The Sun Rises

The Sun Rises

Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library Edited by

Henk Blezer Alex McKay Charles Ramble

VOLUME 16/3

The Sun Rises A Shaman’s Chant, Ritual Exchange and Fertility in the Apatani Valley

By

Stuart Blackburn

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2010

On the cover: Mudan Pai chanting on a platform, Mudan Tage, 2003. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Blackburn, Stuart H. The sun rises : a shaman’s chant, ritual exchange, and fertility in the Apatani Valley / by Stuart Blackburn. p. cm. — (Brill’s Tibetan studies library, ISSN 1568-6183 ; v. 16/3) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17578-5 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Apatani (Indic people)—Rites and ceremonies. 2. Oral tradition—India— Apatani Valley. 3. Apatani (Indic people)—Folklore. I. Title. II. Series. DS432.A6B53 2010 305.89’4—dc22

2009052762

ISSN 1568-6183 ISBN 978 90 04 17578 5 Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

For Hage Komo and Mudan Pai

CONTENTS Acknowledgements ....................................................................... xi Note on Orthography ................................................................... xiii Figures and Charts ....................................................................... xv Chapter One: Introduction ......................................................... Chant, ritual and performer .................................................... Outline of the book .................................................................. Chapter 2: Apatani valley .................................................... Chapter 3: Text .................................................................... Chapter 4: Ritual ................................................................. Chapter 5: Performer ........................................................... Chapter 6: Translation ......................................................... Chapter 7: Conclusions .......................................................

1 2 5 5 6 7 8 9 14

Chapter Two: Apatanis and their Valley .................................... The shape of place ................................................................... Agriculture ............................................................................ Village, house and family ..................................................... Clan ....................................................................................... Ritual platform ..................................................................... Conceptual schemes ................................................................. Ethnic categories ................................................................... Cosmology ............................................................................ History ...................................................................................... Tilting toward Assam ........................................................... Blackmail payments and trade fairs ..................................... European visitors and colonial contact ................................ Imposition of external authority .......................................... Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf ....................................... Armed resistance, 1948 ........................................................ A moral landscape ................................................................ Conclusions ...............................................................................

17 19 19 23 26 28 30 30 33 37 37 38 41 43 45 46 48 50

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Chapter Three: The Subu Heniin Text .................................... Comparative perspectives ....................................................... Chant as genre .................................................................... Apatani categories .............................................................. Ritual dialogues and recitations ......................................... Austronesian parallels ......................................................... Eastern Himalayan parallels .............................................. Variation and structure ........................................................... Textual sections ................................................................... Themes .................................................................................... Fertility ................................................................................ Ritual journey ..................................................................... Exchange .............................................................................

53 53 53 54 55 56 58 61 64 66 66 74 77

Chapter Four: The Murung Festival ......................................... Murung in Apatani society ..................................................... Forms of Murung ............................................................... Popular perceptions of Murung ......................................... Three key days ........................................................................ 1. Tableau and sacrifice ..................................................... 2. Rice donations ............................................................... 3. Meat distribution and procession .................................. Comparative perspectives ....................................................... Feasts of merit .................................................................... Murung as feast of merit ................................................... Fixed series ...................................................................... Prerogatives ..................................................................... Fertility ................................................................................ The living and the dead ..................................................... Ritual exchange and ceremonial friendships ......................... Affines .................................................................................. Non-kin ............................................................................... Maternal uncles .................................................................. Voluntary assistance ............................................................ Valley-wide exchange .......................................................... Conclusions ............................................................................. Competition and cooperation ............................................ Individual and group status ................................................

81 81 82 85 88 88 92 95 102 102 105 105 106 108 110 113 116 117 119 120 121 124 125 126

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Chapter Five: The Nyibu Performer .......................................... Apatani religious system ......................................................... Spirits .................................................................................. Ancestors ............................................................................. ‘Ghosts’ ............................................................................... Animism .............................................................................. Nyibu and shaman ................................................................... Nyibu in Apatani society .......................................................... Nyibu in a Murung .................................................................. Performance on the lapang ...................................................... Audience ............................................................................. Ritual speech ........................................................................... Parallelism ........................................................................... Noun-pairs .......................................................................... Noun phrases, verb phrases and repetition ....................... Conclusions ............................................................................. Ritual speech and society ...................................................

129 129 129 131 132 132 134 139 143 146 147 149 151 153 157 161 162

Chapter Six: The Subu Heniin in Translation .........................

165

Chapter Seven: Conclusions and the Future ............................ Conclusions ......................................................................... The future ...........................................................................

275 275 280

Appendices .................................................................................. Appendix A: Outline of Murung Events .......................... Appendix B: Number of Murungs, 1944/1945–2009 ..... Appendix C: Sacrificial Shares for Spirits and Humans .... Appendix D: Transcription of the Subu Heniin ............... Appendix E: Mudan Pai’s Life-History ............................. Appendix F: Feasts of Merit in the Extended Eastern Himalayas .....................................................

283 283 291 293 297 385 389

Bibliography ................................................................................ Index ...........................................................................................

391 399

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book is dedicated to Mudan Pai and Hage Komo, whose contributions are described in the Introduction. Other friends who helped me in my research include Padi Gyayru, Sumpi Khoda, Leegang Tachang and Tage Diibo. I have also drawn on interviews conducted by Tage Rupa and Dugli Don. I would like to thank Mark Post for his suggestions on orthography. Toni Huber provided collegial support and editorial advice throughout the project. F. K. Lehman helped me to improve chapter 4. Funding for the research behind this book came from the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) and the British Academy.

NOTE ON ORTHOGRAPHY A high, central unrounded vowel is represented by ‘ii’ (instead of the ü or ɨ of the International Phonetic Alphabet). An initial nasalised ‘n’ is shown as ‘ng’ (rather than ‘ŋ’ as in IPA). A final ‘n’ is sometimes nasalised (Murung) and sometimes not (misan). ‘C’ is used for the ‘ch’ sound (cicing). However, ‘ch’ is used for most personal names (Chantung) and place-names (Michi Bamin). Wi (‘spirit’) is pronounced like ‘we.’

FIGURES AND CHARTS List of Maps 1. Arunachal Pradesh and the Apatani valley ................. 2. Apatani valley ............................................................... 3. Feasts of Merit reported in the extended eastern Himalayas ......................................................................

18 22 389–90

List of Photographs (taken by the author unless otherwise noted) 1. Nursery fields with granaries, Hija, 2003. 2. Nyibus on a platform during the procession, 1945 (Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, © Nick Haimendorf ). 3. Mudan Pai chanting on a platform, Mudan Tage, 2003. 4. Nyibu chanting on a platform, 1978 (Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, © Nick Haimendorf ). 5. Mudan Pai and assistant chanting on a platform, Mudan Tage, 2003. 6. Feeding participants in the procession, 1945 (Christoph von FürerHaimendorf, © Nick Haimendorf ). 7. Nyibu with children during the procession, 1945 (Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, © Nick Haimendorf ). 8. Mudan Pai chanting on a platform with animals, Mudan Tage, 2003. 9. Young men winding cane ropes on a platform, Reru, 2001. 10. Gourd ladle with tajer bamboo and mithun’s name tag, Mudan Tage, 2003. 11. A boy decorating a mithun with rice powder before the sacrifice, Reru, 2005 (Michael Aram Tarr). 12. Women married into the sponsor’s clan standing opposite a platform, Reru, 2001. 13. Women with rice powder and rice beer to be distributed in the neighbourhood, Mudan Tage, 2003. 14. Necklaces of women married into the sponsor’s clan displayed in his house, Mudan Tage, 2003.

xvi

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15. Women donating rice to the sponsor’s wife, Mudan Tage, 2001. 16. Clansmen preparing meat for the dulu distribution, Mudan Tage, 2001. 17. Boys carrying a basket with sacrificial meat, Lempya, 2005 (Michael Aram Tarr). 18. Nyibu chanting to the special pig (doko alyi ) in the sponsor’s house, Lempya, 2005 (Michael Aram Tarr). 19. Measuring a mithun’s heart in the sponsor’s house, Lempya, 2005 (Michael Aram Tarr). 20. Dancing with phallic poles during the procession, 2001. 21. Mudan Pai and his family in their house, Biirii, 2004. 22. Hage Komo and author, Hari, 2005.

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xvii

List of Charts 3.1 3.2 3.3

Textual Sections in the Subu Heniin ................................ Two Ritual Journeys in the Subu Heniin ......................... Three Places/Acts of Exchange .......................................

65 76 79

4.1 4.2 4.3

Forms of Murung .............................................................. Human-Human Exchange in a Murung .......................... Pukun Donations of Rice by Women ..............................

83 114 122

5.1

Tasks of two nyibus in a Murung ......................................

144

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION A few hours after midnight, a man stands in the open air urging the sun to rise. He is a nyibu, the local ritual specialist, chanting on a cold January night in the Apatani valley, fifteen hundred metres up in the eastern Himalayas. He stands and chants into the silence, accompanied by another man who squats nearby and tends a small bucket of glowing charcoal. They are on a raised wooden platform, about twelve metres long and four metres wide. After a while, the shaman stops, sits down and drinks from a mug of rice beer. Standing up, he chants again and continues to chant all day, until late afternoon, when the animals tied to the platform beneath them will be killed. About three in the morning, however, there is only an icy darkness as the nyibu wills the day into life: In this early morning, let the eyes of Kolyung Anii Become the rising sun, climbing higher and higher; Let the heart of Kolo Anii become the rising sun; Rising and spreading wider and wider, let the sun light up our world. In a few hours, when the sun rises, the valley is still covered in a thick fog. The nyibu keeps on chanting, and by about 10 o’clock the sun’s rays are strong enough to drive off the fog and reveal the first day of a Murung festival. The rituals and events continue for another three weeks, during which men and women throughout the valley will give and receive thousands of gifts of rice, meat and cash, and hundreds of clansmen will parade through every village in the small valley. A special pig will also be killed and its parts distributed to ceremonial friends. The first day, however, is the most spectacular. The richly costumed nyibu is on display, reciting the Subu Heniin chant all day on the lapang platform. At midday, the women who have married into the sponsor’s

2

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clan line up opposite the platform. Wearing full ceremonial dress and heavy sets of expensive necklaces of beads, holding gourds of rice beer and baskets of rice powder, they present a colourful tableau. Soon, as the nyibu is telling the story of man and mithun, who become sacrificer and sacrificed, the women come forward and decorate the animals’ heads with their rice powder and beer. The nyibu continues to chant for several more hours, leading the animals’ souls to the land of the dead, where the spirits are given a share of the sacrifice. Then, after the shaman has negotiated the dangerous route back to the land of the living, the animals are untied and led away to the sponsor’s house, where they are killed with an axe that ‘falls as swiftly as the sun’s rays.’ Their carcasses are dismembered, a few limbs and organs given to designated people and the rest stored away for later distribution. Chant, ritual and performer I first saw these events of a Murung festival in 2001, and again several times during the next five years. While I spent a lot of time studying Apatani oral tradition and documenting rituals, I was always drawn back to this festival, especially to the long recitation on the first day. As the most public, prominent and prestigious performance, the recitation of the Subu Heniin occupies a unique place in local culture. Other oral texts are also important, and some are more widely-known, especially those of the culture hero.1 The Subu Heniin, however, is the most complete expression of Apatani culture and sets out the larger world in which these other stories are possible. Beginning at the beginning, this long chant describes the birth of the sun, of water, the elements, plants and animals. It recites the genealogies of spirits and humans, explains how humans and mithuns separated, describes a magical bamboo that travels through the cosmology and follows the nyibu as he descends to the land of the dead. The Subu Heniin is also an encyclopaedic text that names dozens of mountains, streams, forests and fields. In it, the nyibu recites the names of about sixty spirits and more than a hundred ancestors, inviting them to the feast in order to ensure fertility and prosperity for the sponsor’s family and clan.

1

Some of these stories about Abo Tani are in Blackburn 2008.

introduction

3

This oral chant is the centrepiece of this book. At the same time, it forms a triptych with its context and the man who performs it. My attempts, over several years, to grasp the complexity of this text-ritualperformer relationship ran a bumpy road. Frequently I was thrown off course when I saw something new or heard yet another explanation. Over time, however, the details began to form patterns, partly visible against the background of similar yet different texts, rituals and performers documented elsewhere. When I felt blocked, I turned back to the text itself, and its performance, looking for an image or a word that might illumine a new dimension of the whole. More than once I found what I was looking for. For example, the Subu Heniin is the only Apatani text that articulates two cosmologies: a series of realms on earth and the descent to the underworld. The chanted text also led me, along with comparative reading, to appreciate something I had missed in my earlier book on Apatani culture and oral tradition. Even in early drafts of this book I had managed to ignore the role of fertility in the Subu Heniin chant and Murung festival. It was staring me in the face—the line-up of married women, rice powder and rice beer sprinkled on sacrificial animals, hundreds of baskets of rice exchanged between women, rice seeds tossed into nursery beds, rituals timed to coincide with the growth of seedlings in those beds—but I kept looking away. Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, who lived in the Apatani valley in the 1940s, had called the Murung a ‘fertility rite,’ but that phrase seemed imprecise and antiquated. After all, James George Frazer’s magisterial but flawed interpretation of the rites in the Nemi grove had concluded that fertility was the basis of all religion. My dismissal of Fürer-Haimendorf ’s observation was a mistake. As this book will show, there is little doubt that fertility, as sign of prosperity, is central to a Murung. What finally convinced me of its significance, however, is its prominence in the Subu Heniin chant: the recurring images of birth, the repeated emergence of the natural world from a procreative female body and the irrepressible growth of the expanding bamboo. All this became clear only after gaining a reasonable grasp of the language of the chant, and that took the best part of three years. Although the three strands of this book—Subu Heniin chant, Murung festival and nyibu performer—are described in separate chapters, I have also tried to integrate them at various points. For one thing, they come together in a single event, when the nyibu stands on the lapang and chants. That is why I have begun the book with that

4

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image and why I will return to it more than once. The three topics also coalesce at times in the analyses in separate chapters. Interpretations of both chant and festival, for instance, will identify the same key ideas and practices. Similarly, as summarised in the final chapter, the distinctive features of the text, the nyibu’s role and the Murung are consistent with each other. Another integrating dimension of this book is that it considers each of its three strands in comparative perspective. The local meanings of a text or ritual, I believe, stand out most clearly when silhouetted against parallels in other societies. We will see that the Apatani chant, festival and ritual specialist (and his speech) have counterparts elsewhere, mostly in the extended eastern Himalayas, and yet that each has localised features.2 In short, this book demonstrates the paradox that in order to understand a local culture, we must look beyond what is local. Unfortunately, comparative data for the three topics of this book are scarce. Few good descriptions of feasts like the Murung, for example, are found after the 1950s. It was dispiriting to learn that most of the reported feasts—in the Naga Hills, Chin Hills, Chittagong Hills, upland Southeast Asia and southwest China—have been either abandoned or radically transformed. For the Subu Heniin chant, I was surprised to find the closest parallels not in the extended eastern Himalayas but in eastern Indonesia. Although similar recitations are reported in Nepal, they describe a cosmology and mythology influenced by Indian traditions and recognisably different to Apatani traditions. Fortunately, the documentation of ritual specialists, again especially in Nepal, is extensive, so we can more or less accurately place the Apatani nyibu within that category. In central Arunachal Pradesh, published details on these feasts, specialists and their chants are scant, and the time may have passed when they can be adequately documented. The available material suggests that parallels might exist, but only future research can confirm this. And if that research is not done soon, an opportunity will be lost since these extended ritual recitations are among the first speech varieties to be lost when languages decline.

