a headload of about 20 – 25 kilogrammes. A boy is considered a man once he undertakes the journey to Bandhi and hunts a takin. An old man in the Bomdo village inspects the chicken-liver before the takin hunting group leaves. He would have predictions, most or some of which may come true. This year, it was mostly boys who went to Bandhi. With his clairvoyance, he predicted few things, five of which were to come true.

The boys with a couple older men had left mid-December. The village was a little empty without them, for, they were all active folks, most of them played volleyball and one-up conversations in the evenings. Christmas passed and while we were planning how to celebrate the new years' eve, 'waiting night' as it is called in these parts, we did not know whether to include the boys who had left for Bandhi. The boys were back on the 29th. Three of them had got their first takins: this also had important collateral obligations. Anyone in the village who goes to Bandhi and hunts their first takin has to treat the entire village a pig. Two big pigs where slaughtered in the Naamghar, the community hall and the entire village was feasting on pig meat and millet beer to wash it down. Every male in the village; young or old would receive a cane basket full of cooked rice and slices of pig meat and fat to take back to their homes to feed their families. This rice is collected from the villagers themselves, but is cooked in the Naamghar. Also cooked is blood-bellyfat-rice which one could even call Puliyogare!

Everyone is all smiles; its a feast!

Mostly fat, a little meat and a LOT of rice!

And yes, the old man who inspected the chicken-liver got five things right: the group that went did hunt seven individuals; well six were takin and one serow, one of them did hunt a takin with a single horn, one of the takins did fall in the water after being shot, one person did get injured in the journey to Bandhi and one of the takins did get shot close to their camp! So much from a chicken-liver inspected at least 40 km beeline distance away!

Bomdo with and without electricity

Its Steinbeck when I get back to the dark already-misty Inspection 'Bungalow' in Bomdo village in Upper Siang; starry sky, the orion, jupiter, the big dipper, the works. There is no electricity and am heady with a drink of rice beer they serve here in copious quantities. Stomach's full of a pumpkin and smoked mithun meat meal with a tinge of the cinnamon-like Taari (a pentatomid bug also called gandhi pok) chutney.



The village is very different when there is no electricity, it is livelier with more conversations. People who would otherwise watch fake wrestling and soaps with lavish make-ups are talking; someone talks of the best places to get firewood for the winter from, others talk of a man who has hunted three wild pigs in a day (thats a record!), someones hunted a barking deer tonight and has arrived to gift the leg piece, about someone who has gone into the forests for four nights to lay cable traps for animals, about rice this year not being productive owing to the rains, about someone who got a lucky contract from the Junior Engineer–good money and so on and so forth. Good for me I understand only a little of the Adi they speak here or I could read the news about the village like those eccentric channels in the television!



For me, the evening began with a stroll close to the volleyball field near the Naamghar (the community hall) we have here in Bomdo, I met Jabo who promptly invited me over for a drink and I happily obliged. When I reach his home, he asks me to wait, for he had to have a team meeting about the hunt they are fortnightly on, they are to leave the next morning while the cock crows into the forests beyond the hills behind the village. His wife Olak had been searching for sticky-rice beer called Nogin locally for me and found enough. Jabo got back and announced he was off at 3 am for 3 nights to the Siku camp along the Angong river; a good 7 hour walk from the village for the Adis and a 10 hour walk for me.



Jarring, Jabo's brother is back and announces he ate out tonight at his cousins place where wild pig entrails were cooked. Home food to him was boring, but after he left, Jabo's mom had selected a prime mithun smoked meat slice to go with the tasteless pumpkin boiled earlier. Thats the thing here in Bomdo, one can go to a neighbors home and they oblige with food and drink, for the neighbour is a close relative too and anyway everyone in the village is related to everyone, often both through lineage and marriage. I am an outsider but was being provided a homely drink and a meal, nice!



Back in the 'Bungalow', its dark I can't even see my own fingers! Thankfully I am equipped for this; I have a solar charger that charges the phone that provides a torch and a kindle that provides good read and some music. Am back to ' The grapes of wrath'. Some say one should not read such books in which sorrow is so elegantly depicted when alone and far from home. But I slip and slide away into the story and into the night. 

Headhunters’ ball – Reyee Gaye

The ‘Aran’ puja was on this time when I reached Ramsing village. Reyee Gaye 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 experienced men would do the war-dance, a practice continuing for hundreds of years. 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, folks did come out late and the light was low, but I got 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’s 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.

Of pigs and men

Before the rice crop is harvested, men from some households in the village slaughter their pigs around the ‘Naamghar’ (marked in the google earth image earlier). I am often referred to in the village as an “Aying” which means a non-tribal. So being an Aying I wasn’t to be present in this feast but later I was given a large slice of meat which I gladly ate.

The next day as I was learning a bit of Adi language from my friend Gekut, I asked him why I saw some pigs in the Egin the toilet whereas others are free-ranging. Oh, by the way, the Adi rear their pigs in enclosure below their home.

So when I asked about these pigs in the Egin and those I see outside, Gekut told me the male pigs are reared in bathrooms. So well, for three to five years all the male pigs have only seen the four walls around them and everyday few pairs of bums above them! Shux, what a life! The pigs that I have seen roaming around the village are all sows with their kids. Well, so I politely asked Gekut why don’t they prefer eating the pigs that roam around and he said “Shee, who will eat that, these pigs roam around everywhere and eat all dirty things, better to eat clean pigs from our own Egin”! This statement is a classic I think I will never forget! And well the other reason for eating only the pigs from the bathroom is that they put on a lot of fat, having not wasted it roaming around the village. Its  a cruel world!

The village by the river – Bomdo

This is the day I want to start to write about the village Bomdo in Upper Siang District, Arunachal, by the river Siang, called Tsangpo in Tibet. What inspires me to write I can’t tell but seeing the google earth image of my field-village could be a trigger. This is the village;

Circled above are two important places in the village, the left one is my home for a big part of the next six months; the inspection bungalow of the forest department, built over a graveyard! and to the right is the Naamghar, the place for local meetings and feasts.

In the next few posts I will write stories of this village, since I will be spending a good amount of time here. You may see earlier articles with few mentions too, but here I start listing anecdotes from the village. Interesting things keep happening; someone brings a hunted barking deer someday, all days they bring back birds, the local booze parties and well the lazy evening gossip and chat! I hope you enjoy reading them, because I am certainly going to enjoy writing them!