How many Tanii villages are there ? (1)

What is the exact number of Tanii villages on Ziro plateau ?

At first sight it seems easy to answer this question : Tanii villages are not numerous ; they are also very compact and therefore easily distinguishable from one another.

Aerial view of Old Ziro

Many people assume that there are 7 Tanii villages or lemba, namely Bulla (Biila), Hari, Hong, Hija, Dutta, Mudang-Tage and Michi-Bamin, to which many now also add old Ziro. Those villages are clearly separated from one another by paddy-fields or bamboo groves, and each form a distinct geographical unit as well as a continuous area of habitation. When asked “Which village are you from ?”, most people will answer by the name of one of them only. And for organizing Myoko every year, the grouping of villages is also made according to this seven-fold division.

However, according to the 2001 Census there are not 7, but no less than…. 33 Apatani villages on the plateau...

Apatani villages according to the 2001 Census

N°	Name	Houses in 1991	Houses in 2001	Situation, date of foundation, origin of settlement
1	Abuya	?	58	along the road between Hapoli and Michi-Bamin. Mainly inhabited by people from Michi-Bamin
2	Bamin	47	47	part of Michi-Bamin, original village. Situated between Hapoli and Old Ziro.
3	Bree	11	11	situated between Hong, Mudang-Tage and Hapoli in the southern part of the valley. Already listed as separate village in the 1971 Census.
4	Bolya	46	?	founded before the 70s, 10 houses in 1971
5	Byara	111	?
6	Dilo-Polyang (Dilo-Palyang)	6	3
7	Diko-Pita	22	?	situated in a valley watered by the Kele river (south of Hong). Founded by families from Hong in 1966.
8	Dutta	40	114	original village, close to Hija
9	Hakhe-Tari	12
10	Hari	268	400	original village
11	Hija	372	381	original village. Situated on the north-western rim of the valley
12	Hong	472	503	original village. Situated on the south-eastern rim of the valley
13	Kalong	96	97	part of Bulla, original village
14	Keiliya (Keinlya)	6	3	close to Hija
15	Khangalia	?	6
16	Laji-Bogya	8
17	Lempia	108	134	separated from Bulla only by a small stream (Tajang Kiile). Founded by families of Tajang.
18	Mani Polyang	16	33
19	Michi	60	43	part of Michi-Bamin, original village. Situated between Hapoli and Old Ziro, close to Hija.
20	Myolyang	17	?
21	Mudang-Tage	17 (?)	184	original village, close to Hija.
22	Nenchaliya (Nenchangyang)	161	183	close to Old Ziro, along the air-field. Founded around 1970. Mixed settlement from Dutta and Hija.
23	Old Ziro	369	394	established in the early 1950s
24	Pangi	6
25	Reru	223	297	part of Bulla, original village
26	Sibe	26	84	between Hong and Michi-Bamin. Founded by 160 families from Michi-Bamin
27	Sibu	?	3	close to Hija. Founded by families from Hija who had first extended their cultivation there in 1950-51.
28	Siiro	27	100	situated in a valley watered by the Kele river (south of Hong). Founded by families from Hong in 1966.
29	Siya Piro	2	?
30	Tajang	131	131	part of Bulla, original village
31	Talley Valley	1	?	situated south-east of the Ziro Valley, at higher altitude.
32	Taring	16	5	situated beyong Siiro and Diko-Pita
33	Taw-Tibe	4	1

Apparently the geographical, administrative, and sociological definitions of the village do not coincide in Ziro … How can this be explained ?

The administrative conception of village is mostly geographical : a cluster of houses with locally recognized boundaries. The problem arises from the fact that a Tanii village is also a grouping of quarters or wards, each having definite boundaries, and each being inhabited by a specific clan (halu). Moreover, there does not seem to be any specific word in Tanii language to differentiate a quarter from a village : both are called "lemba". Thus Michi-Bamin is a lemba, but Michi alone, where members of the Michi clan reside is also a lemba, and so is Bamin, where members of the Bamin clan originally lived. Similarly but on a larger scale, Reru, Tajang and Kalong each constitutes one lemba, but so is the continuous conglomeration of houses that they form altogether, which is known as Bulla lemba. In addition, different quarters are often, though not always, separated one from another by lanes, streams bamboo groves or even fields.

Therefore, both villages and quarters are good candidates for being recognized by the administration as "villages", as soon as they are visibly separated one from another... This way a village and one of its peripheral quarters are often considered as constituting two separate entities. That is also why very small hamlets often appear in the Census (for eg. Tarin with only 5 houses) along with big villages of several hundreds houses such as Hong and Hari, all of them being listed as "villages".

This is the administrative point of view. In a next post we shall see how the division of the society in villages and quarters is considered by Taniis
themselves.

Hamlet on the outskirts of Hija

PB

Apatani villages

Arunachal Census

What future for Apatani agriculture ?

Most of the time, when Apatanis as a people are mentioned in newspapers, magazines, academic papers or travel brochures, it is for praising their age-old agricultural practices and their dexterity in having managed to use every inch of cultivable space in a sustainable way. Two years ago UNESCO was so impressed by the "rare farming and conservation techniques" of the Apatanis that the UN agency decided to nominate Ziro Plateau in order to make it a World Heritage Site. The image of Arunachal's “green valley’ or “rice bowl” has now become so evidently associated to them that, at least seen from outside, it is assumed by all that this agricultural system “in harmony with nature” is bound to last forever.

I'm not sure, however, whether this enchanting image displayed by medias corresponds to the present social realities. My attention was drawn to this issue by reading a passage from anthropologist Fürer-Haimendorf who has witnessed some of the major changes having taken place in the Valley between 1944 and 1980 :

“In the 1940s one could see throughout March April and early May fairly large patang [agricultural labour teams], usually consisting of equal numbers of young boys and girls working on the fields, repairing dams and channels, levelling terrace fields, puddling the mud and finally transplanting rice-seedlings. (…) In 1978 I did not see a single large patang. Much of the work on the field was done by middle-aged women and a few middle-aged men. There were some groups of girls, usually not more than five or six, engaged in digging over fields, but the number of boys and young men working on the land seemed very small. (…)

At the time when work on the fields was done mainly by women and girls, and a few middled-aged men, one could see in the bazaar of Hapoli large number of able-bodied young men, often smartly dressed in western clothes, filling the tea stalls and gossiping with their friends. Numerous were also the boys riding on bicycles on the road between their villages and Hapoli. When I commented on the apparent imbalance of the sexes among the workers on the fields in conversation with some of my Apatani friends, they admitted that many of the young men were not pulling their weight, and that boys who had been to high-school rarely did much work on the fields although they expected to be fed by their parents.”

That was 30 years ago ...... and the trend seems to have continued since. By becoming increasingly educated in schools, young boys and girls have also become more and more reluctant to engage in agriculture or other traditional tasks. Today the contrast is best expressed through these figures : the literacy rate among Apatanis ranks among the highest in AP (70.6 % according to 2001 Census, with 86 % of the children attending schools in the 5-14 age group), which of course is a very good thing. But at the same time the number of people engaged in agriculture is the lowest among all Arunachal ST. As someone commenting these figures of the Census has noted : “It is, however, interesting that Apatani – the famous terrace cultivators of Arunachal Pradesh – have registered only 39.1 per cent cultivators.” And judging from recent photographs showing Apatani farmers, especially the beautiful collection by A. Siddiqui, it seems obvious that this population is gradually but inexorably ageing.

The present paradox goes as follows : in future, the Apatani Valley may be among the very few world's man-made landscapes to be declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. But who, then, will be still cultivating the land ?

P. Bouchery

Apatani agriculture