2 On the extended eastern Himalayas as a culture area, see Blackburn 2007, 2008.

introduction

5

That is why, although a good translation of the Subu Heniin is one of my goals, I also want to document the Murung feast and the role of the nyibu in it before they change beyond recognition. Through descriptions and analyses, as well as translation, this book should contribute to a comparative study of ritual and mythology in the extended eastern Himalayas. While some populations in this area practice forms of Hinduism, Buddhism and now Christianity, as well as combinations of these, many tribal groups follow what is typically called ‘indigenous religion,’ ‘local cosmology,’ ‘shamanism’ or ‘animism.’ As this imprecise and fluctuating terminology reveals, we simply do not know what to call this religious system, or even know if it is a ‘system,’ because we do not have adequate knowledge of its ideas, practices and stories. Although such a comparative description is not an aim of this book, I hope it will advance that project. Outline of the book Chapter 2: Apatani valley This book begins, in the next chapter, by describing the Apatani valley and its influence on local life, especially the three topics of the book. We will see, for instance, that settlement pattern, food production, house and family size can all be seen as adaptations to the physical limitations of a landscape eight kilometres long and four kilometres wide. I will also explain how the physical boundaries of the valley play a role in the formation of Apatani cosmology and ethnic identity. Chapter 2 then describes how the fertility and relative isolation of the valley were factors in local history. At 1,500 metres and surrounded by higher mountains, the valley left Apatanis more or less outside the expanding trade networks and political structures that began to move into the hills after the British colonial state entered Assam in the early nineteenth century. Once colonial contact had been made, at the end of the century, however, these paddy fields in the mid-Himalayas made a strong impression on European visitors. Here, they thought, was an excellent location for a government outpost, which became an increasing necessity during the first half of the twentieth century as Britain squared up first to Tibet and then the Japanese. Flat and fertile, the Apatani valley would provide food for a whole garrison. Today, the Apatani valley is indeed an administrative headquarters

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and a not insignificant node in New Delhi’s military/security network in northeast India. Finally, the colonial narrative of a moral landscape—a green and prosperous valley worked by a settled and civilised people—is a story told by Apatanis, too. Chapter 3: Text A fertile land is, for instance, one of the main themes of the Subu Heniin text, described in Chapter 3. As we will see, while the sequence of nineteen episodes in this all-day chant do not tell a connected narrative, they do cohere in their consistent emphasis on birth, growth and maturation. Beginning in the cold darkness, the chant soon welcomes the light of the sun, which illumines the mountains and rivers, forests and fields that surround the valley. The nyibu then describes the birth of the sun from a woman. This image of the world emerging from a protean woman’s body recurs throughout the text and is especially important when the nyibu names the spirits who share in the sacrifice. A second image of fecundity is an expanding bamboo (a species known as tajer). Planted in a garden, this special bamboo grows and grows—like Jack’s beanstalk—to engulf the entire house and then stretches out through the realms of the Apatani horizontal cosmology in order to call the ancestors and spirits to the sacrifice. This tajer bamboo has a presence outside the chant, too. It is worn in the nyibu’s headdress, held in his hand and later kept in his house as a memento of his performance. The expanding bamboo also introduces the theme of the ritual journey. Although fewer and less prominent among Apatanis than other Tibeto-Burman speakers in the extended eastern Himalayas, the two ritual journeys in the Subu Heniin trace local cosmologies. The path of the tajer bamboo follows a sequence of horizontal realms on earth and tells us which ancestors are found in each realm. The other ritual journey is the nyibu’s vertical descent to the land of the dead and return to the living. As detailed in the final third of the Subu Heniin chant, the ritual specialist leads the mithuns and cows (actually their souls) to the underworld along a maze of dangerous paths, over the sprawling body of a huge beast, across a deep river and finally to Neli, where the animals are offered to the spirits.3

3

In this book I use ‘cow’ and ‘cows’ for cattle irrespective of gender.

introduction

7

Throughout these final sections of the chant, the nyibu describes gift-giving in the land of the dead, listing the places where the spirits receive meat, where they reside and where they are asked to return favours to humans. This is an instance of the double-layering that appears more than once in this book. Gifts in the land of the dead ensure prosperity among the living; mithuns are killed on earth while their souls are taken to the underworld; their meat is given to spirits below and to humans above. These exchanges lead us to the next chapter, which describes the Murung festival. Chapter 4: Ritual It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the Murung to Apatani culture. Although Apatanis celebrate two other major festivals, they are both calendrical, obligatory and hosted either by a village or by the entire Apatani population. One of these, the Myoko festival, is held every year in March–April, when a village or group of villages plays host to the rest of the Apatani population. During its four weeks, there is a great deal of feasting and gift-giving, playing and drinking, since every Apatani is involved either as host or guest. Clan and family membership are reaffirmed through a pig sacrifice, a major form of ceremonial friendship is activated and new births are celebrated. Dree, the other major festival, is quite different. It is celebrated each summer largely as a social event in the administrative centre of Hapoli, not in villages. Nyibus chant to avert disease or bad weather, which would harm the paddy fields blazing bright green in July, and there are minor animal sacrifices. Most of the attention, however, is given to the football matches and dance competitions held in the large public ground in Hapoli. Once a minor agricultural rite, conducted by individual families when and where they liked, Dree is now (and since 1967) packed into a single day in one location. Separate celebrations on other days in other locations are banned because they would undermine the single, community-wide event. In contrast to both these festivals, Murung is voluntary and sponsored by one man and his clan. No one is obligated to perform a Murung—some years in some villages none is held—but everyone is eligible, as long as the divinations are favourable. Precisely because it is voluntary, the festival is the most prominent arena (after politics) in which individuals and groups can display wealth, earn prestige and gain influence. A defining characteristic of a Murung is exchange: it

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activates thirteen different types of gift-giving, mostly between ceremonial friends. Small surprise then that Murungs sponsored more than a hundred years ago are still part of social memory, or that the time of the festival is called ‘Murung month/moon’ (murung pulo). The three weeks of a Murung are a complex sequence of ritual events (summarised in Appendix A). As an entry point into this labyrinth of detail, I will first describe the various forms of the festival and then discuss the social significance of the Murung, highlighting ambivalent perceptions of this display of wealth. The next section presents the three key days of the festival, in part through my personal experiences. These three days illustrate the key themes of fertility and exchange as well as provide details that are drawn on in later discussions. Picking up the thread of comparative analysis, this chapter also considers the Murung as a ‘feast of merit.’ After surveying the published material on these feasts, especially in upland Southeast Asia, we will see that, although the Apatani ritual belongs in this category, it diverges from the standard profile in practices and ideas. These differences lead to the conclusions that a Murung generates more cohesion than competition and that it increases clan status as much as individual prestige. Chapter 5: Performer The Apatani ritual specialist who performs the Subu Heniin is the third strand of this book and the topic of chapter 5. My description of the nyibu will make little reference to psychological states since Apatanis rarely speak of these things. On the other hand, they have a good deal to say about the spirits, ancestors, souls and ‘ghosts’ with whom the nyibu interacts. I begin the chapter with these elements of the local religious system and then compare the Apatani ritual specialist with others, often called ‘shamans,’ in the extended eastern Himalayas and elsewhere. Again, like the Murung and feasts of merit, while the Apatani specialist resembles his counterparts, the differences are more revealing. My description of the nyibu is supplemented by an autobiographical statement (Appendix E) from the man who chanted the Subu Heniin text translated in this book. As we will see, the nyibu is a male, clan-based specialist who receives no formal training or initiation and enjoys no special privileges outside ritual events. He does not go into trance or become possessed, gain mastery of spirits or have a ‘familiar. Nor are his actions locally attrib-

introduction

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uted to the control of spirits or to an unusual state of consciousness. On the other hand, his role—as a healer who contacts spirits through attributed powers of sight, vision and speech—is similar to that of specialists elsewhere. He is atypical in one important respect. Although he sometimes has an assistant, although senior men often help him, and although a few women perform minor rituals, he is the only recognised ritual specialist among Apatanis. With these exceptions, he alone is responsible for all the ritual work among this population of about 35,000 people. A single ritual specialist is unusual in Asian societies, in which two or three (or more) are common. In local terms, the nyibu is defined primarily by his ability to use ritual speech. All Apatani ritual texts are chanted in this special speech, which distinguishes them from other texts spoken in ordinary speech. After explaining this local system of oral genres, and the place of the Subu Heniin within it, I will describe Apatani ritual speech. For all its local specificity, the nyibu’s speech belongs to a linguistic variety widespread not only in Tibeto-Burman languages in the extended eastern Himalayas but further afield, especially in Austronesian languages. A comparison of Apatani ritual speech with these examples reveals a common feature of parallelism, although in a distinct form. Apatani ritual speech is dominated by what I call ‘noun-pairs.’ This distinctive feature reduces the semantic range in ritual speech, and thus, as with the sole specialist, contributes to the overall sense of cohesion in Apatani society. The chapter ends by considering the claim that authoritative ritual speech has the capacity to influence social realities. Chapter 6: Translation Following these chapters of description, comparison and analysis, chapter 6 presents the Subu Heniin in translation. The translation is a chapter and not an appendix because it is integral to the book as a whole. Instead of an appendage to be consulted after the fact, the translation is the culmination of a sequence of topics, leading from text to context to performer and, finally, to the chant itself. A full (or reasonably complete) version of the Subu Heniin has never before been published, either in romanised Apatani or translation. An Apatani writer presented several hundred lines in romanised Apatani, which he summarised in English, and an Indian research

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officer paraphrased a few lines.4 The version published here is not canonical, and others will surely appear in years to come, but it is representative of how the Subu Heniin is performed in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The first thing to say about the translation is that it is not based on a performance recorded during a Murung. I did record several samples of chanting at festivals, and those recordings helped me to identify variations between recitations by different nyibus and to recapture, while in London, some of the atmosphere of the event. The main reason for not recording an entire performance on the lapang is that it would not have been sufficiently clear. The chatter of the men gathered there, plus the occasional shouts of others nearby, would have made the nyibu’s already low voice inaudible. The text translated in this book was recorded on an inexpensive cassette tape recorder in May 2004, in the house of the nyibu who recited it. The recording was done by Hage Komo, a young man who was my research assistant. The performer was Mudan Pai, a nyibu about 55 years old. Over the course of a week, he chanted for about three hours (with brief breaks) on each of four days. Listening to the tapes, I was struck by one thing: during the twelve hours, he never interrupted himself or attempted to revise what he had chanted. Once he began, he continued to chant until the session was completed, as he would during a normal performance. Only later, when I twice went over the entire recording with him, did he correct himself and add a few lines here and there. The only ‘flaw’ in the recording that would not have occurred during a normal performance is that one of the nineteen textual sections was chanted in the wrong place because he forgot where he had stopped chanting on the previous day. Having completed the recording in 2004, Hage Komo spent several months writing a rough draft transcription and translation. The transcription was typed into a computer in Itanagar and sent to me by email. The translation arrived by post, and I entered it into my computer. Then I began to revise both texts. The emailed transcription, however, turned out to be riddled with errors, hardly surprising since the person who typed it was not an Apatani and was reading a handwritten copy. Equally important, the original transcription itself used variant spellings for many words.

4

Takhe Kani 1994: 132–213; Pandey 1981: 34–47.

introduction

11

Romanisation of Apatani has no accepted set of rules. Most confusing are the vowels, particularly a high, central unrounded sound, which has four transcriptions (see Note on Orthography). In order to standardise the transcription and improve the translation, I began to work with Komo, communicating by telephone and email. He, in turn, consulted with Pai, and by the end of 2004 we had both the Apatani and English texts in rough form. In early 2005, I went back to the Apatani valley and worked on the texts with Komo and Pai. We went over the transcription line by line, correcting words and adding a few lines that Pai pointed out he had forgotten to recite during the recording. Our work went slowly because we found that the transcription was still strewn with inconsistencies and errors. The translation proceeded at a snail’s pace, too, but for a different reason. The Subu Heniin, like all Apatani ritual texts, is chanted in a ritual speech largely unintelligible to people who are not nyibus. As with many types of oral poetry, it suggests rather than states, alludes rather than explains, and contains characters, events and places that are not common knowledge. Fortunately, although Komo had only a shadowy idea of this ritual vocabulary, his curiosity and intelligence brought him a reasonable command of it. Despite his growing competence, Komo was not a nyibu and could only second guess the meaning of many passages. As a result, the translation work required two phases. First, Pai translated Apatani ritual speech into conversational Apatani. Even here the elusive nature of ritual speech meant that he explained more than translated. Sometimes he admitted that words or phrases were not entirely clear to him or could not be expressed in ordinary Apatani speech. When Komo and I asked for the ‘meaning’ of a phrase, Pai often replied with a story, or related information, such as the genealogy of a spirit or the origin of an animal. The concept of translation, in other words, was never fully translated. The second phase of the translation work—from conversational Apatani to English—was more standard. My conversational Apatani was reasonably good but not sufficient to grasp details of ritual or mythology, so Komo and I spoke mostly in English. Komo, in turn, faced a problem when he tried to express these complex ideas in English. I was able to speak with Pai in Apatani, which sometimes cut out the intermediary, but without Komo I would have been lost. Back and forth we went, three voices and three kinds of language, but eventually we reached what seemed to be an accurate understanding.

12

chapter one

We repeated this exercise when I visited again in January 2006, and by the end of that month we had what I thought were a correct transcription and a good translation. When I got back to London, however, I realised that many problems remained. More work, telephone calls and emails resolved some but not all, so I made a final trip in 2008. This time the three of us gathered in a quiet place in Assam, away from Komo’s and Pai’s family and professional obligations, which would normally interrupt our work. We sat together for five days, starting before breakfast and continuing, with short breaks, until after dinner. Again we went over every line and did not move on to the next until the meaning was clear. By now, Pai took a more active role. ‘Are you sure you understand?’ he would ask as I leaned over to turn the page of our working document. He often saw our confusion before we did, and we got lost more than once trying to follow the maze of paths that lead to and from the land of the dead. Back in London, I again reworked what we had collectively arrived at during those days in Assam. I tightened transitions between episodes, clarified genealogical relationships and omitted many repeated lines. The final version, published here, is, I believe, accurate. It does not, however, carry the full spectrum of meanings suggested by the original Apatani. That is something we could never achieve since, as Pai himself explained, some allusions and metaphors are intentionally ambiguous. Slippage is part of any translation, even between speech varieties of the same language. In our case, the gap between original and translation is greater than usual because there are few reference points to guide the reader. An oral chant, in esoteric speech, from an unwritten language and a culture whose beliefs and practices are unfamiliar, does not easily become intelligible as a written English text. This is not a new problem, nor an uncommon one, and it remains intractable. Here and there, the translation is paraphrase and occasionally educated guesswork. This is far from ideal, but I take some consolation from one of the few persons to attempt this kind of translation in central Arunachal Pradesh. Tumpak Ete, a Galo scholar, admitted that he had difficulty in gaining access to the ritual texts of a Galo priest because ‘[t]he “real things” he keeps back.’5 Ete also explained that even if those texts were recorded exactly as recited during per-

5

Ete 1974: v.

introduction

13

formance, interpretation would remain a ‘serious problem’ since it requires ‘full knowledge . . . of the archaic idiom.’6 Like those Galo ritual specialists, Mudan Pai was reluctant to chant the most powerful texts, especially healing chants (cicing).7 He had no reservations, however, about the Subu Heniin because it is a tiigo text, even though chanting the paths to the land of the dead carries risks. I had little trouble choosing him as the nyibu to record this chant, having worked with him off and on since 2001, recording other ritual texts, including samples of the Subu Heniin. He was first recommended to me by a friend, and several others praised his ‘clear’ voice and extensive knowledge. Komo also knew him, which facilitated our working together. Over the years, I learned to appreciate his personal qualities. He was even-tempered and never demonstrative or self-promoting. Although enthusiastic, he did not promise more than he could deliver. He liked a good laugh but never drank rice beer, which is unusual among nyibus. He was also reliable and cooperative, dedicated to his work and patient with everyone. Hage Komo played an equally essential role in the production of the Subu Heniin text and contributed to every aspect of this book. I first met Komo in 2002, when he and two friends had started a private tutorial service in Hapoli. My step-son, who had come to the Apatani valley that winter with my wife and me, met Komo and his friends in the bazaar, and soon we were all friends. By the following year, I had begun to employ Komo as a research assistant, and over the next few years, in addition to the Subu Heniin work, he recorded, transcribed and help to translate several oral stories. Born in 1978, a high school graduate, Komo is now a middle-school teacher, married with one son. His father is a farmer, former trader and contractor, with small land holdings and modest assets. Their clan (Hage) is large, highly educated and widely respected in the valley. From our first meeting, Komo struck me as inquisitive, even studious by local standards. He likes to read and is eager to absorb information and facts. Not always as patient as Pai with the mistakes I made in comprehending Apatani ritual texts, he was just as reliable and professional in completing this long-term project. Transcribing twelve hours of recording was a demanding task, as anyone who has transcribed

6 7

Ete 1974: iv. On cicing and Apatani oral genres, see chapter 3.

