[Red Liner]

There is no telling which way the weather can turn in Arunachal Pradesh.

We set off under a light drizzle leaving behind a misty cloud kissed valley this morning. A lucky omen for when you travel, as the rains bring water which people here believe is a sign of good times to come.

We are approaching a settlement upfront. Will we get breakfast here? There is a big restaurant on my left where many cars and and tourist buses halt. But across from there are a line of shops which seem more interesting to me.

My legs drag me to a stall run by a girl vividly dressed in different shades of red. She is of slender proportions and leans over ever so slightly, her bright eyes beckoning me. Her smile is infectious, her face bewitching. Around her shoulder is a cloth sling. Does she have a baby?

My hopes are shattered.

A boy of 2 years is cradled by her grandmother. His look is unsure but the sweet lady smiles at me in welcome. I am probably their first customer today and I waste no time in inspecting what’s on offer. There is a big bowl with a whitish gray powder.

What is this? I ask.
“This is Tassey.”
What will you do with this?
“I mix it with hot water and serve it on a leaf plate like this” she answers showing me the leaves she strips to form palm sized plates.

[Red Liner]

Tibetan Sugar Palm trees can be found growing wild in the vast jungles across Arunachal Pradesh. This man has a dao, or machete slung along his chest.

How is Tassey made?

Making Tassey is a process both interesting and arduous.

★ The Tibetan sugar palm tree is cut down and the stem separated with the help of a Dao or machete.
★ The bark is peeled off the stem and cleaned with water on a flat stone. This bark is called the Sappar. Sappar acts as a kind of makeshift vessel.
★ Traditional knives such as the Shaku and Satung, are now used to shred the stem into fine threads of fiber.
★ The fiber is transferred to the Sappar, a makeshift vessel, and washed in cool water, usually from a stream flowing nearby.

The dao is a kind of machete used by the indigenous Nyishi tribe to cut the stem of the tree. You will never catch a Nyishi tribe member without a dao.

★ The mixture is strained, allowing the fibers to separate from the powder into a container, which the Nyishi call a Regiang.
★ In about half hour the powder has settled to the bottom of the Regiang. Think of the Regiang as a kind of bucket.
★ The water is drained and the last remaining moisture squeezed out of the powder, which now resembles a sticky substance, and is further dried for storage. This is the Tassey.

https://youtu.be/zFHGq7q-1Js

“First I will take the Tassey and mix it with cold water” she explains. “The powder has to gel well with the water.” I am listening but my eyes are glued to her for reasons other than the Tassey.

“Then I will add some boiling water.” She stirs the pot vigorously with a long spoon to arrive at a thick gooey consistency. About five minutes later she serves it to me steamed on a fresh leaf plate. It is delicious and I can’t help but ask for a few more servings.

Dried Tassey, a whitish grey powder in a big vessel. In the background the powder is constantly steamed in leaf plates using traditional wood fire.

[Red Liner]

I am just about to leave, when two men alight from a truck and make their way to the stall. They shuffle ahead of me and ask the girl at the counter for something. She disappears behind her shack and returns in a few minutes with a bag in her hand. She hands it over to the men and pockets a crisp 2000 rupee note.

No change is returned.

I offer a greeting in the hope of finding out more.
“Namaste namaste. What is in the bag?”
The girl offers no answer.

After sizing me up to make sure I wasn’t a government official, one of the men opens the bag to show a dead animal inside. I peer but the strong odour knocks me back.

“This is a porcupine” he replies.

What are you going to do with this? I ask.
“Eat it ofcourse!” They both laugh at my incredulous question.
“It is very tasty. A delicacy we can enjoy only when we come to these parts. We are not from Arunachal. We are just truckers driving to deliver supplies.”
But how will you prepare this?
He shows me the bag again. “See most of the quills are already removed. We have no interest in the quills but the local tribes like the Nyishi use them to make necklaces or to tie up their hair.”

