An Indigenous community’s respect toward all life offers a hopeful vision to the world.

WORDS AND IMAGES    Suprita Chatterjee

Forest cover in East Siang. The forests are only disturbed when necessary to take as much as one needs instead of taking more.

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India has a large population of Indigenous Peoples, with an estimated population of 104 million (2011 census), a large majority of them living in the northeast region of the country. Often seen as a place of political dispute, Northeast India in fact offers remarkable examples of people living in the present world while still practicing Indigenous ways and keeping knowledge of the land alive in their cultural traditions and daily activities. Northeasterners often refer to the rest of India as the “mainland,” so different do they see it from their own region.

It is easier to mistreat other beings if we don’t see them as equal or alive. In many Indigenous ways of life this is not the case. Instead of humans being seen as all-powerful, the focus is on coexistence.

Northeast India is where I carried out my master’s research, working with the Mising people in East Siang district in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. The Mising people live on the border between Arunachal and the neighboring state of Assam, along the Brahmaputra River. Their lives and stories are entangled with the stories of the river, forest, and animals that surround their villages. During my fieldwork, I learned that understanding the “other” requires special attention and care, something we often neglect to do. It is easier to mistreat other beings if we don’t see them as equal or alive. In many Indigenous ways of life this is not the case. Instead of humans being seen as all-powerful, the focus is on coexistence. Each being is thought to have its own form of knowledge and understanding.

The Brahmaputra River dividing the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. During the winter months, people walk across the river due to lower water levels, traveling between the two states.

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In the Northeast, respect for the land and interspecies entanglement arise from lessons that have been passed down through generations. Although there has been an increase in monoculture of crops such as rice, there is still a heavy reliance on homegrown and foraged foods. This was my favorite aspect of living in a small Mising village: meals were decided based on what the neighbors shared, what was growing in one’s garden, or whether someone brought certain plants back from the forest. People never seemed to feel the need to take in excess, as the forest always helped them come up with different meal ideas. The forest also provides firewood, food for the animals, and if one is lucky, meat.

The narrative on ‘saving the forest’ is geared toward preserving the ‘untouched,’ not toward maintaining coexistence and interdependence.

In recent times, however, forest laws created by the government have been creating problems for this Indigenous way of life. People are being discouraged from foraging in the forest, as the forest is seen as being just for animals and “nature.” The key point here is that “nature” also includes humans — it includes all the people who lived with the forests long before those laws were made. The narrative on “saving the forest” is geared toward preserving the “untouched,” not toward maintaining coexistence and interdependence.

The state hires forest officers and rangers to prevent the Indigenous locals from looking for resources and hunting. This, however, does not stop the locals from practicing their medicine and hunting; rather, they continue to do so in secret. Twice during my fieldwork I felt the great excitement that comes with a successful deer hunt. The meat is quickly distributed to close family members who are trusted to keep a secret. Mising people rely heavily on local natural resources for sustaining their way of life. Everyday actions were often related to sociocultural and spiritual dimensions, which play a critical role in shaping and managing their community. Local people have a holistic knowledge of their social-ecological systems. This can be seen as a form of resilience against the process of assimilation implemented by the law. The law considers hunting as damaging to the forest’s delicate ecosystem. What that perspective fails to see is that overconsumption is the cause of the real damage. There is a difference between hunting an animal to maintain a traditional diet and overconsumption that causes disruptions in the ecosystem.

There is a difference between hunting an animal to maintain a traditional diet and overconsumption that causes disruptions in the ecosystem.

I met up with the District Forest Officer of East Siang and asked for his opinion about interdependence. He was quick to answer that people go into the forest in spite of lacking government permission. He said that the officers let them go in as they see that most of them don’t destroy the forest. When I talked to the villagers, however, they told me a different story. The forest office buildings are right at the edge of the forest, making it very difficult for Indigenous people to go in and gather the resources they need, even something as innocuous as twigs for firewood. Government laws are disrupting Indigenous ways of life even if people depend on the forests. Slowly, this has been creating a shift from self-sufficiency toward food bought at markets and in stores. Every mainlander I talked to in Pasighat (the capital of East Siang district) sees this change as not such a bad thing, stating that it’s good that the Arunachali people are becoming less “jangli” (savage)..

Market in Pasighat, the capital of East Siang district. Many kinds of local and nonlocal produce can be bought here.