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chapter one

even one hour will know. He is a modern Apatani man, fully literate in Hindi and competent in English, with motor bike and (recently) a computer, but without the facial tattoo and long hair common in his father’s generation. Still, he lives within traditional patterns, participates in rituals and has ceremonial friendships. Working together for several years toward a goal that we both felt was important, we became more than friends. His friendship was one of my chief pleasures of doing research in the Apatani valley. Chapter 7: Conclusions The final chapter of this book looks first backward and then forward. I will first bring together the various observations made in separate chapters about the chanted text, its ritual context, the performer and his performance. This summary will highlight two or three conclusions of the book as a whole, about fertility, exchange and social cohesion. These conclusions, it should be said now, are not based on all Apatani ritual practices and texts, but only on the Subu Heniin and the Murung. This is important because they are a particular kind of chant and ritual that celebrate prosperity and involve exchange practices. In Apatani terms, they are tiigo as opposed to cicing, or roughly ‘protective’ rather than ‘dangerous.’ Another book focused on Apatani healing rituals and their chants might draw another portrait of the nyibu, uncover other themes and reach different conclusions about local society. The second part of the final chapter takes up the issue of change. We are fortunate in that two different anthropologists wrote about and photographed parts of the Murung in the 1940s. However, although both Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf and Ursula Betts (née Graham Bower) described the public procession on the tenth day of the festival, neither saw the sacrifice and chant on the first day of a major Murung. In his extensive published and unpublished writings about Apatani society, Fürer-Haimendorf ’s reporting on these two key events extends to three sentences, and his outline of the Murung appears to be based on interviews.8 Betts, who saw at least as many Murung events as her predecessor, has even less to say about them. While she left us a vivid description of the procession, she offers no comment

8

Fürer-Haimendorf 1980: 151–55.

introduction

15

on its social significance and no description of any other part of the three-week festival.9 To be fair, both anthropologists had competing demands. FürerHaimendorf spent a good deal of his time resolving feuds between Apatanis and Nyishis, as well as between Apatanis, which meant that he was often outside the valley. Similarly, Betts assisted her husband, Colonel Tim Betts (who succeeded Fürer-Haimendorf as administrator of the Subansiri region), in negotiating those same feuds, paying porters and travelling beyond the valley. Despite these limitations, the documentation they produced provides a fascinating if incomplete picture of the Murung in the mid-twentieth century. Looking at that material from the 1940s, in the light of my fieldwork and the comparative literature, the Murung appears to be one of the few feasts of merit still conducted much as it was sixty years ago. It may be the only one. Today, however, the Apatani feast and the role of the ritual specialist who chants the Subu Heniin are being changed by the same forces that are altering Apatani society at large. The future of this complex event, its text, ritual and performer, is uncertain but not necessarily bleak. One of the dynamics of culture change is that although some traditions disappear, others acquire enhanced symbolic value.

9

Graham Bower 1953: 90–97.

CHAPTER TWO

APATANIS AND THEIR VALLEY Standing on a raised wooden platform and chanting the Subu Heniin text during a Murung, the ritual specialist sees little beyond his own performance. The narrow, bamboo houses of the sponsor and his clansmen line up in neat rows on either side of their clan platform. On their wide porches, people gather in anticipation of the events to come, while others move about in the open space around the platform. In Hija village, however, one platform sits high on a hill behind the village. Standing and chanting in that spot, the shaman looks out, above the roofs of several hundred houses, and sees the paddy fields stretching across the valley. On a clear day, he can see the outline of the six other villages, nestled between fields and mountains. He can also glimpse the road running through the valley, south to the administrative centre of Hapoli and north through a narrow gap into the mountains. By late morning, if the fog has lifted, the mountains with pine and hardwood forests will face him from the eastern side. This is the Apatani valley, about eight kilometres long and four kilometres across. Although Apatanis have an extensive vocabulary concerning wet-rice agriculture, they have no topographical word for ‘valley.’ In everyday speech, kiidi refers to ‘ground,’ ‘soil’ and ‘land’ as a flat surface.1 In ritual speech, siican is used to mean ‘earth,’ as opposed to ‘sky.’ While there is no term for ‘valley’ as a landscape, the Apatani valley as a settlement is known as Ziro, shortened from Ziro (or Silo) Supung. ‘Supung’ refers to a place of habitation, especially the series of locations where the ancestors lived during their long migration to Ziro. By extension, supung also has a social dimension. It denotes the entire population, rather than a village, group of villages or a clan. The valley-wide celebration of the summer festival of Dree, for example, is known as supung. Similarly, the distribution of meat to each

1 In ordinary speech, ‘land’ (‘country’ and ‘nation’ ) is ganda, an Assamese loan. In ritual speech, it is tenda.

a

p

u

a tr

Meghalaya

Br

a hm

r

nsir i

Assam

Dibrugarh

Nagaland

L oh

Tira p

h

it

CHINA

Map 1. Arunachal Pradesh and the Apatani valley.

0

100 km

town

capital

river

international border state border

BURMA

P r a d e s

North Lakhimpur

Manipur

Apatani valley

a l c h

ba

Itanagar

n

INDIA

e am

Dirang

A

u

a

Su

yom Si

BHUTAN

Tawang

Tibet

S i

g

K

n a

g

Dibang

n

18 chapter two

apatanis and their valley

19

house in the valley during a Murung is supung. If someone says, ‘The whole valley participated in the Murung,’ he will use the word ‘supung.’ Thus, as in English usage, ‘the valley’ (supung) refers to both a place and its population. This close relation between landscape and people in the Apatani valley is the focus of this chapter, with an eye on the three main topics of this book, especially the Murung festival. The physical limits of the valley influence Apatani settlement pattern, as well as family and house size. In a Murung, as we will see, the house is a ritual extension of the platform, just as the family is an extension of the clan that owns the platform. On a broader level, the enclosed valley enables the frequent social interactions that the 30,000 Apatanis living in it have moulded into a dense fabric of cooperation and exchange, including several ceremonial friendships activated during a Murung.2 Other physical aspects of the valley—its fertility and location—are factors in the formation of Apatani identity, cosmology and history. But we begin with food production. The shape of place Agriculture Practicing wet-rice agriculture at 1,500 metres in the mid-Himalayas, Apatanis confound preconceptions of upland and valley populations in the extended eastern Himalayas.3 Edmund Leach’s portrait of animist, swidden agriculturalists in the hills contrasted with Buddhist wet-rice cultivators in the valley is still influential. His scheme has been questioned, qualified and revised, but no one who has field experience in the region will doubt that it describes a partial reality.4 Even critiques retain the basic structure of Leach’s explanation. James Scott, for example, argues in his new book that hill and valley are actually interdependent, one being the ‘effect’ of the other. Thus, Scott suggests, the isolation, shifting

2 Another 5,000 live elsewhere, principally in Itanagar, the state capital, about seven hours away by bus, or four by car. 3 The Tangkhul Nagas, in the highlands of Manipur, are similarly anomalous (Fürer-Haimendorf 1985: 78–82). 4 Leach 1961: 52, passim. For a critique, see the essays in Robinne and Sadan 2007.

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cultivation and semi-itinerancy of hill peoples are a deliberate strategy of resistance to the domination of the valley-based states.5 Apatanis fit neither Leach’s nor Scott’s constructions. They are an upland population, who are sedentary and practice wet-rice cultivation with sophisticated methods of irrigation. And while, historically, they did not seek contact with state power in the plains, they are not, in Scott’s phrase, a ‘refugee population.’ Apatanis, in fact, play both hill and valley roles. On the one hand, they are a highland people who live on the margins of the dominant political and cultural systems in the Assam valley. As Tibeto-Burmanspeaking animists without a script or written history, and as a clanbased society without a centralised political organisation, they remain outside the mainstream of the Indian nation-state in which they now live. In these respects, they resemble their tribal neighbours in central Arunachal Pradesh. On the other hand, Apatanis are also wet-rice cultivators who live in a densely populated valley. Other tribes in the region, who live at higher elevations, practice shifting cultivation and are more itinerant, play the role of upland populations to the settled Apatanis. In short, the interdependence between ‘hill’ and ‘valley’ still makes sense, but only if we realise that a single terrain may contain more than one such relationship. Sheltered from cold northern winds, well watered and blessed with moderate temperatures, the Apatani valley is a fertile landscape. Standing well above the Assam plains, it is surrounded by mountains that climb up to 2,500 metres. While it looks like a bowl, it is actually uneven in shape. Long fingers of paddy fields poke into the spaces between the high hills on the eastern side, and hillocks here and there break its flat surface. Fed by several streams from the surrounding hills, a shallow river runs north to south down the centre of the valley. Although rain is possible in any month, it is heaviest from March through September, with an average annual rainfall of about 1,800 mm. The temperatures are mild, rarely going above 25° in summer or below freezing in winter. Settling in this valley (at an unknown date), an industrious people have created an efficient system of food production and resource management. Although cultivating rice in hillside terraces is not uncommon in Arunachal Pradesh, no other population in the state practices

5

Scott 2009: 26–28.

apatanis and their valley

21

wet-rice agriculture on such an intensive scale.6 Nearly every piece of level land outside the villages is devoted to paddy fields, some of which are kept permanently under water, while others are irrigated each spring. These plots in the centre of the valley produce two rice varieties, while a third, early ripening variety grown on dry land is more labour intensive and less popular as food. Taking advantage of the high rainfall and southward sloping landscape, Apatanis irrigate the paddy fields by building bunds at carefully graded heights. Into these caked mud walls, they insert wood sluices, hollowed out from the heavy trunks of hardwood trees that are cut and carried down the high slopes of the surrounding mountains. Apatanis use short-handled hoes to weed and dig, long poles to mix the soil and thin sickles to cut the crop, but no animals, machines or wells. They have also learned, initially through a government scheme in the 1950s, to use the paddy fields as fish farms, which in turn fertilise the fields. The paddy fields stand in the centre not only of the valley but of local culture, too. Four months are named after rice varieties or stages of cultivation. Viewed from the surrounding hills, the valley looks like a mosaic of thousands of irregular, small plots, dotted with granaries, islands of dry land, vegetable gardens and bamboo groves.7 Paddy plots are owned by families, who tend them throughout the year, although some of the labour is done by groups. Many of these groups ( patan) are informal, voluntary arrangements between eight to ten people, mostly women, who work in each other’s fields on a rotating basis. Increasingly, however, groups tend to consist of young men who work for wages during the heavy periods of the agricultural season. A few individual men and women, of all ages, also do paid labour. The work is constant, except for a few weeks light work in January (the Murung season) and a day here and there at other times. The cycle of moving earth, mixing the soil, repairing bunds, fitting sluices, sowing nursery beds, transplanting, plus weeding three or four times a summer, culminates in the harvest. Using sickles from Assam, Apatanis harvest an early crop in August and the main crop in October. By mid-November the wooden granaries are filled with husked rice. Although wet-rice cultivation on terraces exists in the Manipur hills and upland Southeast Asia, it is seldom as intensive as in the Apatani valley. 7 Many families own two or three plots, totalling one or two acres, but the average amount owned per family is less than one acre (Sundriyal et al. 2002: 212). 6

22

chapter two

To Daporijo

Lempya Reru Tajang

Old Ziro Air Field

Kalung

Hija Hari

Dutta Mudan Tage

Biirii

Kele River

Michi Bamin

Hong

Footpath Road Village/ Town Stream

0

To Assam

Hapoli

Map 2. Apatani valley.