Quills from the porcupine are used by Nyishi tribe members to embellish their head dresses. Here you will see the quills at the forefront of the head dress to keep the tuft of hair, called a Pudum together. The Nyishi no longer hunt the porcupine for their quills. Instead the quills are found on the jungle floor and are collected by the tribe members.

“Still, there are a few smaller quills left. They can be burned off. We will then gut the belly. The skin is kept on and the whole body roasted over a fire. This way none of the fat is lost” he continues. I reflect that this is not his first time cooking porcupines.

I remove my phone to take a picture but am quickly stopped by everyone.
“No no! Don’t you know porcupine hunting is banned? We could all get jailed!”
I apologise and put the phone away.

“It’s okay, how should you know. Anyway, would you like to join us for this meal? We haven’t had a good dinner last night and we will set up camp close to the river to cook this now. Why don’t you join us?”

I stare back while he waits for an answer.

Porcupines are shy creatures, but make sure you don’t startle one on your evening walk. Their quills are sharp and can be extremely painful. Photo from Wikipedia

“Umm, uh, I am vegetarian?” I reply with a tone that teeters between answer and an appeal to let me go.
“Oh in that case. But you are missing out, this meat is highly nutritious and very tasty. We will season it well with spices.” I can almost catch them rubbing their hands in delight as they walk away.

I am yet to recover before her lovely grandmother chimes in.

“We believe that the porcupine meat is useful to fend off tuberculosis.” She is an old Nyishi elder. “And I have also been asked to eat the meat of a Hornbill bird to ease the pain from my rheumatism” she concludes.

A plate of Tassey cost me all of 10 Indian rupees. Her son is happy being the cashier as he sits on his grandmother’s lap, her teeth stained by years of chewing Tamul or betel nut.

I am too stunned to reply as I look back at the girl. She is back to mixing Tassey. Like nothing ever happened.

“Would you like another plate?”

[Red Liner]

Kat Ramana is an adventurer and explorer first.

His earliest memories of a true travel adventure was sailing around the world with his dad, a year’s journey on the great seas when he was all but five. In 2015, he walked from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, exploring India’s diverse cultures and ethnicities. His love of the great snow capped mountains have taken him tramping from India to Tibet and his search for authentic stories has seen him living in the distant North East for months at a time. His way of understanding cultural nuances is by meeting people, listening to their stories and living with them.

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[rajeevsulu]

I would have joined up with them for a meal. I am a non- vegetarian anyways. Food is very fascinating and opens the doors to the local community. Food and the local drink, actually, but food should do.

Cheers

[ex-innova-guy]

Red Liner, yet again a brilliant thread from the North East. You capture emotions beautifully, and it is always a pleasure reading your stories. Hope the rain omen brings you good fortune to explore a lot more. :-)

[Indraneel Bhat]

Tribals hunted on their traditional hunting grounds for centuries. I am sure they have been consuming the local wildlife for centuries. So I would be conflicted, to be honest.

So if genuine tribals invited me for a meal, I think I would accept the invite. But I would not encourage wannabe Shikari Shambhus going into the jungle with weapons to hunt.

Refer to the link below for an interesting read on the case between Traditional Hunting Rights vs Wildlife Protection Laws, more so because, towards the end it refers to the same Nyishi tribe referred on this thread

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/wildl...-ground--77462

[fawad0222]

True tribal life never destroys nature but sustains it and preserve it. But the question is, with exposure to modern life. are these tribes living that life anymore.
Overall it is something which hopefully stops sooner then later.

Regards
Fawad

[Buzzard_storme]

This is a very sensitive topic and best not replied to or reacted to sitting in the comfort of our cozy chairs (apologies if any is offended by this).

Persistent conservation efforts have and are paying dividends and hunting of wildlife (animals, birds, reptiles etc) have reduced in certain areas while in some it goes on in some form or the other. We should be thankful and grateful to those nature warriors who are driving this on the ground against all odds and that is the only way forward for us to retain whatever is left now.

