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 (rice wine usually), 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 had 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 Mumney which one could even call Pork 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!

Medo Karthik

I have been visiting Bomdo village for a long time now, since February 2008. But never have I felt a part of the village as much as in the last few weeks. There are eight clans in the village; Nyodo, Duggong, Yalik, Panga, Lanchong, Dungmik and Medo. The Medo clan has now unofficially included me in their clan; I explain here how.

Burning one (fire) down!

The customs of the Adis are quite interesting. Among the clans, whenever any members hunts a wild animal, he gives a piece of the meat to closest relatives of his clan. Some meat is also distributed to close relatives among other clans; for instance, to the in-laws. It is quite surprising that there is no fine if somebody doesn't do this, but this tradition is now going on for several centuries. Nevertheless, distributing meat among clan members ensures supply of meat throughout the hunting season at least. So, the last time a barking deer was hunted by the Medo clan, I was called to my friend, Bamut Medo's home for dinner. He casually remarked that I was one of the Medos now, I didn't believe him then, but protein is not in an abundant supply in the village, so I happily obliged.

Today (6th Feb), a Mithun was slaughtered in the village. In this case too, the meat is distributed among all the Medos. I was not only invited for dinner, which was mainly Mithun stomach boiled and rice, to three houses, I was also given a small chunk of the meat! Now, I do believe I am one of them! 

The pestle that brings lovely flavour to my food,
made of Jackfruit tree wood

On another note, I have fortified the camp I stay in the village (the Inspection Bungalow) with all the essentials. I now have a Chang (a smoking place above the cooking fire), a small almirah to keep all the stuff needed for cooking, a pestle, an aluminium mug, a small backup cylinder, a backup electric stove, a solar charged light, a radio, the works, take a look. Just now, I also made sure the fire goes on for a few hours so the Mithun meat gets smoked. That way it can stay for several days without getting spoilt. The way the Adis smoke it, the meat apparently lasts for several years!

My kitchen, its all there!

And finally here is the mug that I picked up from the market; its uses are several, heres a list of things that I have made in it; fried eggs, fried papads, tea, coffee, boiled water, soup, dal, drink tea/coffee, chatni with the pestle, measure rice to cook with it and the list goes on. In fact, I call it the invincible mug because we had taken this mug on a trip to Mouling National Park and it was the only vessel we carried besides one large vessel to cook dal and rice. So in the five day trip, we used this mug to measure rice to be cooked, to make tea, to smash boiled potatoes, to serve dal and again the list goes on. I call it invincible because when we camped by the Sidi river in the Eggong camp, a Mithun had stepped on it to make it quite oval in shape. In the middle of the night, someone screamed saying my mug was gone. Calmly, I woke up in the morning and brought it back to shape by hitting it gently with a rock and the mug is back in use! Well, this is the one thing I rate as most useful ever in field.

The invincible mug!

So, I sleep today convinced that I am not only a researcher in the village, but perhaps also one of them 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!

Between rice and millet beer

This time I had reached a village close to the northernmost national park in North-east India, the Mouling National park. Mouling in the Adi language means red blood that signifies one of the tree species found in the park that has red latex. The villagers and department officials have chilling stories of people being bitten by poisonous snakes, chased by vipers, among others, and I was getting more and more excited! The park is remote and few surveys have been undertaken by the Forest Department and a single herpetofaunal survey in 2002 by Samrat Pawar. However, the two days I spent were outside the national park discussing with the villagers about their shifting cultivation practice. 

A hunting festival was on in the village during my visit; each Adi (the local community) hunts as many animals as he can and gifts the meat, dried over fire, to his in-laws. During an evening rice-beer session with the Adis, the village leader invited me over to his house for some millet beer, so I obliged. At his home, I saw skulls of several wild animals, amongst the ones I could recognize; few monkeys, few barking deers and many wild pig. I was offered millet beer and I was heady already!

Then, the head-gaam brought a hunted monkey and laid it down in front of me; I was startled but quickly gathered myself to try and identify the species. Perhaps, it was a test to see my reaction; I kept calm. I was hoping it wasn’t one of the rarer species such as pig-tailed, stump-tailed or assamese macaques and was glad it wasn’t. It was a rhesus macaque male. The Miok (the leader, in Adi) smoked the body in fire to char the fur following which he would skin the meat. I was shocked but remained silent sipping the beer. I soon figured I was invited actually to taste the meat and I admittedly told the leader that I can’t eat it because it looks too much like a human and he did not force me further.

Later we got back to the Ramsing camp and cooked our meal and slept. This memory will remain fresh in my mind; I did not need a camera to record this.