½

1 mile

apatanis and their valley

23

Apatanis also cultivate millet, mostly for rice beer but also for a kind of gruel.8 As with paddy, they sow seeds in nursery beds and transplant them, in this case to dry land and paddy field bunds. To supplement their diet, they grow fruit trees, maize, potatoes, ginger, chillies and several vegetables, especially a local spinach, in small, fenced gardens on elevated ground. Apatanis also tend substantial bamboo and pine tree plantations, both on the edge of the valley and the lower slopes of the mountains. Large swaths of these forest tracts are owned by clans (and in some cases by families), who use them for a variety of purposes, especially supplying firewood and grazing mithuns, which roam several kilometres from their owner’s village. Mithun meat is eaten mostly during ritual celebrations, as is pork, although pigs are normally bought and raised for these occasions. Chickens are kept for the (hundreds of ) eggs used to read omens and to decorate altars, but they are eaten, too. Pork, bamboo shoots, wild boar and small forest rodents are local delicacies.9 A sharp rise in population, from an estimated 8,000 in the 1940s to about 30,000 today, has forced Apatanis to find new fields. They have experimented with terracing to the immediate south of the valley, but food production has kept pace with demand largely by extending fields into the farthest corners of the valley, increasing its width from three kilometres to four, and by levelling hillsides to create new fields. Population increase has, nevertheless, outstripped the valley’s capacity to produce sufficient food, and the pressure has been eased only by the fact that many families now purchase some of their food, including rice, in the market. Combining agronomic ingenuity with social cooperation in this favourable landscape, Apatanis have produced a relative, and relatively evenly spread, prosperity. While one in ten is landless, no one goes hungry for long. Village, house and family Apatanis have also adapted to the physical limits of their valley by living in densely populated settlements. Squeezed between flat fields and steep hillsides on the edge of the valley, each village (lemba) is laid out Millet is combined with rice in most varieties of Apatani beer, which I will call ‘rice beer’ throughout as rice is the main ingredient. 9 Of the nine bamboo species found in and around the valley, Apatanis eat four (bije, yai, tabyo and yabin). 8

24

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in tight rows of houses. Of the nine villages recognised as ‘original,’ the largest is Hong with approximately 800 houses and 4,000 people; the smallest is Michi Bamin, with a population of about 1,000.10 In the past thirty years, several other settlements have sprung up in order to absorb the steady rise in the population. None of these new satellites, however, is considered a lemba, and for ritual purposes each is treated as an extension of one of the original nine. The valley also has two towns, at its northern and southern ends, linked by a road and the busses that trundle between them throughout the day. Old Ziro, straddling the road near the helicopter strip at the north end, sprung up at the foot of a small hill where the first permanent government presence was established in the 1950s. Now it has about 5,000 people and a small bazaar. It became ‘old’ when a new administrative centre called Hapoli was hacked out of the forest at the southern end of the valley in the late 1960s. Hapoli, now the headquarters of Lower Subansiri District, is a major town of about 25,000 people, two-thirds of whom are Apatanis and the rest outsiders (other tribes, Assamese and other Indians). It contains a bazaar, a bank, post office, high school, hospital, court and a sprawling complex of government offices, where the District Commissioner presides. While a sizable number of Apatanis ‘live’ in Hapoli, every family also owns and maintains a house in a village, where at least some members of the family reside most of the time. And for ritual purposes, only the village counts. When meat is distributed to every house before the procession in a Murung, for instance, a person’s residence in Hapoli is ignored and the meat goes to his village house. Village residence also determines participation in the annual Myoko festival and the less elaborate forms of Murung. Village is also an important identity marker for men: a woman may move at marriage, but a man never changes his village. Limited space dictates the size of Apatani houses and families, too. Compared to the longhouses typical of their neighbours, they are small, approximately twelve to fifteen metres long and three to four metres wide. Lined up in regular rows, most of these narrow houses have a small backyard but few have gardens (although most families

10 The nine are: Hong, Hari, Michi Bamin, Hija, Dutta, Mudan Tage, Reru, Kalung and Tajang. Lempya, created in 1972, is an extension of Tajang. Biirii, which is much older, is attached to Mudan Tage.

apatanis and their valley

25

have a garden on raised ground near the paddy fields). In their overall structure and materials, however, Apatani houses are similar to other houses in central Arunachal Pradesh. Raised slightly more than one metre above the ground on thick hardwood (now concrete) posts, they have a hardwood and bamboo frame, flattened bamboo walls, bamboo porches and floors. Since the turn of the new century, galvanized, corrugated iron sheets have replaced thatch and bamboo as the roof. Wooden or concrete steps lead up to the front porch, which, along with the back porch, nearly equals the interior floor space of the house. In dry and warm weather, Apatanis sit on these porches to work, talk and relax during the day. Going through the wooden door, most Apatani houses have a sort of ante-chamber that is both a chicken coop and a storage space for large items, such as baskets and firewood. Further inside, the righthand side is often partitioned into two or three rooms, one or two for sleeping and one for a latrine, which also feeds the pigs below. The main interior space is traditionally divided into front and rear, each with a hearth, and each with gender and ritual associations. The front hearth (ago) is where women cook and congregate. The rear hearth (ura) is where men sit and talk, and where most rituals are conducted inside the house. These hearths also provide the names for the two nyibus who perform a Murung. The main shaman is the ura nyibu (also lapang nyibu), while the second man is the ago nyibu (also liipa [‘between’] nyibu). Adapting to these small houses, Apatanis live in nuclear families. The Apatani family (mihi-oho, ‘wife-children’ ) typically includes husband, wife and their children. An old, ill or widowed parent, or other relative, may live in the house for a period of time, but seldom on a long-term basis. This narrow Apatani house and its nuclear family play prominent roles in a Murung festival. The sponsor’s house is a sort of headquarters, the nodal point where social interaction and ritual exchange converge. Over the course of three weeks, this small space is a beehive of activity, where kinsmen and women, as well as ceremonial friends and well-wishers, come and go, bringing and receiving gifts of rice, meat and cash. Nearly all major rituals—from the divinations, which determine if and when a festival will be held, to the killing of the animals—occur in or around the house. One exception is the procession that winds through the valley, yet even it begins and ends at the sponsor’s house.

26

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Two other important events that take place beyond the house are led by the husband and wife, sometimes assisted by a nyibu. One occurs on the first day, when the wife leads the smearing of rice powder on the mithuns and cows tied to the platform (lapang) at the critical point in the chanting when the animals (or their souls) are guided by the nyibu along the paths to the underworld. Similarly, on the tenth day, when the taboo period begins, the wife goes to the fields, with a small group of family members and her husband’s clansmen, where she pours a mixture of pig blood, rice and rice beer into the nursery beds. The only important event outside the house not performed by the husband and wife—and it is an important exception—is the chanting of the Subu Heniin on the lapang. Nevertheless, as we will see, the lapang is a ritual extension of the sponsor’s house during a Murung. And, as if to emphasise this point, when the chanting is over, the animals are killed in the back and front of his house. The house is also the focal point of a Murung because it is nominally sponsored by an individual family. The husband and wife are repeatedly mentioned in the Subu Heniin chant as the couple, on whose behalf the nyibu invites the spirits and ancestors to the feast. Everything is done, the nyibu explains, to increase the prosperity of ‘both of them’ and their family. Although the husband and wife are the recognised sponsors, a Murung is more than an individual family achievement and requires considerable financial and material assistance from others. In recent years, more and more festivals are sponsored jointly by two brothers or patrilineal cousins in order to spread the financial burden. In fact, as this trend illustrates, the primary contributor to a Murung is the sponsor’s clan. Clan Apatanis are divided into seventy-eight exogamous, partilineal and patrilocal clans (halu), although this number changes over time. Some clans have died out in recent memory, while others have split into exogamous sub-clans (tulu), primarily in order to increase the number of eligible marriage partners. This alone makes clan the primary identity marker in Apatani society. One’s village is a close second, and sometimes the two overlap. A combination of village and clan membership, for example, determines eligibility for three types of Apatani ceremonial friendships (buniin, gyotii, pinyang). Also, villages are actually composites of clan neighbourhoods. Indeed, two of the original nine

apatanis and their valley

27

villages (Michi Bamin and Mudan Tage) are named after their two dominant clans. In everyday conversation, too, people often refer to a clan neighbourhood rather than to the composite village of which it is a part. Finally, clan ancestors are listed village-by-village in the Subu Heniin chant. Still, clan is the single most significant factor since it supplies a person’s first name and determines marriage partners. After marriage, a woman usually retains her father’s clan name, but she is formally inducted into her husband’s clan by eating a meal of pig’s blood and rice during the Myoko festival. Most important, clan membership places a person within a system of reciprocal obligations, not the least of which is to support a clansman when he performs a Murung. The clan’s contribution to a Murung is extensive.11 The sponsor’s clansmen (anu aban) bring truck loads of firewood, collect a particular variety of bamboo (tajer) in the forest, wind the cane ropes for tethering the sacrificial animals, cut them up and store their meat. Individual clansmen are chosen to supply rice beer during the festival, to provide meat (not sacrificial ) to thousands of rice donors on the second day and to distribute meat and drink to hundreds of participants in the procession a week later. A young clansman is also usually chosen by divination to swing the sacrificial axe, and a few older ones receive favoured parts of the sacrifice. Throughout the festival, clansmen gather at the sponsor’s house to help in various tasks, such as making pieces for the many altars and interpreting chicken livers and eggs. Large cash donations also come from these brothers, paternal uncles and paternal cousins. A man’s clanswomen play an essential role in his Murung, too. His sisters, paternal aunts and their daughters (collectively, barmii ) bring baskets holding up to 35 kilograms of rice on the second day of the festival. These women also help his wife to prepare the food and rice beer for guests at various times during the feast. Women who have married into the sponsor’s clan, including his own wife, are daughters-in-law (nyahii ). Some of them assist the sponsor’s wife in domestic tasks, but together they play a more prominent role in a major event on the first day, when the Subu Heniin is chanted. Lining up opposite the lapang in full ceremonial dress, with baskets of rice power and gourds of rice beer, they are led by the sponsor’s wife in decorating the

11

See chapter 4 for details.

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sacrificial animals with the beer and powder. Senior clansmen (and the odd politician), led by the sponsor, then follow these in-married clanswomen. Crucially, this public decoration of the animals occurs when the chanting nyibu leads the animals (or their souls) to the underworld, where their meat will be offered to the spirits in exchange for prosperity. This clan-led event can thus be seen as the crux of the entire three weeks of a Murung. This close association between clan and Murung is underlined in the Subu Heniin chant itself. Whenever the generic term for the sponsors (takar dumi ) is used, it is invariably followed by the generic clan name (tiike rade). In addition, one section of the chant is dominated by a long list of the clan ancestors.12 Finally, the clan basis of a Murung is enacted during the procession on the tenth day, when hundreds of the sponsor’s clansmen (and others) walk to every village and around every lapang in the valley. For all the above reasons, people refer to a Murung by the clan and not the sponsor’s name. For instance, if Padi (clan name) Tasan (personal name) is the sponsor, people will refer to the ‘Padi Murung’ (not ‘Tasan’s Murung’ or ‘Padi Tasan’s Murung’ ). In short, the success or mediocrity of a feast affects the standing of a clan as much as that of the individual sponsor. Ritual platform Murung and clan are physically linked, too, through the lapang. Every village has several of these ritual platforms, each of which belongs to a clan or group of clans. When a clan splits into two exogamous groups, one group constructs a new lapang. Raised about one metre above the ground on thick wooden posts, the platform consists of a number of heavy hardwood planks laid side by side. The largest platforms are about twelve metres long and four metres wide—roughly the interior floor space of a house—while the small ones are half that size. Today, when a lapang is repaired, its wooden posts and planks are replaced by concrete supports and slabs. Some lapangs are now protected from the sun and rain by a wooden structure supporting a roof of galvanized, corrugated iron sheets. 12 The translation lists 89 ancestors from 83 clans (some of which no longer exist or have split into two sub-groups). Unlike the famous case of the Tiv in west Africa (Bohannan 1952), in which genealogy is revised to match the changing status of clans, the Subu Heniin adds new clan names when they form.

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Apatani villages have another ritual structure that is entirely different in size and purpose. The nago, which resembles a small hut with a curved roof of bent bamboo, is owned by several clans. This means that each village has only one or two nagos, while most villages have four to six lapangs.13 Also, unlike the open-air lapang, the nago is a small, enclosed space, just large enough for two nyibus to crouch in while chanting during the Myoko festival. In a society with densely settled villages and small houses, the lapang provides a convenient space for public events. It was, for instance, the place where enemies and thieves were executed, and it remains the location of most major rituals. Its clean, flat, dry surface is also an excellent work space for various tasks, such as splitting long lengths of bamboo, and a convenient meeting place for groups, such as the many women’s savings cooperatives. It is also a good spot for idle pursuits, especially playing cards. The primary purpose of a lapang, however, is as a stage for a Murung. A day or two before the feast begins, young clansmen spend several hours on the platform winding stiff lengths of cane into ropes that will be used to lead and tether the mithuns and cows to it. Then, on the day of the sacrifice, it becomes a platform for public display. The nyibu stands on it all day reciting the Subu Heniin, and repeatedly declares, ‘I am the Aba Nibo shaman, standing on the lapang,’ while the in-married clanswomen pose in tableau opposite. Lapangs also define the route of the procession ( penii ), which takes place a week or so after the Subu Heniin performance. On their walk through the valley, clansmen and boys (and now others) go to each lapang in every village and circle around it before proceeding to the next one. Significantly, the lapang is central not only to a Murung festival among the living but also to its parallel event held in the underworld. In three different sections of the Subu Heniin chant, the nyibu lists the spirits and their lapangs in the land of the dead, where they will receive a share of the sacrifice.14 The origin story of the lapang is also revealing.15 Long ago, a tree originated from a protean force and grew so tall that no one could see

13 Kalang village has only one nago, divided into two small chambers, one for each of its two clan groups. 14 See details at the end of Chapter 3. 15 Blackburn 2008: 81–87.

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its top and so hard that no one could chop it down. On top of this ‘tallest tree’ lives a man-eating monster, who is killed. A mysterious insect, born of the same primeval force as the tree, eats through and fells it. From its adamantine wood, all existing lapangs are made. The lapang, along with the sponsor’s house and village, is thus placed at the centre of Apatani horizontal cosmology (see below). As a ritual extension of the sponsor’s house and a stage for the nyibu’s performance, the clan-owned platform is synonymous with the Murung. Conceptual schemes We have seen that the physical contours of the Apatani valley influence settlement pattern, house and family size, and that all these play a role in the Murung festival. This circumscribed landscape is also a factor in the construction of two major conceptual schemes: cosmology and ethnic categories. Ethnic categories Apatanis define themselves in opposition to two groups with whom they have contact, and from whom they attempt to maintain cultural and spatial distance. The first of these groups is the misan. While misan is the Apatani term for neighbouring tribes, it refers chiefly to Nyishis and Hill Miris, who live in the surrounding hills or at a distance of a few days walk. These populations are close to Apatanis in language, clan system, ritual practices, mythology and oral tradition. The equally fundamental contrasts are largely the result of adaptation to different landscapes. If Apatanis live in nuclear families, small houses and dense villages, their closest neighbours tend (or tended) to live in scattered settlements of a few large longhouses, each with several, often polygynous, families. Similarly, whereas Apatanis get their food primarily from paddy fields and gardens, their close cultural kin rely (or relied) on shifting agriculture and hunting. These differences are enough to make Apatanis look down on their neighbours as rough and rustic. Because the valley was a natural site for an administrative base, this attitude was entrenched when the rice growers gained an early start in education and literacy. All this is changing—many Nyishis and Hill Miris no longer live in longhouses, practice polygyny or hunt. Indeed, many now live in the state capital

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and towns, and some are prominent in politics and business.16 Still, the Apatani perception of them as backward remains. Apatani draw an even thicker line between themselves and the halyang. Halyang is the local word for non-tribals, principally the Assamese, and by extension other Indians, the British and all foreigners. From their first contact with external authority in the late nineteenth century, Apatanis have regarded these powerful and enigmatic outsiders with a mixture of jealousy and anxiety. Colonisation of the valley, begun by the British in 1897 and continued by the Indian state after 1947, is now nearly complete. Traditional structures of authority and control have been replaced by political, legal and military systems that ultimately answer to New Delhi. Recent inroads of halyang religions, the swift rise of Christian conversion and the steady creep of Hinduism, have also disrupted local ritual life, prompting some Apatanis to embrace a revitalisation movement (Donyi-Polo). Despite a certain degree of modernisation and assimilation to the Indian mainstream, via the new media, literacy in Hindi and English, increased travel and local availability of goods from the rest of India, most Apatanis consider the halyang as distinct and incompatible with themselves. To be identified indiscriminately as ‘Indian’ is a mild form of insult. When, in 2003, the first Apatani dictionary written by Apatanis defined a clan group as ‘low caste,’ it was burned.17 Apatani conceptual barriers against both these ethnic categories are shored up by social practices. Marriage with misan is rare in the valley, and marriage with halyang is unheard of anywhere. Neither group is allowed by custom to live or own land in a village. Until the 1940s, the halyang had no presence in the valley, save a two-day visit, once a decade, by an official based in Assam. A permanent but minor administrative post was set up only in the 1950s. Relations with the misan are historically more extensive and the conceptual boundaries more ambiguous. Nyishis and Hill Miris traded and feuded with Apatanis, yet Apatani women spent weeks in nearby Nyishi villages, weaving for them in return for raw cotton. Apatanis also entered into ceremonial friendships with both Nyishis and Hill Miris.18 As a result of these intimate, if volatile, relations, some misan assimilated into Apatani society, Some Nyishi populations, however, still follow earlier practices (Aisher 2006, 2007). 17 See Blackburn (forthcoming, “tribal identities”). 18 These manyang relations are still active (see chapter 4). 16