A huge conservation success story has been about the Amur falcons (https://lifestyle.livemint.com/news/...768261913.html)
Another has been about the Hornbill conservation (https://theprint.in/india/arunachal-...bills/1542522/)

Notably both the above are from the NE which doesn't mean hunting doesn't happen elsewhere.

How can we help - by visiting these places, generating income for the locals by hiring guides, vehicles, staying in homestays and by spreading knowledge.

[shabih]

Originally Posted by rajeevsulu

I would have joined up with them for a meal. I am a non- vegetarian anyways. Food is very fascinating and opens the doors to the local community. Food and the local drink, actually, but food should do.

Cheers

I was once travelling through the India Nepal border and a local offered to me a local Nepalese alcohol. He took out two plastic glasses, poured water in it. He then took out a small pouch of some kind of country made liquor. Mixed maybe a spoon of it in my glass and little more in his glass. One glass of that knocked me straight for 6 hours. I still don't know what kind of concoction was it but man it was potent.

[ringoism]

@ Rajjaiswal92:

This seems to be a one-sided and extremist position. "We" sit in our armchairs and offices, cooled by A/C the massive power for which is generated at great environmental cost, in homes built on what were once natural lands; And driving vehicles the manufacture of which is destructive, on roads that have done irreparable damage to natural systems...

And while sitting privileged and pampered, "we" then get shrill about a couple of poor tribals living in the most sparsely populated state in the Union, whose entire lives hardly have any negative effect on ecosystems, but who have committed the cardinal sin (in "our" lofty assessment!) of hunting a single animal for a special dinner! It smacks of... well... all kinds of ugly attitudes and prejudices.

I am by no means advocating for a universal endorsement of all that tribals do... Being married into such a community in the Northeast myself, can say that many traditional systems and mindsets are absolutely unsustainable at this point, and need to be changed.

But that change, if and when recognized as necessary, preferably in a data-driven manner, does NOT become manifest by locking down threads and thoughtful discussions, and asserting that a strong position on one side of the issue needs to be enforced as the last word.

I might add thst there is a world of difference between "mindless and lawless" hunting as you have cited, and what is done in many developed nations re: good management of hunting practices, seasons, methods, which have actually led to a preservation, stabilizing and healthiness of wild animal populations.

With modern humans and the multitude their perceived "needs" on the scene, there is no question of affecting other species negatively, and every contributor to this thread has been a party to those negative effects in one way or the other - this needs to be humbly considered and remembered. You do not need to be running around the jungle with a gun or bow and arrows to be a destroyer of wildlife, in fact most of us destroyers have never actually hunted.

-Eric

[supermax]

Originally Posted by Red Liner

Attachment 2631746

Kat Ramana is an adventurer and explorer first.

Is this an excerpt from a book or longer text? Would love to read more! Seems riveting!

[ABHI_1512]

Having spent my childhood in Arunachal Pradesh, I can actually feel the essence of the thread. Hunting has been going on for years and for the remote areas, that still goes on unabated. Folks from the forest department have been trying to educate the locals about the pitfalls of hunting of endangered species though and it has borne some fruit off late but obviously much needs to be done still. While tribes like the Apatanis and Nishings and the Adis dominate the population, some of them also continue to hunt despite the constant evolution of civilisation.

The very mention of a ‘dao’ or mechete is wonderful since I have been around people carrying them for so long. In fact, I still have some of dao’s with me presented by friends. It’s another matter that I did not have to use them for anything apart from some cutting of bamboos may be.

Tribals from the interiors of Arunachal Pradesh are unique and they have their own ways of survival. No matter how we see it, they have their own beliefs and thought process. It will take some time and may be a generational change or two, to see some change in their way of living may be.

Enjoyed reading your write up Red Liner, it helps that it almost felt like my childhood playing in front of me replete with details like the head gear and the dao and of course the hunting part as well.