The Apatanis Cultural Landscape of Ziro Valle...

The Apatanis Cultural Landscape of Ziro Valley in Arunachal Pradesh

Author Name : Dr. Dani Kacha

The Apatanis Cultural Landscape of Ziro Valley in Arunachal Pradesh

As an ethnic tribe, Apatani is one of the advanced and unique community in terms of their cultural chord, possession of traditional wisdom, scientific tradition of agricultural operation, water management mechanism and other economic pursuit such as expertising in handicrafts and weaving and having traditional knowledge of sustainable management of forest for their daily economic and social activities in the midst of government policy on liberalization. As a staunch cognate race Apatanis have been succeeding their traditional clutch scrupulously as their basic ingredients of rich cultural heritage. The settlement areas and paddy fields are surrounded by blue rolling hills and mountains. The Ziro valley offers a spectacular example of co-existence of man and nature and how they have been perfected over the centuries. The existence of Apatanis was first recorded in the administrative report of 1882-83. Later H.M.Crowe mentioned them in 1889-90. But the term ‘Apatani’ was derived from the writings of Dr. Haimendorf in 1944-45. The enigmatic land comprises of about 32 Sq.km of cultivable areas out of 1058 Sq.km of Ziro valley, undulated by small hillocks at an elevation of 1525 Meter sea level (MSL) to mountain tracts ranging from 1830 to 2900 MSL. The blue pine and bamboo plantations are on the fringes of a wide mosaic of wet rice fields surrounded by thickly forested mountains on all sides form a picturesque landscape and offers splendid beauty. In the Ziro valley, the Apatani tribe inhabiting the valley and one of the major ethnic group of eastern Himalayas have distinct traditional land tenure practices and rich traditional ecological knowledge of natural resources management, conservation, nourish and nurtured over the centuries through informal experimentation. The Apatanis are known for their intricate handloom designs, expertise in cane and bamboo and unique characteristic of facial tattoo and nose plug of the Apatanis is on the wane now. This has made Ziro valley an elegant example of a living cultural landscape where man and environment has harmoniously existing together in a state of interdependency in the age of globalization.