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as slaves, servants, bondsmen and women. Some later married a local person, which made them Apatanis and not misan.19 Today, both misan and halyang live in substantial numbers in Hapoli, the administrative centre in the valley. Until the mid-twentieth century, in other words, virtually everyone living in the valley was Apatani. And, if we except Hapoli at its southern edge, this remains true today. The villages and paddy fields, where no outsider lives or owns land, continue to provide a clear boundary for Apatani identity. The village (after clan) is not only central to an individual’s identity but to the expression of Apatani cultural identity, too. All important rituals (aside from some healing rituals) are performed only in a village, and never in Hapoli. This is why the two Apatani ritual structures, lapang and nago, are found only in villages. By the same logic, the Murung procession goes through every village, and around every lapang, but does not enter Hapoli. Conversely, beginning in the 1990s, churches and Hindu shrines have appeared in Hapoli and its outskirts but not in villages. Today, however, a few churches have been allowed on the edge of villages, and even that barrier will probably soon be breached. The enclosed and ethnically homogeneous valley provides visible boundaries for the otherwise ambiguous categories of ‘internal’ and ‘external.’ Unlike the landscape of their more spatially dispersed and itinerant neighbours, the physical limits of the local terrain tell Apatanis who they are and who they are not. Perhaps that is why, uniquely among tribes in central Arunachal Pradesh, their ethnonym is also their autonym. ‘Apatani’ is a compound of apa (‘father/grandfather’ ) and tanii, their name for themselves. With increased literacy and contact with the outside world, ‘Apatani’ is now used more and more, especially by younger and educated people, and especially in English. Most people, however, still refer to themselves as tanii. Cosmology The significance of the valley landscape is evident in another conceptual scheme. Published descriptions of Apatani cosmology, and most that I elicited during fieldwork, are restricted to the land of the dead

19 Today, too, some young Assamese and Nepalese girls working as servants marry in and become assimilated Apatanis.

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(Neli) and the paths leading to it. There is, however, another local cosmology, one which moves horizontally through a series of realms, across the valley and beyond. In effect, Apatanis imagine two cosmologies, one horizontal and one vertical. The horizontal cosmology consists of a series of spatial realms. Although the names of the realms, which are also categories of ancestors, are known to some senior men, the journey through them is described only in the Subu Heniin. Few people other than accomplished nyibus could discuss these cosmological realms, and although the details (boundaries, place-names and names of ancestors) varied, the names of the realms and their sequence were consistent among the men I interviewed. The visualisation of this cosmology in the diagram below, as a series of concentric circles, is my own idea. However, when I showed a sketch to Mudan Pai, he recognised it immediately.

neha siican myodi liipa wi

Horizontal Apatani Cosmology

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The inner circle is neha (‘human’ ), which includes the sponsor’s house, his clan lapang and his village. The next realm is siican (‘earth’ ) and encompasses the other villages plus the rest of the valley, that is, fields, streams, groves and inward-facing slopes of the enclosing mountains. Dozens of these topographical locations are named in the Subu Heniin chant because they are associated with ancestors, especially the ‘sacred groves’ on the outskirts of each village, which are ‘gates’ through which the nyibu travels.20 On the other side of the mountains, beyond the valley, is the myodi (‘forest’ ) realm, which contains another set of named rivers and mountains associated with other ancestors. This realm, which extends over an area reached by a two- or three-day walk, includes known locations. Only a few hours to the southwest of the valley is Kure, the mountain top where the British government established an outpost attacked by Apatanis in 1948. The Supyu River, about a two-day walk to the east, is another. A place with special mythological meaning is the confluence of the Kure and Kime rivers, which become the Kamla River, a major tributary of the Subansiri. This confluence (rutii hatii in ritual speech) is also where water and fish originate, as described in the Subu Heniin.21 The fourth realm is liipa (‘between’ ). It is a transitional zone that lies between the previous realms of humans and ancestors, on the one hand, and the spirit realm, on the other. Its cross-over nature is indicated by the fact that most of its residents are called ‘spirit-men’ (wi myu) and are potential ‘ghosts’ (igii ). The last realm in this horizontal cosmology is called wi (‘spirit’ ), where the nyibu names and makes contact with spirits (rather than ancestors). Even nyibus had little to say about this fifth realm, which appears to be defined primarily by its location beyond the others. Each realm, with the exception of the last, has a number of ancestors (kalo) who are listed in the Subu Heniin. Most of these ancestors are associated with a named river, forest, field, grove, mountain or ‘land’ (tenda). In his recitation of the Subu Heniin, Mudan Pai named twelve ancestors in the ‘between’ realm, sixty-two in the ‘forest’ realm

See chapter 5 for more details on these ‘gates.’ ‘Rute-Hate’ was mistakenly reported as a village (Fürer-Haimendorf 1955, map between pp. 10–11). 20 21

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and forty in the ‘earth’ realm. Some of these names refer to a place (river or mountain, for instance) rather than an ancestor, and the line between the two is not always transparent. Mudan Pai then listed eighty-nine clan ancestors in the ‘human’ realm, grouping them village by village. His naming of Apatani clan ancestors was followed by a list of eighteen ancestors of Nyishi and Hill Miri clans, plus two halyang and one Sulung ancestor.22 Where exactly these Sulung and halyang ancestors are situated in the cosmology, however, is unclear. Navigating within this cosmology, the nyibu has two orientation points. First, he can begin in the inner realm of house/village/lapang, whence he moves outward and then back again as he summons ancestors and spirits. The other starting point is rutii hatii, the confluence of the Kuru and Kime rivers, and origin of fish and water. Twice during the Subu Heniin—while naming ancestors in the ‘forest’ realm and rivers in the Duttu Hayu section (see chapter 3)—the nyibu begins his list from this symbolic spot. He then moves clockwise, going south, west, north and ending up again at rutii hatii in the northeast. Vague at its edges and seldom articulated, this horizontal cosmology is nevertheless clearly mapped onto the Apatani valley. As with local ethnic identities, the landscape supplies visible dimensions to conceptual categories, here a series of ancestral realms. Similarly, the mountain barrier splits the schema, again like the ethnic classification, into two groups: inside and outside the valley. Rivers, fields and forests within the valley (‘earth’ and ‘human’ realms) can be named by many people, and Apatani clan ancestors are known to most senior men. Places and ancestors beyond the valley (‘forest’, ‘between’ and ‘spirit’ realms), however, are known to few people except nyibus. As a local map, this horizontal cosmology also provides a toehold on the slippery surface of Apatani history. Despite the discovery of neolithic tools and ceramics in central Arunachal Pradesh, no evidence connects these artefacts with the populations who now live in the region.23 An inscription on a stone pillar probably from the early sixteenth century records the existence of Mishmi tribes in their present

22 The Sulung are a small population living some distance to the northwest of the Apatani valley. 23 Ashraf 1990, in the Kamla Valley. See also Tripathy 1998.

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settlement area, to the east of central Arunachal Pradesh.24 Written references to tribes in the region, in the earliest redactions of the Ahom buranji chronicles, take us back to the seventeenth century.25 Linguists can demonstrate historical relations between Tibeto-Burman speakers in the extended eastern Himalayas, including the Tani group, and some have proposed a chronology.26 Apatani oral accounts of migration are revealing cultural statements but not historical documents. In sum, as yet no evidence fixes a population in a particular place at a specific date. Nothing older than hearsay references in colonial records places Apatanis in their valley before the mid-nineteenth century. In this historiographical fog, Apatani cosmology stands, if not as a stone pillar, at least as a verbal landmark. The topographical specificity and structure of this imagined geography—dozens of named rivers, fields, forests and mountains centred on a valley—suggests that the people who created it have lived in the area for some time. The Apatani scheme divides the natural world into five spatial realms, which are categories of ancestors. The cosmology also contains a mythology—‘earth’ is born from a protean female body, after which named mountains and rivers appear, including a confluence where water and fish originate. All this is articulated in the most authoritative text and public performance of local culture. Finally, as explained in the next chapter, this landscaped cosmology provides part of the map for the journey to the land of the dead and expresses the core theme of fertility. Taking all this into account, it seems likely that Apatanis have lived in the valley for more than the 150 years for which we have historical evidence. I would suggest a minimum of three hundred years, and possibly more.

24 The inscription in Ahom/Tai script records an agreement between Ahoms and Mishmis (Dikshit 1927). 25 Ahom chronicles mention Abors [Adis], Miris [Hill Miris, Mising] and Daflas [Nyishis]. See also Barua 1930; Bhuyan 1933; Bhuyan 1947; Saikia 2004: 120–25. Several medieval Tibetan texts (Blackburn 2003/2004, n. 18) and a seventeenth-century Mughal text (Raferty 1881) refer to unspecified populations living in present-day Arunachal Pradesh. 26 Sun 1993; van Driem 2001: 410; LaPolla 2001; Post 2007.

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History Tilting toward Assam Leaving that speculation aside, the past two hundred years show us that the valley has played a major role in the history of Apatani relations with the outside world. Its relative isolation was a factor in determining the frequency and nature of colonial contact, and once that contact was made, its fertility influenced colonial perceptions and actions in the valley. At only 1,500 metres, and a few days walk from Assam, Apatanis were hardly remote. Yet, until the 1940s they remained beyond any effective external governmental control. Historically, Apatanis had contact with the outside world through trade, but these relations were apparently not extensive and usually indirect. Their valley lies roughly equidistant from the Tsangpo and the Brahmaputra rivers, and this geographical position was reflected in their material culture. Although they highly valued the ‘Tibetan’ bells, brass plates, swords and beads they obtained through intermediaries, Apatanis had no known contact with Tibetans near or over the high mountains. Likewise, while Apatanis acquired salt, metal items and other beads from Assam, they had limited interaction with the Ahoms and Assamese in the plains.27 Extrapolating from colonial records and interpreting oral tradition, it appears that until the end of the nineteenth century Apatanis traded with the plains largely through Nyishi and Hill Miri middlemen. British colonialism in Assam in the early nineteenth century unsettled this equilibrium between Tibet and Assam, tilting the Apatani valley southward and putting in train a series of changes that continue to this day. True, the high Himalayas to the north always presented a greater barrier than the low hills to the south, and the trek to Tibet was double the five- or six-day walk to the plains. But to these topographical advantages, colonialism added economic opportunities. By the end of the century, Assam had become a magnet that drew Apatanis down to the plains for trade, seasonal labour and later for education in missionary schools. It was also from Assam that non-tribal outsiders first visited the Apatani valley in the late nineteenth century. In turn, by the early decades of the twentieth century Apatanis began to visit the

27

Apatanis also produced their own salt (see below, p. 40).

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plains regularly. By mid-century the valley had become a military and administrative outpost on the northeast frontier of colonial India. These developments would have been difficult to predict even by a close reading of pre-colonial and early colonial records. As mentioned above, several texts and an inscription refer to various populations in present-day Arunachal Pradesh. None, however, contains a name that we can associate with ‘Apatani.’ The earliest indisputable, albeit indirect, reference to the inhabitants of the valley appears in 1845.28 This virtual absence of Apatanis in colonial records of the first half of the nineteenth century is partly due to location since their valley is not in the low hills to the south where contact with Assam and the colonial government was frequent.29 Nor did it lie along the proposed trade route, further east in the Lohit River valley, which the British government hoped would connect Assam with China and Burma.30 Blackmail payments and trade fairs The relative isolation of the valley meant that, during this expansion of colonial power across Assam in the nineteenth century, Apatanis remained outside the two institutions that regulated relations between hills and plains. Both were established first by the Ahoms (13th–19th centuries) and revised by the British after they took control of Assam in the 1830s. The first of these institutions was a system of annual payments ( posa) made to various hill tribes to prevent them from raiding villages in the plains. Posa, in other words, was a thinly disguised form of blackmail used by the state to impose its idea of law and order on the frontier. For the Ahoms, and latter the British, posa was central to their negotiations with unpredictable tribes, while to the tribes it was form of tax on the land they claimed to own in the plains. During Ahom rule, Nyishis, Hill Miris and others were given salt, animals, cash, rice, machetes and cloth by families in villages near the hills. Houses that made this payment were thereby exempt from paying tax to the Ahom treasury. By the 1850s, many of these payments were formalised in treaties, which settled small-scale wars with tribes, and were paid in cash by the colonial government. This method

28 29 30

The term ‘Onka Miris’ might refer to Apatanis (Wilcox 1832). Chakravarty 1995, appendix. Barpujari 1986: 4.

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of purchasing peace with tribes continued to operate as late as the 1950s in some parts of what is now Arunachal Pradesh. In the Subansiri region, some Nyishi and Hill Miri clans received posa throughout the colonial period. Apatanis, however, did not. Because they did not regularly visit the plains, let alone raid villages there, they kept outside the thickening web of state-tribal relations. The second institution that regulated intercourse between hill and valley populations until the end of the nineteenth century was a series of annual trade fairs. Set up by the Ahoms in over a dozen locations running along the base of the hills, from Cooch Behar to central Assam, these fairs were known as duar, or the ‘door’ through which trade passed. They declined during the chaos of the last decades of Ahom rule, but the British revived and regularised them, even adding new locations. Fairs for the Arunachal tribes were located at Udalgiri, Charduar, Lakhimpur and Sadiya, and they were an important nexus of interaction between the colonial state and hill tribes, each deriving benefit from the exchange of goods. Although the fairs were eventually eclipsed by the new economic markets that developed in the major towns of Assam, they thrived through much of the nineteenth century. Each year, during the ‘cold season,’ hundreds of Nyishis, Hill Miris, Akas, Monpas, Sherdukpens, Adis, Galos, Idu Mishmis, Digaru Mishmis and Miju Mishmis came down from the hills to sell, buy and barter goods. But no Apatanis came. Their absence became a motif in the colonial narrative about Apatanis and one of the traits by which early observers distinguished them from other tribes in central Arunachal Pradesh. The first detailed account of Apatanis, gathered from their neighbours by E. T. Dalton in 1845, comments that they ‘never visit the plains,’ and this phrase was repeated in later colonial sources.31 With uncanny symmetry, this first colonial report was echoed exactly a hundred years earlier in one of the last: ‘To visit the plains was an exciting adventure [for Apatanis], but to live there—never!’32 Apatanis did not undertake the several-day journey to the plains for two main reasons. First, they did not want to travel through Nyishi country. Although Apatanis traded with local Nyishis, primarily exchanging rice for cotton and pigs, they were surrounded and

31 32

Dalton 1845: 428; Michell 1973 [1883]: 284; MacKenzie 1989 [1884]: 34. Davy 1945: 79.

