.....There is a pot of gold where the rainbow ends. You take the gold away and the rainbow begins to fade. So you want the gold? I would rather let the color remain in the sky forever. Never let it fade, not even for all the gold in the world. The Rainbow in The Northeastern sky has not just seven but so many colors you will fail counting. Everyone from various tribes with their way of life, paints the eastern sky bright and vivid. But these colors are fading today. It is time we look at them again before they are gone. Years back when the air was purer, there would be tens of thin Angel's Hair wafting against the blue sky. They would fall and hang from branches, sway along the gentle wind, or stay coiled on the misty grass. You do not touch them as they will mysteriously vanish. Many tribes and their culture and traditions have changed, some already lost forever like Angel's Hair because we have touched them! Today I am going back a few years. Everything I am saying here may not be factually correct. It is not an Encyclopedia; I am just romanticizing these people and their culture and trying to give a glimpse of the Northeastern people.....

PART 1


མོན་པ་
门族 

MONPA, a beautiful mind.

Neyti came running and  gave me an apple, big, red and glossy just like her pink cheeks! Perplexed, I looked at her questioningly.  

"I like you." She said and smiled.

'Thank you. I like you too". I acknowledged.

"Well may  be we can get together one of these days".

"Yeah, may be one of these days".
"So It will be a date then, and I will pick you up".

With a  gentle bow she smiled and ran back again.

It must be  somewhere in Bangalore, and Neyti must be working in the IT sector as a software designer, and asking for a date. That's what it sounds like, doesn't it? 
But it wasn't.

It was 1980, in Bomdila.
Squatting on the woolen rug behind the counter of her mothers shop, she waved me goodbye. 
Neyti was twelve year old, and a Monpa girl. Just like most Monpas her mother ran small business of  curved wooden vases, carpets and silk scarves and had a small shop in Bomdila market. The gentleman sitting at shop is her mother’s husband, but not Nyitie's father. She is a gift!

Monpas of Tawang and Bomdila have their origin at Nyingchi and Medog County, a district in Tibet. Probably the origin may go even further up to the Mosou tribes of China. Today they make a small population of about 45000 people. 

Monpas like the Mosous have a polyandrous culture. A woman can marry or have relation with more than one man. The choice, who will father a child, belongs to her.

So Neyti is not born out of wedlock, but from a relationship her mother had with her boyfriend, and so she is a gift. But she has as much right to the family's property as her brother who is born to the married couple. The word illegitimate child does not exit in a Monpa society. Every Child is born out of beautiful moments shared, whether to a married couple or the ones in a relationship, and it will always belong to the Monpas.

Even though unlike the Mosous, a Monpa family is not purely matriarchal but a matrilineal one, the woman mostly will head the family and run the business. 

I am sure I shall not really be going on a date with Nyeti, but she one day will, with someone she likes. They will live together for few months till Neyti mothers a child from him, and then they can get married. One marries to have a family, and without children a family does not exist. Monpa society does not recognize a childless marriage, for them it is just a relationship.

Monpas are Buddhist since the 17th century. Tawang monastry is their main temple, which they call Gompa.  Their spiritual guru the present Dalai Lama, a Monpa himself, is the14th reincarnation of Avalokitesvara, a Buddhist deity. They perform various religious rituals for everything, for prosperity, for health. "Lamas" who are  their gurus, chants verses in a guttural voice, sitting around the altar with many lamps made of ghee molded into small figurines. The delicately decorated altar in various colors, meticulously detailed over hours, is then destroyed in one single sweep after the ceremony.

Monpas make their own local brew of wine, 'Chang' as it is called and offered to every guest. They are warmhearted people with an ever-present smile on their faces. They love fish and meat, but are always compassionate towards animals and nature. Monpas respect the treasure mother nature has given them, and have their own indigenous system of use and conservation dynamics. Catching or harming birds is seen as a crime and a heavy penalty is imposed if caught.

Monpas love song and dances. Dhun-Chang is a ceremony for the girls to enjoy a night full of dances with their boyfriends. Neyti will one day choose her man, may be in one of these dances. She has the freedom to choose her own life partner and the parent won't interfere. The boy will, if Neyti wishes, come and stay in her house. It is the groom who will change family, unlike other societies where the girl dislocates. 

Later in three years of time Neyti's parents will send a messenger to the boy’s house with a cryptic message saying-
"Your son lives in our house. He can walk, he can see and is in best of health, you may take him back, but he always has a place here." 
His parent will then come with a basket full of a whole Yak meat as a sign of appreciation, and take the son daughter-in-law  home. The journey to the grooms house is made with a long procession of people holding religious flags, chanting religious verses all along the way.

Monpa society is free of crimes, divorce is rare and rape is unheard of. Literacy rate though is very low. 

• But like our educated society they do not torture their wives drinking their senses out.

• They do not kill and burn their daughter-in-laws for not bringing dowry.

• They do not mock me  because my eyes are different.

 

• They do not kill me because they don't like the style and color of my hair.

Time changes everything. Traditions evolves and changes, but the culture lives on. Change is needed for growth of a society. This change is internal. But the change that is brought by external influences kills everything eventually. 

Monpas too have changed today. Their society is not as matrilineal as before. They may still be brewing chang but prefer whiskey from the town. Boys and girls may still dance around the fire in Dhun-Chang, but they prefer Waltz and Samba in Jeans and Tee shirts.

The 45000 Monpas of Arunachal Pradesh are a strong lot, and they will do OK. But there are innumerable tribes struggling to survive. What affects their survival?

• Specimen Jars.

If you love their culture, their song and dance, then learn them and promote. That is the best way to let the world know about them. Do not ask them to showcase their cultural activities on a staged platform. This way you may preserve them in formaldehyde, but they will be dead.

• The Maggots called Missionaries.

These crusaders of Christ have only one objective, to spread Christianity. With their Pseudo sensitivity, they become the silent killers deadlier than the Jihadist. Many tribes have vanished from the face of this earth due to their interference.

There are about .3% Monpas who were converted to Christianity. Luckily for the strong resistance of these people the number did not increase.

• The Fungus called Tourism.

Only yeast makes wine, other fungi infect. Tourism brings economic growth, but it is needed to be controlled. Uncontrolled, like germs it infects you as you get into too much contact. It destroys environment. It influences and effects culture, induces crime, over populates the community with unplanned growth.

Maybe one of these days, once again I shall be visiting Bomdila. I wonder if Neyti will come running to me this time! 


Suggested reading - 
http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/rarebooks/downloads/Haimendorf_Tribes_of_India.pdf

Suggested movie-
Little Buddha
Director- Bernardo Berolucc

Picture sources-
http://www.aperturenortheast.com/
SOAS Library PPMS19_6_MIRI_0267

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