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There is a troubled relationship between the mainland and the Northeast that becomes apparent in differences of ideas around forest conservation — different cultural rules and norms that have led to ideas of separation and to an increase in armed groups over the past decade. The common judgment associated with borderlands and unfamiliar practices has reproduced and reinforced a hierarchical relation between mainlanders and Northeasterners. Why is separation from nature seen as “civilization”? Are we ignoring the interconnected lives we live every day?

The reserve forest overlooks a paddy field. Indigenous people are restricted from going into their own lands.

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Whenever I asked Mising villagers for stories of the land, I got a sense of their general respect for the forest, which extends to all the nonhuman creatures living in it. The stories I heard about elephants are perhaps the most notable for me. In Arunachal, humans and animals seem to arrange their lives, and therefore their world, in a sort of co-labor with one another. Elephants tend to travel through the forest during the early winter season and are known to pass by villages and farmland in search of food, such as bamboo and earth apples, a local tart-tasting fruit that is quite popular in the Northeast.

Forest elephants are “jangli,” yet there is not much conflict between them and humans. A Mising farmer living at the edge of the forest said, “Elephants only destroy bad people. They will never touch your home if they know that the human inside is good.” Upon further questioning, he said, “They are like humans, but giant [bara insaan, or ‘giant humans’]. Some of them are rude, some of them pay attention to where they step.” Then they don’t destroy the crops and simply pass by in the morning. Often a prayer is made to Ganesh and a small offering is left along the elephant’s pathway to ensure that the animal will have a safe journey and will leave crops alone.

Life in the Indigenous lands of East Siang is made up of acts of relatedness, whereby individuals often establish relationships with one another across species boundaries.

Life in the Indigenous lands of East Siang is made up of acts of relatedness, whereby individuals often establish relationships with one another across species boundaries. This is not to say that these intimacies are devoid of exploitation and violence. From the Mising’s standpoint, violence can actually be constitutive of relatedness, and in turn relatedness will inevitably entail violence. This can be seen in the way the Mising keep pigs and chickens and other domestic animals. Animals are cared for and loved until they reach adulthood (and sometimes a later age) and become needed for rituals or events.

Preparing a feast with foraged tubers, garden vegetables, and rice.

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When I was living in the village, my host bought a piglet, whom the family dearly loved and even named. The pig lived in their gated home and interacted with family members and the dogs. Yet, from the day the piglet was bought the family knew that at the end of the year it would be killed to feed guests at a wedding ceremony for their daughter. The chickens were equally cared for and talked to in terms of human behavior. During my research I got quite familiar with my host family’s rooster who had many love affairs, fights, and jealousy stories. A highlight in his life was that his own family member, his brother, once challenged him for a mate. My host family keenly observed all this, and it became a topic of conversation over snacks or dinner. Even so, its fate was a form of violence: it ended up being food for a ritual. My host got painfully sad when the rooster was killed, but she accepted this destiny as a part of life and as something that had to be done.

A Mising woman preparing apong, a traditional alcoholic drink.

The Mising’s respect for the forest is also clearly demonstrated by the fact that land is never violated. The forest is only disturbed, when necessary, to take exactly as much as one needs, instead of taking more. When trees are cut, it is for firewood. This can be seen as an act of violence, but a tree will not be cut unless needed. Trees are also home to spirits known as uie. These beings are protectors but often cause mischief for the villagers, as they are quite sensitive toward violence against certain trees and forest lands. Shamans or Mibu emphasize strongly that the uie do not live in a separate world, but alongside the humans. “Spirit wealth” in an area was demonstrated by the regeneration of forest after hunting, shifting cultivation, and cutting trees for wood.

Human identity doesn’t exist in isolation but is formed in relation to the nonhuman world.

My experience in Arunachal provided me with a hopeful vision of a world beyond anthropocentric conceptions of subjectivity — a world in which we come to recognize that human identity doesn’t exist in isolation but is formed in relation to the nonhuman world. In our present world, there is an emerging need for finding forms of cohabitation. The human and the nonhuman world cannot be treated as separate. It is our responsibility to create a form of self-definition and continued existence not at the expense of others or of the environment but rather as a holistic movement. Our frantic attempts to create a path toward monocultural development and gain control over our surroundings lead to a suffocating and limiting way of being for humans and the environment.

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Suprita Chatterjee is a master’s student at the University of Ottawa, researching Indigenous land rights and forest degradation in Arunachal Pradesh, India. Her interests lie in Indigenous understandings of the world and the deep interconnection of the human and the nonhuman.