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outnumbered by them. This historical enmity frequently boiled over into feuds and raids, plus the occasional murder, so travelling through their country in small numbers would expose them to capture, at the very least. For their part, Nyishis prevented Apatanis from trading in the plains in order to maintain their advantage as middlemen.33 For example, it was largely through Nyishis that Apatanis obtained the valuable metal hoes made in or traded from Assam. Indeed, the first foreign visitor to the valley in 1889 commented that ‘the Apa Tanang is a keen trader, and, if they could come down to the plains in perfect safety, would do so in great numbers and develop considerable trade.’34 The second reason for not visiting Assam was that Apatanis were comparatively self-sufficient. ‘The main need of the tribesman visiting the plains is rice,’ declared J. P. Mills.35 Apatanis, however, grew their own. The scarcity of rice in the highlands also meant that Apatanis could trade their surplus to their neighbours for the wool, bells, beads, cotton and pigs that they desired. Besides rice, Apatanis produced another essential commodity that most groups in the area had to get from Tibet or Assam. By burning a reed that grows in rice fields they made their own salt.36 Although tapyo did not fully satisfy the local demand for salt, it did provide some relief from the Nyishi stranglehold on this trade. Even today, when salt is available in large supplies in the bazaar in Hapoli, almost every Apatani family keeps a supply of this local product to give as gifts on ceremonial occasions. While tapyo has long since outlived its original purpose, it remains a symbol of Apatani self-sufficiency. Uninvolved in either trade fairs or blackmail payments, both impeded from yet not wholly dependent upon trade with the plains, Apatanis had limited contact with Assam and no formal interaction with the colonial state. Two events at the end of the nineteenth century brought an end to this relative isolation.

33 34 35 36

Crowe 1890 (I thank Sarit Chaudhuri for transcribing this document for me). Crowe 1890. Mills 1943: 1. This local salt explains the absence of goitre among Apatanis.

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European visitors and colonial contact H. M. Crowe, manager of the Joyhing tea estate near North Lakhimpur, at the base of hills, had long wished to visit the ‘mysterious Aka Miri country, the home of the red-tailed Apa Tanangs.’37 He fulfilled that desire on Christmas Eve 1889, when he reached the valley and stayed outside Hong, the southernmost Apatani village. When Crowe heard local stories about captives taken by Nyishis and held in the plains, he reassured his hosts that they would be protected and receive justice if they reported their grievances to the British official at North Lakhimpur. Crowe’s advice appears to have been heeded since in the following year Apatanis began to ‘come down to Lakhimpur in considerable numbers, though only in large parties.’38 Some, in fact, came to Mr. Crowe’s tea estate, where they worked under Hill Miri and Nyishi contractors. There, in November 1896, a group of Apatanis attacked the house of a Hill Miri contractor, killed two men and took others captive.39 Because this crime occurred on British soil, within the ‘Inner Line,’ it prompted a formal response. In January 1897, an armed expedition climbed up to the valley, conducted negotiations over three days and reached a settlement. Apatanis turned over the captives and two guns (one of which was Crowe’s), after which they presented the British with three mithuns and a valuable ‘Tibetan’ bell. Capt. McCabe, military commander of the expedition, observed that his hosts were ‘good-natured and industrious.’40 Apatani oral histories are equally complimentary toward their visitors. They explain that McCabe, unable to take the mithuns back down to the plains and unwillingly to give them to his Nyishi porters whom he distrusted, handed them back to the Apatanis. These two related events at the end of the nineteenth century—teaplanter Crowe’s visit and the amicable end to the military expedition—led to an increased traffic between the Apatani valley and the Assam plains. McCabe himself observed in 1897 that ‘[t]he present tendency is to seek trade relations with the plains of Assam . . . [and] the Apa Tanangs show a strong leaning towards salt, hoes and daos

37 38 39 40

Crowe 1890. Crowe 1890. The full story is given in Blackburn 2008: 129–32. Crowe 1890.

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[machetes] imported from our district of Lakhimpur.’41 In the early decades of the twentieth century, this inclination developed into an annual visit to the area around North Lakhimpur. As early as 1912, a British officer who travelled through the Apatani valley noted that ‘a brisk trade with the plains has sprung up.’42 Information about the extent and frequency of this trade in colonial sources is scant but consistent. Many annual reports declare that ‘a number of Apatanangs visited the plains for trade,’ and others confine their observations on Apatanis to a single sentence praising their ‘good behaviour.’43 Nevertheless, by collating these fragments with other published sources and with fieldwork interviews, a general picture emerges. During the half century from the 1890s to the 1940s, for example, Apatanis came down to the plains in groups of about fifteen to thirty men. The total number who visited each year might have been close to 100, although the number was affected by shifting fortunes in the tea industry and new trade regulations. Apatanis made the trek almost exclusively during the winter, especially in January, and stayed from two to six weeks before returning to the valley. The number of Apatanis visiting the plains was limited not just by an historical fear of hostile neighbours. Disease originating from the halyang territory of Assam was also a factor. Although traffic with the plains was limited, it was enough to transmit the influenza epidemic of 1918–1920 to the valley. With the disease ‘raging in their villages,’ a group of Apatanis came to the Political Officer in North Lakhimpur and asked for medicine.44 Later, in the 1940s, when the colonial government demanded porters, many Apatanis came back ill and died, mostly of malaria.45 Nor was financial gain much incentive. In the first decades of the twentieth century, ‘only slaves, descendants of slaves or very poor men were in the habit of going to the plains.’46 Certainly the chillies and ginger that Apatanis brought down to trade had little value compared to the goods they took back to the valley. Only by earning wages were Apatanis able to purchase the cloth, beads, salt and metal items (pots, machetes and hoes) that they wanted. McCabe 1897. Kerwood 1912: 20. 43 Frontier Tribes of Assam, Administration Report, 1911–1941; Province of Assam, Administration Report, 1914–15; Census of India volumes for Assam 1891–1941. 44 Frontier Tribes of Assam, Administration Report, 1919–1920. 45 Fürer-Haimendorf 1945: 26, 133. 46 Fürer-Haimendorf 1962: 54. 41 42

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While some came down to trade, largely in the bazaar at North Lakhimpur, most Apatanis came to work in the nearby tea estates and paddy fields. Those who worked in tea estates, however, did not pick the tea; that work was (and still is) done by tribals from beyond Assam, mainly from Orissa. Instead, Apatanis helped to clear the jungle for new plantings during the winter. How many of the annual Apatani visitors did this cleaning work in the tea industry is unknown. Census data on the nearly one million tea-workers in Assam in the early decades of the twentieth century, for example, show that only a few dozen came from the hills north of the Brahmaputra River and that none were Apatani.47 Nor do we know much about other Apatanis, who were hired by Assamese farmers to harvest the paddy crop during January, except that this was apparently a ‘long-established custom.’48 Imposition of external authority Overall, despite this annual trek and the expanding colonial state, intercourse between Apatanis and Assam remained negligible right up to the Second World War. Limited Apatani travel to the plains was matched by a desultory colonial interest in the valley. Only twice, during the half century between the military expedition to the valley in 1897 and Indian Independence in 1947, were Apatanis officially sought by colonial authorities. In 1915, Apatanis captured two Nyishis, for which an Apatani man was held in jail for nearly two years.49 In 1932, the Political Officer at North Lakhimpur climbed up to the valley, seeking thieves accused of taking iron railings from a tea estate (and probably forged into the valuable hoes), but he was unable to make any arrests.50 Three other official visits were made to

A list of tea-workers in Assam in 1911 records only 21 Dafla (Nyishi) and 16 (Hill ) Miri (Census of India 1911, vol. 3. Assam, Pt II Tables, Table III, p. 223). Ten years later, of more than 920,000 tea-workers only 37 (28 male, 9 female) had been born ‘in tribal areas beyond the Inner Line’ (Census of India 1921, vol. 3. Assam, Pt II Tables, Table IX, p. 352ff.). Another list of tea-workers reveals 35 Dafla (Nyishi), 1 Aka and 23 (Hill ) Miri (Census of India, 1921, vol. 3. Assam, Pt II Tables, Table X, p. 366ff ). 48 Frontier Tribes of Assam, Administration Report, 1929–1930. 49 Annual Report on the Administration of Assam for the years 1915–1916 & 1916–1917 & 1917–1918. 50 Frontier Tribes of Assam, Administration Report, 1932–33. By this date, Apatanis had learned blacksmithing and were keen to make their own hoes rather than buy them in the plains. 47

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the valley in the first half of the twentieth century, each for a period of two or three days only.51 This sporadic contact with the colonial authorities in the plains ended in the 1944, when a government outpost was established in the Apatani valley. It was only semi-permanent, consisting of two bamboo houses and a storehouse, but it paved the way to a full-fledged civil and military presence, including an airstrip. While the small Apatani valley may not have seemed an obvious choice for the first government outpost in the region, the strategic advantages of its fertility escaped the attention of few British visitors. As early as 1893, a military officer, who reportedly accompanied Mr. Crowe on his second visit to the valley, pointed out that it ‘is a place where troops could at once find almost all they required.’52 The flat space and abundant rice crop, he noted, made it ‘an admirable site for a cantonment.’53 In a later report, G. A. Nevill advised the government to establish an outpost and garrison in the valley because ‘rations [for soldiers] would be bought locally.’54 A few years later, Nevill’s successor reiterated this point when he advised that the valley is the only place in the region where ‘it might be possible to feed a garrison largely on local produce.’55 Although by this time government outposts had been established in the Siang River valley, some distance to the east, no interior post had been set up in the Subansiri area. And none was established until events on an international scale forced the government to act. By the early 1940s, with the Japanese army in the Manipur valley and Naga Hills, and the Tibetan state pushing south at several points along the eastern Himalayas, the British government in New Delhi grew alarmed at the vulnerability of its northeast flank.56 Little was done, however, until 1943 when J. P. Mills was appointed Adviser to the Governor of Assam for Tribal Affairs with the primary task of securing the McMahon Line to the north. More famous for his ethnographies, written while serving as a government official in the Naga

51 The Miri Mission came in 1912; political officer G. A. Nevill visited in 1926–27 and political officer G. S. Lightfoot in 1935–36. 52 Dun 1959 [1897], as quoted in Elwin 1959: 199. This reference remains unverified. 53 Dun 1959 [1897], as quoted in Elwin 1959: 199. This reference remains unverified. 54 Frontier Tribes of Assam, Administration Report, 1927–28. 55 Frontier Tribes of Assam, Administration Report, 1928–29. 56 Singh 1988: 52ff.

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Hills, Mills also made the crucial decision affecting the course of history in the Apatani valley. Surveying the situation in 1943, Mills discovered that the government had ‘no knowledge at all of the hill tribes’ in the Subansiri.57 He then decided that ‘the first step should be to establish friendly relations with the Apa Tanis. Their country, which seems to be an earthly Paradise, is thickly populated and very fertile. They could therefore supply porters and possibly rations [rice], and their friendship would diminish the risk of attacks by Daflas.’58 Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf Mills acted swiftly on his own advice and in early 1944 sent a young anthropologist to accomplish this ‘first step.’ Christoph von FürerHaimendorf had met Mills previously, once in London while the Austrian attended Malinowski’s seminar and then in northeast India when he began his fieldwork among the Konyak Nagas in late 1936. After thirteen months of fieldwork, and some time in Austria, he returned to India intending to go back to the Naga Hills, where Mills was District Commissioner. Two weeks after he arrived in India, however, war broke out in Europe. Holding a German passport (after Austria was annexed in 1938), Fürer-Haimendorf was considered an enemy alien. He had, as he later explained, ‘good connections’ who arranged for him to be sent to Hyderabad, where he was able to do extensive fieldwork among several tribes.59 In early 1944, he unexpectedly, received a telegram summoning him to Shillong, where Mills asked him to go to the Apatani valley as ‘Special Advisor, Subansiri.’ His task was not only to learn about local tribesmen but also to determine the extent of Tibetan and Chinese influence and to assert British control in this contested region. Fürer-Haimendorf, and his wife, Betty, reached North Lakhimpur in February 1944. Although they wanted to start immediately, a lack of supplies and porters kept them frustrated for three long weeks, until a group of Apatanis arrived unannounced at the local government office

57 58 59

Mills 1943. Mills 1943: 2. Interview in 1983. www.digitalhimalaya.com.

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and asked for help in their feud with a Nyishi clan. It was a fortuitous coincidence that Fürer-Haimendorf was in North Lakhimpur looking for guides at the same time that these men arrived seeking government assistance. After walking for eight days, Fürer-Haimendorf arrived in the Apatani valley and was enthusiastically received as an ally. His two months that spring, plus another six months in the winter and spring of 1944–1945, laid the foundation for the establishment of external authority in the valley. Mills had chosen the right person. The enormous goodwill that greeted Fürer-Haimendorf on arrival seemed justified when the government burned the houses of the enemy. In Apatani eyes, this was precisely why the outsiders had come. There was, nevertheless, a price to pay: government action had required a platoon of Assam Rifles. Fürer-Haimendorf finally left in spring 1945, but the soldiers returned a year later, to accompany the new administrator, F. N. Betts. He and his wife, the anthropologist Ursula Betts (née Graham Bower), left the valley in spring 1948. The soldiers, however, remained. In these few years, backed up by Assam Rifles, a good supply of salt and other essentials, airdropped or portered up from the plains, plus the residual support of local people, the new authorities made a substantial impact on life in the valley. These two young administrator-anthropologist couples intervened, or were drawn into, numerous disputes between Apatani families, clans and villages over marriages and mithuns, debts and thefts. The end result of their interventions, however well-intentioned, was the erosion of the authority of local village councils (bulyang). Before 1944, the bulyang had settled cases, issued fines and ordered punishments.60 Now these decisions were taken by outsiders. Armed resistance, 1948 Resentment grew slowly. Not only were the traditional councilmen disgruntled at losing power, but each time the new administrators enforced their decision, they made an enemy of the losing party. Another serious source of discontent was forced porterage. The lack

60 If their decision was not followed, the guilty party had his leg placed in a heavy log or a family member seized as ransom. If all else failed, mock warfare (gambu) ensued in which most of valley threatened the intransigent party.

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of a sufficient number of government-employed porters in the Subansiri area (mostly Galos) required the government to employ local people. Few Apatanis, however, were willing, even at a decent wage, to carry the heavy packs of supplies up from Assam and back down to the plains.61 When they refused, they were beaten or jailed. Mills’ prediction that Apatanis would ‘supply porters’ was misjudged. These two developments—erosion of traditional authority and forced porterage—fed an anger and frustration that soon turned to violence. In May 1948, a few weeks after Betts had left, Apatanis attacked the government outpost in the surrounding hills. Bows and arrows failed against guns, and the government retaliated by burning two villages and their granaries. In the end, five Apatanis died, several were wounded and many who were sent to prison in the plains did not return. Thousands, who had lost their houses and granaries, spent months hiding in the forests or living with friends. The failure of this first and only armed resistance by Apatanis marked the beginning of the full imposition of external authority in the valley. Fifty years after the first and amicable colonial contact in 1897, colonialism had come to the Apatani valley. In 1952, the headquarters of the Political Officer for the region was finally moved from Assam to the valley. R. G. Menzies, an AngloIndian who had served as P.O. from 1948, set up his new office on a small hill at the north end of the valley, not far from the outpost FürerHaimendorf had established. This was Ziro, which quickly became a town, with an airstrip built in the 1950s. Ten years later, it became ‘Old Ziro’ when space for a new headquarters was hacked out of the jungle at the southern end. Under the administration of the Northeast Frontier Agency (1954–1972), this newly-created town of Hapoli gained schools, a jail, a bank, a lively bazaar and an all-weather road to Assam. An army base was established after the Chinese invasion of 1962. When Arunachal Pradesh became a state in 1987, Hapoli boasted a large complex of government offices, a court house and a Circuit House. What began in 1944 as a few bamboo structures has become a major administrative and military presence. Still, the relative isolation of the Apatani valley has retarded the advance of external influences.

