Discover Apatani Tribes in Ziro Valley of Arunachal Pradesh

Ziro Valley is home to the Apatani tribes, who live in the Lower Subansiri district of Arunachal Pradesh. The tribe is famous for growing wet rice. Their fields are on flat land surrounded by hills.

The hills help the soil stay healthy by sending nutrients into the valley, so the tribe doesn’t need to use fertilizers. Every year, the land gives a good harvest. The Apatani tribe works together as a community to grow the rice, without using animals or machines.

Overview: Ziro Valley

The Ziro Valley is located between the river valleys of Kamla and Khru to the north, and Palin to the south. All of these rivers flow into the Subansiri River, which is a tributary of the Brahmaputra. The villages are found around the edge of the circular valley, which is surrounded by tropical evergreen forests, sub-tropical grasslands, and sub-tropical evergreen forests.

Ziro is well connected by road to Itanagar, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh, which is about 100 km away. The town also has taxi services to other district headquarters within the state.

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Ziro Plateau

The Ziro Plateau is shaped like a bowl, surrounded by tall hills and filled with paddy fields and bamboo-pine groves. The valley covers nearly 52 sq km and sits at an altitude of 1524 meters, with cooler temperatures. While it doesn’t snow, older people in the valley remember when the water would freeze during winter. This no longer happens.

Apatani Tribes in Ziro Valley 

The Ziro Valley, also called Apatani Valley, is full of bamboo groves. Bamboo is very important to the Apatani tribe. They use the strong bamboo stalks to make houses, furniture, handicrafts, and even cooking vessels.

The Apatani tribe makes a special type of salt called ‘Tapyo’. They get it by processing wild grass from the nearby forests. The tribe is very close and often has big gatherings. They drink ‘Apong’, a beer made from rice and millet, and eat it with their salt. The Apatani tribe also celebrates a month-long festival to honor friendship!

Apatani cuisine

Fish, rice, and green vegetables are key foods in Apatani cuisine. Their meals are simple and light, often including millets and herbed, steamed pork. The Apatani community is very independent and skilled at making things.

They craft baskets, trays, and other household items, along with special shawls, jackets, and loin cloths. The Apatani tribe leaves a unique mark with every piece they weave

The Apatani tribe is known for their close and peaceful connection with nature. They respect many forest gods as well as the Sun and the Moon. Many of their old traditions are about honoring and protecting Mother Earth, which has made them naturally good at conserving nature. They also have a strong knowledge of herbal and plant-based medicine for both people and animals, which has been passed down through generations.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The Apatani tribe practices mixed land-use to grow fish in their paddy fields. The Apatani Cultural Landscape was recently added to the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The tribe does not have a written language, and their cultural items are made from materials that decay over time, according to INTACH. Because their traditions are valuable for both society and the environment, they are passed down orally and need special care to be preserved.

Some key features of the Apatani tribe’s agricultural methods are:

• They arrange their fields on hill slopes in a way that allows water to flow down the hills and be channeled into the fields. This is done using a special design of contour bunds that divide the plots.
• They wisely use water from forest springs and underground sources to grow paddy twice a year—one crop ripens early, and the other ripens late. One set of fields stays flooded with water, while the other dries out after the harvest.
• They use human waste, along with pig and fowl droppings, and decomposed plants from the last harvest as fertilizer for their crops.
• The Apatani tribe practices aquaculture by digging a pit in the center of the paddy field and adding fingerlings about a month after planting the rice. The fish are harvested when the water is drained in August and September.
• They grow two types of millet—one on the bunds of the paddy fields and the other in dry fields, which is a special method unique to the Apatani tribe.

Religious Rites

In Apatani villages, private and religious rites are common. These ceremonies happen often for occasions like weddings, funerals, or even reasons like a family illness, starting to build a house, a village fire, or a personal crisis. During festivals and religious ceremonies, people are not allowed to enter the forests to collect firewood or other resources.

When special ceremonies are held at home, family members must stay inside the house for up to seven days. Breaking these rules is considered a taboo.

In July/August, the Apatani tribe performs a seasonal ritual for Yapun, the god of thunder. This rite is meant to protect crops from hailstorms. After the ceremony, no villager can go into the forests for ten days. If they break this rule, hailstorms could damage the crops. These traditions are still followed today.

Conclusion

Over many generations, the Apatani tribe has developed a detailed system for managing natural resources, which includes effective forestry and agricultural practices. There is still a strong sense of community today, driven by the tribe’s deep cultural, religious, and biomass dependence on the ecosystem.

While modern education and changing socio-cultural factors have weakened some of their traditions, the villagers have recognized the harm that such changes could cause to their environment. As a result, they have created village forest protection committees.

This shows that community-based conservation could succeed in the area if the right conditions are met. One such condition could be a supportive wildlife conservation policy that involves the community in managing and protecting the ecosystem. This would avoid creating conflicts, like establishing a sanctuary without the villagers’ consent or knowledge.

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