Hilaluddin

It’s the second week of March 2002. Morum, the annual Apatani spring festival, is in full swing at Hapoli, district Ziro, Arunachal Pradesh. The feasting includes voluminous amounts of barking deer meat. Flesh of common hill partridges, red jungle fowls, Assamese macaques and great barbets have also found their way to the Apatani platter; capped langur s are being sacrificed to propitiate the community deity. In the gaiety, I almost overlook these violations of the Wildlife Act, 1972 as a once-in-a-year occurrence. But the ecologist in me prevails: I decide to probe more.

Dani Jenny, my local host, is an eager help. “Hunting for wild meat is integral to our culture,” she says. Others in Hapoli corroborate. With my colleague Rahul Kaul and armed with a questionnaire, I then travel to villages all over lower and upper Subansiri districts in Arunachal, asking people about wild meat extraction. It’s no easy quest; the tribals do not like outsiders snooping into their dietary and cultural habits, and a few do know that wild meat extraction is illegal.

But the reticence of some finally gives way: we learn that the white-bellied rat is the most commonly killed mammal, followed by the barking deer and the Assamese macaque.

The hill partridge, the great barbet, the kalij pheasant and the red jungle fowl are the most commonly extracted wild birds. The religious rituals of the Apatanis include generous offerings of smoked three-striped and five-striped squirrels. But Apatani rules dictate that women cannot partake in much of this feasting. For, wild meat supposedly whets their sexual desires.

Our curiosity then takes us to Nishi villages in northeastern Arunachal. We proceed with much trepidation: the Nishis are known to guard their privacy even more resolutely than the Apatanis. But in villages Nishis and Hills Miri in the lower and upper Subansiri districts, we find help and manage to get our questionnaire circulated amongst quite a few households. Barking deers, wild boars and primates are the most commonly hunted animals, we discover.


Suspecting eyes
Meanwhile, our travels continue to be dogged by suspicious local people. In villages of Dafla tribes, wary religious leaders subject us to serious inquisition. We pretend innocent curiosity, even while casting furtive glances at the Himalayan black-bear skin caps of these leaders; some of these headgears are even bejewelled with pairs of the tail feathers of the large racket-tailed drongo and the lesser racket-tailed drongo. Our act pays off: some Daflas confide their love for great barbet meat. Others tell us that the skin of the capped langur is prized by members of their community to make sheaths for their traditional daggers, davs . “The Daflas hone their hunting skills at an early age by slaying rodents and small birds for fun,” says Taya Tamin of Taya Shimla village. This is a common practice among the little ones of quite a few tribes in northeast India, we learn gradually. Our Dafla interlocutor also tells us that modern firearms have given a big fillip to hunting. “All classes of our people love to hunt hornbills, especially the rofous-nacked variety,” he adds.

With curiosity giving way to disquiet, we move to Aizawl district in Mizoram. Assamese macaque, wild boars, bandicoots and barking deers are the most hunted mammals here; the blue-throated barbet, the great barbet and the imperial wood pigeon are the commonly killed birds. But Mizos don’t kill just for food: bat meat is supposed to cure asthama, while monkey flesh is associated with relieving delivery pains and also in the development of the foetus in the mother’s womb.

Kohima district in Nagaland is our next stop.