61 Porters were normally paid 1 rupee per day, and sometimes 20 rupees per month.

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Although the valley is now connected by road, bus and helicopter to the outside world, the territorial boundary between Apatani culture and outside forces has been largely maintained. Other tribesmen and women and Indians, who work in the valley as government officials, shopkeepers, labourers and soldiers, plus the churches and shrines, have been concentrated in Hapoli at the southern end of the valley.62 Only in villages, on the edge of the paddy fields that cover the valley, does the nyibu stand on the lapang and chant the Subu Heniin during a Murung. A moral landscape If the valley’s isolation has been a factor in determining historical relations between Apatanis and the outside world, its fertility has also played a part. Although British officers never saw the abundant paddy harvest—they visited in winter or early spring—they would have seen the carefully tended nursery beds and plots, the bunds, irrigation sluices and granaries. They would also have seen people working the land, even during fallow winter months. Whatever they saw convinced them that the land could support a garrison, and this conviction led to the development of the Apatani valley as a civil and military headquarters. However, the colonial narrative of the Apatani valley contained a moral dimension, too. Enhanced by the mystique of isolation, it told the story of a settled and industrious people, working a green and fertile land, producing peace and civilisation. This story of a moral landscape began with the first description of Apatanis in the mid-nineteenth century. Edward Tuite Dalton is best known for his 1872 book, The Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, which became a handbook for colonial officers working with tribal populations across India. However, that book had its origins in 1845, when Dalton was serving in North Lakhimpur as Junior Assistant Commissioner of Assam. Although he did not reach the Apatani valley, he heard specific, and largely accurate, details about its inhabitants from their neighbours. For instance, Dalton reported that Apatanis (whom he called ‘Auks’ and ‘Auka Meris’ ) trade rice for cotton, call themselves Tenae (tanii ),

62 Two small churches have recently appeared on the edge of Apatani villages, and a Christian college has been built near the forest at the northern end.

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live in nuclear families and celebrate a festival that different villages host on a rotating basis (Myoko).63 He also reported that the valley is ‘richly cultivated,’ has ‘no waste land’ and produces ‘magnificent crops.’64 Dalton then described the Apatanis themselves: ‘The Tenae appear to be a very peaceably disposed people’ and even when forced to take up arms do so ‘honourably,’ fight openly and do not ‘massacre men, women and children.’65 ‘If this be true,’ he continued, ‘it places them in a high rank, as a humane people, amongst our Mountain tribes.’66 Although he never saw the Apatani valley, Dalton had begun the story of its civilising fertility, which later visitors repeated and elaborated. Even a laconic census report enthused that the Apatanis ‘are distinguished from all others by having for their habitation a well-watered plain.’67 Hydraulic hearsay, however, was swept away in the rhapsody of personal observation in 1897: The sight is one I shall never forget, as we suddenly emerged on a magnificent plateau. . . . Our hearts warmed at the sight of primroses, violets, wild currants, strawberries and raspberries, and I felt disposed to almost believe some of the wonderful stories we had heard of the fabulous wealth of this country.68

Other colonial accounts repeated but rarely improved on this vision of fertility and prosperity.69 Essential to these observations was a comparison between Apatanis and their neighbours. Peaceful Apatanis, softly nestled in their isolated valley, were consistently and favourably contrasted with Nyishis and Hill Miris, who were cast in the role of warlike savages. Again it was Dalton who put this contrast into the colonial record, when he commented that Apatanis were ‘very superior to the tribes of this family we are acquainted with.’70 One hundred years later, this comparison was authoritatively written into the ethnographic record. Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, the anthropologist who set up the temporary Dalton 1845: 428. Dalton 1845: 428. 65 Dalton 1845: 429. 66 Dalton 1845: 428. 67 Census of India, 1881 (reprinted in the 1961 Census, vol. 3 Assam, Pt V-A, p. 26). 68 McCabe 1897: 5. 69 For example, Hamilton 1912: 341–42; Kerwood 1912: 20–21; Nevill 1921. 70 Dalton 1845: 428. See also Frontier Tribes of Assam, Administration Report, 1915–16; Lewis 1912: 82. 63 64

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government outpost in the valley in 1944, knew both cultures well. He described the Apatani valley as an ‘incipient civilization in miniature,’ not unlike the sources of Harappan civilisation.71 His view of Nyishi culture was quite different: With their industriousness, their passionate sense of order and tidiness and their budding feeling for beauty, they [Apatanis] had created and maintained an oasis of stability within a world of semi-nomadic, improvident tribesmen. While their Dafla [Nyishi] neighbours despoiled the land wherever they settled, in this one valley the fertility of the soil was preserved indefinitely, for the benefit of future generations and every gift of nature was bent to the service of man.72

Conclusions The unwavering emphasis, in these colonial accounts of the Apatani valley, on a fertile land and its peaceful people is striking but not unfamiliar. It is, in fact, redolent of a widespread and well-documented pattern of European perceptions of colonial landscapes. In an influential essay, Jean and John Comaroff analysed the use of a ‘horticultural idiom’ in the Christian-colonial penetration of Tswana culture in southern Africa.73 Beginning with the London Missionary Society in the 1820s, missionaries there cultivated gardens as symbols of civilisation. For colonial India, David Arnold has similarly described how the European ideal of ‘improvement’ and vision of Indian landscapes played key roles in the exercise of British power in the first half of the nineteenth century.74 Drawing on some of the same sources, Gunnel Cederlof makes a related argument in her recent study of colonial law and the land among a tribal population in south India. As she shows, concepts of Victorian natural history, especially the belief that people are produced by the land they inhabit, influenced colonial policy toward the pastoralist Todas.75 Not just noses and head shapes, it seems, but also climate and elevation, forest and farmland, influenced colonial ethnology in India. 71 Fürer-Haimendorf 1955: 63. For a similar evaluation of Angami Nagas, see Oppitz et al. 2008: 20. 72 Fürer-Haimendorf 1955: 63. See also Graham Bower 1953: 32; Mills 1945: 2. 73 Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff 1986. 74 Arnold 2006. 75 Cederlof 2008.

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While the colonial narrative of the Apatani valley contains many of these elements, it is nonetheless different. For one thing, Apatanis preempted the horticultural idiom of colonialism by perfecting a sophisticated method of cultivating their garden long before first contact. Also, whereas a contrast between external and indigenous notions of the local landscape is central to the three analyses just mentioned, that discrepancy is far less pronounced in the Apatani case. Finally, although accounts of the Apatani valley resemble those of other colonial Edens, and were written at roughly the same time, the story of the civilising Apatanis is defined by a flattering contrast with a neighbouring tribe. The most intriguing aspect of the colonial narrative of the Apatani valley, however, is its resemblance to indigenous perceptions. Of course, European accounts of the Apatani valley were inflected by the romance of isolation and a belief in the civilising force of settled agriculture. Still, these external perspectives did not prevent colonial observers from identifying local realities. The valley is fertile, and its people are prosperous and industrious. And the idea that a fruitful land, with its full granaries, produces a prosperous people is an Apatani one, too. When the nyibu stands on the lapang and chants, he describes a landscape not unlike that conjured up by colonial visitors to the Apatani valley. As he says in the second verse of the Subu Heniin chant: I wish to provide for both husband and wife, of the Tiike Rade clan, for their house and family; Let their family prosper and grow, with many dogs sleeping by the hearth and many chickens in the coop; Let their granaries overflow and their pigs increase; Give them many animals in the forests; Let the jungles be thick with cane. Such a fertile land, finally, is necessary for celebrating a feast on such a large scale as the Murung. The cost for the required number of mithuns, pigs, cows, chickens and eggs, plus supplies of rice and millet,

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approaches two hundred thousand rupees. Other populations in the Subansiri region who do not command these resources do not celebrate feasts on the same scale or with the same frequency as Apatanis do. This is why fertility and its promise of prosperity suffuse the Subu Heniin text.

CHAPTER THREE

THE SUBU HENIIN TEXT The Subu Heniin (‘Mithun Chant’ or ‘Chanting to the Mithun’ ) does not easily fit into conventional genres or textual categories. It does not tell a story, like a folktale or legend, and it is not spoken in everyday speech. Closest to myth, it is also more than sacred narrative. It is oral poetry yet unlike most forms of oral epic or praise poetry. Although delivered in the ambiguities of ritual speech, it has a coherence created by its underlying themes, repeated imagery and fixed texts, such as long lists of names. Before describing these features of the Subu Heniin text, however, let us consider it alongside other lengthy ritual recitations. Comparative perspectives Chant as genre If the Subu Heniin is more cosmology than narrative and does not match standard genres, it largely eludes comparative analysis, as well. This is so partly because few similar texts have been documented, translated and published. Still, the Subu Heniin does have parallels that help us to identify the significance of this Apatani text. Unexpectedly, those parallels are found mostly in Austronesia rather than the extended eastern Himalayas. European labels applied to non-European oral genres are notoriously imprecise, and ‘chant’ is no exception. For example, two oral genres among the Melpa in Papua New Guinea are locally distinguished by the intended direction of the speech (‘up’ versus ‘down’ ), yet the ethnographer calls them ‘chant’ and ‘spell.’1 Broadly speaking, however, the use of ‘chant’ to describe oral genres in Asia and Africa is consistent with European criteria. From Latin and Old French roots,

1

Strathern 1995: 223.

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‘chant’ carries connotations of song, or at least music, that is typically religious, monotonal and solemn. It is not narrative, and its main intention is to contact non-human powers rather than entertain an audience. For these reasons, most chants are not performed in everyday speech. Although the language of chants has been variously described (‘sung,’ ‘enhanced,’ ‘heightened’ ), the crucial point is that it is different to ordinary language.2 Not just in intonation, pitch and rhythm, but typically in vocabulary, too. In brief, chant is a genre identified not by content but by language, intent and context. It falls on one side of a distinction, made in many Asian and African oral traditions, between genres that use everyday speech to entertain in informal settings and those that use special speech to address spirits in ritual contexts.3 Apatani categories Apatani oral tradition is a case in point. Apatanis speak of two kinds of oral texts, migung and miji, whose compound (miji migung) means ‘oral tradition’ and ‘traditional knowledge.’ The principal difference between these categories is that miji is performed in ‘ritual speech’ (miji agung, or nyibu agung), whereas migung is spoken in ordinary speech. Some stories and episodes may be performed in either form of speech, but myth and cosmology dominate miji texts. Apatanis recognise three types of miji texts, which I call ‘ritual texts.’ They are differentiated by their intention, which in turn determines the type of spirits they address.4 The ayu is the odd one out since it is a type of verbal duelling performed by knowledgeable older men (including nyibus) during festivals to entertain rather than to summon spirits. A second genre is wi benii, which consists of healing chants that summon mostly harmful spirits. The third genre is wi barnii, which primarily addresses benevolent spirits at a major ritual in order to bring prosperity and protect against danger.5 In principle, the Subu Heniin is a wi barnii text because it uses ritual speech to invite protective spirits

2 ‘Chanted tales’ in parts of the highlands of Papua New Guinea, for example, have ‘special intonational and/or rhythmic patterns’ (Rumsey 2005: 41). 3 See, for example, Lewis 1988b: 253. 4 See chapter 5 and Blackburn 2008 for more details on Apatani oral genres. 5 Another important wi barnii text is the funeral chant that leads the dead person’s soul to the land of the dead.

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to a Murung. In practice, however, it stands alone. The word heniin (‘chanting/naming/addressing’ ) is used only in the title of this text and nowhere else.6 And no other Apatani ritual text has a similar thematic scope, performance duration or cultural prominence. The Subu Heniin is also a tiigo text. Apatanis distinguish between tiigo and cicing chants, spirits and rituals, again based on intent and type of spirit. Roughly defined, tiigo chants (spirits and rituals) are ‘protective and benevolent’; cicing are ‘harmful and dangerous.’7 Because the Subu Heniin chant (and the Murung festival ) is not usually performed in order to cure a specific illness or liquidate a particular lack, it is not cicing. Instead, it is tiigo because its primary purpose is to foster prosperity, by contacting protective spirits, on behalf of the husband and wife who sponsor the festival. Finally, these two Apatani classification sytems are correlated: all wi barnii chants are tiigo, and all wi benii chants are cicing. Despite some inconsistency in correlations between rituals, chants and spirits, this tiigo-cicing contrast is widely recognised and provides a basic guide for ritual activity. For instance, in the month before performing a tiigo ritual, such as Murung, a nyibu must make sure that he does not conduct a cicing healing ceremony. Ritual dialogues and recitations This Apatani distinction between wi barnii/tiigo and wi benii/cicing resembles an opposition between two kinds of ritual texts in other parts of Asia. Studies of oral genres in both eastern Indonesia and eastern Nepal have found it useful to contrast ritual dialogues with ritual recitations.8 Most oral traditions have both types, although some traditions are dominated by one and in many traditions the two are combined in a single text.9 Broadly speaking, dialogues are conversations with the spirit world, and a small human audience, often performed within a house. They invoke, pray, request and demand the help of spirits, usually in an

In ordinary speech, ‘chanting’ is wi miinin (lit. ‘doing spirits’ ). In some clans, gyunyang is a dialectal variant of cicing. 8 For a summary of these types in eastern Indonesia, see Fox 1988: 20–21. 9 Both types are found in Sumba (Kuipers 1990; Mitchell 1988) and Flores (Lewis 1988a), while dialogues predominate among the Mewahang Rai (Gaenszle 2002: 186–89), Tamang (Höfer 1994: 37) and Sora (Vitebsky 1993). 6 7

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effort to improve the physical or mental condition of someone. They have a high frequency of dialogic (or indexical ) features, such as ‘I said,’ ‘listen,’ ‘here.’ Their relative lack of a set text also allows for responses from the human audience. Ritual recitations, on the other hand, are typically longer, public performances of more fixed texts at calendrical ceremonies. In this kind of context, participation by the audience is limited, and mistakes in performance are less consequential than in ritual dialogues. If the exemplary dialogue is a healing chant, the typical recitation is a history, with an emphasis on origins and genealogy. In dialogues, the ritual specialist speaks to spirits, whereas in recitations, he recites a text. Of these two types, the Subu Heniin is primarily a ritual recitation. It does invoke spirits, but, unlike Apatani healing chants, it is not dominated by speaking with them. The nyibu addresses spirits (and ancestors), invites them to the feast and enlists their support; he also speaks to the sacrificial animals tethered to the lapang. Overall, however, the nyibu’s performance is a public, authoritative recitation of origins, histories and genealogies, in a structured sequence, intended to bring prosperity rather than cure a specific condition at a particular time. Finally, as with other ritual recitations, the twelve hours of chanting prompt virtually no response from the few people around the nyibu. Austronesian parallels In these respects, the Subu Heniin resembles two ‘monumental’ recitations recorded in eastern Indonesia. Every fifteen to twenty years on the island of Flores, the Ata Tana Ai perform a week-long ceremony, including the sacrifice of many animals, during which they chant a text called the ‘histories of the clans.’10 Although E. D. Lewis was unable to record the full text (and obtained only a 300-line dictated version), the performance lasts several days and is much larger than the Subu Heniin. Another difference to the Subu Heniin is that the text is recited by a group of men in rotation. Thematically, however, this chant in Flores is similar to that in the Apatani valley. While its long, public performance includes dialogues, it is predominately a recitation of genealogies, origins and histories. In Lewis’ words, the

10

Lewis 1988b: 253.

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histories are ‘amorphous’ but have a ‘general line of thematic development’ structured by three sections—creation of world; the history of humans and first human beings; histories of clans.11 This would also do as a summary description of the Apatani text. A second Austronesian parallel to the Subu Heniin is a 4,350-line text performed over the course of five days by the Iban in Sarawak. It is a sprawling cosmological and mythological text, a ‘protracted allegory based on hill padi [paddy] farming’ chanted to celebrate a feast and ensure a fertile rice crop.12 While it apparently has a more coherent plot than the Subu Heniin, and greater audience comprehension, it, too, is taken up with descriptions of complex paths that lead humans to and from the land of the spirits. Its context, also like the Murung, is the most ‘complex, elaborate and prestigious’ of all local ritual ceremonies.13 And its social role, as ‘a means through which an Iban living in an egalitarian and classless society makes public his achievements, and acquires great prestige,’ is true of the Apatani ritual, as well.14 Finally, the lead Iban performer resembles the Apatani nyibu in that he shows no signs of ‘spirit possession’ during a pedestrian and untheatrical performance.15 A third Austronesian parallel to the Subu Heniin text is weaker yet still revealing. The Hawaiian Kumulipo, said to have been recited at the reception of Captain Cook in 1779, was composed about 1700, when a new branch of the royal family assumed chieftainship of the island.16 The 2,100-line text is mostly a praise poem to these new rulers, their lineage and living heirs. Despite this contrast—a Murung is not an Hawaiian chief’s installation—the two texts have similarities. For one thing, The Kumulipo is composed in a ritual speech largely unintelligible to most Hawaiians. Also, the Hawaiian and Apatani texts (as well as the Flores text) are essentially creation myths, describing the origins of everything important—the earth, sky, forests, fish and people. What struck me most, however, was that the Hawaiian text (whose title translates as ‘Beginning in Deep Darkness’ ) begins in the time of ‘darkness’ when animals and plants come forth and that

11 12 13 14 15 16

Lewis 1988b: 255–56. Masing 1997 vol. 1: 63. Masing 1997 vol. 1: 31. Masing 1997 vol. 1: 35. Masing’s study is based on a text dictated (to Derek Freeman) in 1949. Beckwith 1951.

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the second half occurs in the time of ‘light’ when humans appear.17 The initial section of the Subu Heniin is similarly set in ‘the darkness of the dark’ (kami kamo) and leads to the time when ‘the sun rises.’ In fact, the opening lines of the Hawaiian text could be taken from the opening of the Apatani text: Kumulipo: The source of deepest darkness, of the depth of darkness, of the depth of darkness, of the darkness of the sun, in the depth of night. Subu Heniin: The sun brightens our journey along the kami kamo routes; It drives away the darkness of these darkened paths. Beckwith’s description of the language of the Kumulipo also reminds me of Apatani ritual speech, especially the pairing of nouns.18 The ‘endless listing’ of the Hawaiian text ‘employed a constant parallelism, a balance of pairs . . . with inclusive intent in order to take in the whole range between . . . [and] for rhythmic balance.’19 Finally, the fluent, literary quality of her translation is impressive. Too many ritual texts from unfamiliar languages are unnecessarily consigned to oblivion by a literal, wooden translation. Eastern Himalayan parallels These Austronesian parallels are all the more noteworthy because so few are found among Tibeto-Burman speakers in the extended eastern Himalayas. While the Subu Heniin is certainly not unique in the region, similar texts are sparse. I have identified only a single strong parallel in central Arunachal Pradesh (see below). One explanation for this scarcity may be that other long, public ritual recitations have not been documented, translated and published. Another is that they no

17 18 19

Beckwith 1951: 37. Apatani noun-pairs are described in chapter 5. Beckwith 1951: 38.

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longer exist. Throughout the extended eastern Himalayas, the feasts associated with these chants have been declining since the mid-twentieth century, and most have vanished, leaving us with no record of what oral performances might have accompanied them. A third possibility is that these feasts were accompanied by brief chants and not by day-long recitations such as the Subu Heniin. From upland Southeast Asia and southwest China, I have found three ritual chants that resemble the Subu Heniin. A Kachin oral text, documented in the 1920s by a missionary in Burma, and again in the 1990s by a western scholar, describes the large feast and animal sacrifice during which it was chanted.20 Like the Apatani text, it is a vast compendium of mythic material and includes many origin stories. A second, though weak, parallel is a Lahu text of approximately 2,000 lines, recorded in Yunnan in the 1960s and translated into English from an earlier Mandarin translation.21 This is a version of a creation myth found throughout upland Southeast Asia (and different to the creation myths told in central Arunachal Pradesh), in which mankind arises from the incest of brother and sister who survive a flood by floating in a gourd. Still, like the Subu Heniin, it is dominated by themes of fertility, growth and maturation, including an extended description of a mysterious gourd (similar to the expanding tajer bamboo in the Apatani text). Anthony Walker, who edited the text, is unable to give any contextual or performance information, except to say that the story is known in different versions by Lahu populations and that it is told to ‘entertain.’22 A third and closer parallel is a Zhuang text from Guangxi province in southwest China. This Tai-language chant, as reported by David Holm, is a version of the creation myth of brother-sister incest found in the Lahu text (but not in the Subu Heniin). Like the Apatani text, however, the Zhuang text was apparently composed in ritual speech and accompanied a major animal sacrifice. Unfortunately, the published version (again from a Mandarin translation) is a comparatively short 465 lines.23 Finally, as with Walker and his Lahu text, Holm was unable to observe either the ritual context or oral performance since both were abandoned about 1950. 20 21 22 23

Gilhodes 1996 [1922]: 37ff. Mandy Sadan, personal communication, 2009. Walker 1995. Walker 1995: 16. Holm 2003.

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Ritual texts in eastern Nepal, on the other hand, continue to be performed, documented and published in good translations. None, however, presents a clear parallel with the Subu Heniin. The ‘priestly chants’ among the Mewahang Rai, for instance, are performed during calendrical rites for the general purpose of protection. However, although they are ‘the longest and most complex texts’ in this oral tradition, the published sample text has only 260 lines and is far more dialogic than the Subu Heniin.24 Most other published texts from eastern Nepal are either healing chants performed within the home or creation myths with little contextual description.25 In central Arunachal Pradesh, published research on oral traditions has focused mostly on folktales and fragments of myths, rather than long performances of ritual chants. However, one close parallel to the Subu Heniin is the Liimir-Liibom Aabang, which is recited by PadamMinyong Adis during the Solung festival.26 As with the Apatani text, it is performed on the initial day of a major feast and mithun sacrifice, and it is a loose collection of mythic episodes about the origins of the natural world. Again like the Subu Heniin (and the Hawaiian text mentioned above), it begins in a protean formlessness from which the world unfolds.27 The eponymous liimir liibom is a gigantic animal, which is sacrificed and dismembered. From its limbs, thrown in different directions, emerge vegetation and animal life. Its testicles, for instance, become the mithuns that are sacrificed during the festival. The ancestors die out, but not before the culture hero Abo Tani is born and continues their customs, including this sacrificial feast. All this reads like a version of the Subu Heniin, with the role of procreative female assumed by the mithun. Moreover, this 1,800-line Adi text is composed in a ritual speech dominated by noun-pairs, as with the Apatani chant. Once again, however, we know little about how this Adi chant works within its ritual context. No description of the Solung festival (beyond the barest summary) is available in print. We do have a reasonable account of a similar feast celebrated by an Adi group but without any

Gaenszle 2002: 99–103. An extensive study of Nepalese oral texts includes a creation myth of about 1,400 lines (Maskarinec 1998). 26 Megu 2000. 27 The Adi term for formlessness (keyum kero) is cognate with the Apatani kami kamo. 24 25

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information on accompanying oral chants.28 Ritual recitations similar to the Subu Heniin probably exist in central Arunachal Pradesh, but only further research will reveal them.29 In summary, the Subu Heniin is a type of chant that others have called ‘ritual recitation.’ It has parallels, though not many, in Austronesia and the extended eastern Himalayas. In Apatani terms, it is a miji and a tiigo text. In both comparative and local perspectives, it is an oral text that does not set out to entertain through storytelling in ordinary language; instead, it is performed in ritual speech in order to contact benevolent spirits for the protection and prosperity of the sponsor. The Subu Heniin is not unique, but, even allowing for the lack of documentation of long chants at large animal sacrifices, neither is it widespread. Variation and structure As with most ritual recitations, the Subu Heniin is not a single, coherent narrative. Yet it is a recognisable ‘text,’ with a consistent internal structure. While I did not carry out a comparative study of performances, I did record sample performances from different men. Those recordings, combined with the few published fragments and my own interviews with nyibus, demonstrate that the Subu Heniin is comprised of a fixed sequence of episodes or sections, each with a more or less uniform content.30 A common stock of repeated noun-pairs, phrases and lines, as well as lists, genealogies, images and themes, combine to produce a certain kind of coherence. Still, as an oral chant that has never been written down or transmitted in written form, its performances vary considerably in vocabulary and phrasing. Recitations of the Subu Heniin by nyibus of different clans showed the greatest variation. Although they chanted the same content in a textual section, and while many of the same noun-pairs and some phrases were used, a good deal of the wording was different. Comparing, for example, three performances of the story of Niikun and Sukun

This is the sobo panam ritual among the Palibo Adis (Megu 1990). Galo oral texts, though published in fragments, contain three episodes that are identical with those in the Subu Heniin (Ete 1974). 30 A few hundred lines are summarised in English in Takhe Kani 1994: 132–213; fragments are paraphrased in Pandey 1981: 34–47. 28 29

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(see chart 3.1 below), by men from different clans, I found that only about 40% of the phrases in one performance matched a phrase in another. As we would expect, there is more uniformity among performances by nyibus of the same clan. For example, approximately 65% of the phrases in two (admittedly brief ) sample recordings of the same textual section by two men of the same clan were identical or very similar. Performances by the same nyibu, of course, showed the greatest consistency. Mudan Pai always relied on the same words and phrases, but each time he combined them into slightly different patterns and sometimes changed the number and sequence of lines within a section of the text. Nonetheless, a comparison of his several recitations of the same section of the text showed that only one in five phrases was different. My impression is that most, if not all, performances of the Subu Heniin text share a common repertoire, which different clan traditions draw upon. Despite this, no two men chant the text the same way, and the formulaic phrases that dominate one man’s version may be infrequent or even absent in another’s. Each man, it seems, draws on his clan tradition and works out his own stock of familiar phrases and noun-pairs, as well as his arrangement of them. Looking again at Mudan Pai’s performance translated in this book, fully 80% of the phrases are verbatim or near-repetitions. All nyibus, it seems, chant a text that is recognisably the same, although its surface texture varies from clan to clan and, to a lesser extent, from individual to individual. This textual consistency of the Subu Heniin is largely the result of repetition. Beneath the fluctuating textural patterns, recurring words, phrases, lines, names and lists lend structure to the Subu Heniin text, while also reducing acoustic and semantic range. As already mentioned, some noun-pairs are part of every nyibu’s repertoire, and the repetition of these compounds creates a degree of uniformity across performances. Phrases also recur. For instance, ‘nyibu standing on the lapang,’ ‘many mithuns in the forest,’ and ‘benefit of both husband and wife’ are heard again and again. In fact, some nyibus, who are unable to remember all the episodes and details in the Subu Heniin, fill the long hours of chanting by relying on these stock phrases. Coherence is also created by references to Apatani mythology. While the names of some ancestors and spirits vary from village to village (though less from clan to clan), those of major figures and their

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stories are consistent. The central characters in the story of the culture hero (Abo Tani)—his sister, Dolyang Chanyang; his father-inlaw, Siikki; his sons, Ato Neha, Tarin and Tati—are known by nearly everyone. Other figures familiar to many people include Chantung (Lyapin Chantu), a protective female spirit, and Popi Sarmin, the ancestor of wisdom. The listing of names in genealogies provides another kind of consistency throughout the Subu Heniin text. A nyibu recites the parentage of the elements, spirits, plants and animals (section 9). He then moves on to a complicated genealogy of the ancestors who performed Murungs in the past (section 10), which leads to the first human beings (section 11). This is followed by a list of the genealogical links of the neighbouring tribes (dolo or misan), Apatanis (doding or tanii) and nontribal outsiders (halyang) in section 12. An earlier section (7) consists of a list of Apatani ancestors, arranged by clans within each village. Other lists, without genealogical links, also contribute to the stable content of the Subu Heniin. These series of names thread through the text, stitching together its various sections. Place-names, usually nounpairs, of known forests, fields, rivers and mountains are frequently repeated, and dozens of rivers are named in the description of the origin of water (section 8). The most prominent lists, however, are those of spirits. On five separate occasions (sections 7, 14, 15, 16 and 17), the nyibu recites the names of spirits and their lapangs, each for a different purpose, and each list contains between thirty and sixty names. Cosmology lends coherence to the Subu Heniin text, too. As explained in the previous chapter (see also chapter 5), Apatanis imagine two cosmologies. The horizontal cosmology, expressed only in the Murung chant, is a series of concentric circles; its inner core—house, lapang, village—is the centre of the text, where the nyibu begins his performance. The topographical zones that surround this core provide a template for the naming of ancestors and spirits in two long sections of the text (6 and 7). The vertical cosmology, articulated both in the Subu Heniin and the funeral chant, is a network of paths that the nyibu travels along on the journey to the land of the dead and back (sections 14–18). Taken together, these two cosmologies organise nearly half the entire text.

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chapter three Textual sections

Underlying these repetitions, lists and cosmologies is the textual arrangement of the Subu Heniin. This sequence of sections in the chant is consistent from nyibu to nyibu and from performance to performance. No matter whom I asked or heard chanting, the series of named sections was the same. In the few instances where names varied, it turned out that sections had been divided into two parts, so that the nineteen sections of the performance translated in this book were expanded to twenty-one, twenty-two or twenty-three. This subdivision of episodes, however, did not alter the overall content of the text. The content in each textual section was also consistent across the my recorded versions and the printed fragments. One reason for this textual uniformity is that several passages and even entire sections of the Subu Heniin are found in other ritual texts. The descent to the land of the dead (sections 14 and 15), for example, is chanted as a separate text (with some difference in wording) at Apatani funerals.31 Six other sections of the Subu Heniin are found in another ritual text (Yorda Ayu), which is chanted on the second day of a Murung. Finally, although the Subu Heniin is not itself a single narrative, it does contain two discrete stories (Abo Tani; Niikun Sukun) from Apatani oral tradition. Each of these stories comprises an entire section of the Subu Heniin, so that together they add a considerable amount of textual consistency. Every textual section in the Subu Heniin has a title, as shown in the left-hand column in the chart (3.1) below. Each is also marked during performance by a formulaic opening, such as: I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, standing on the lapang; I am the Ato Doni shaman, chanting in the early morning. In the right-hand column of the chart, I have collapsed these locally recognised sections into thematic clusters and added a summary.

31

The Neli Toniin chart in Blackburn 2008: 201–09.

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Chart 3.1. Textual Sections in the Subu Heniin Apatani textual sections

Author’s thematic clusters: summary

1. Iijan Canii ‘The Sun Rises’

(1) Introduction: sun rises; protection against unwanted forces

2. Diima Hama ‘[Driving away] Harmful Spirits’ 3. Niido Niikun Pamum ‘Niido’s Love’ 4. Siican Mudo ‘Earth Sky’ 5. Dobi Layu ‘[Ancestress] Earth’

(2) Birth and growth: birth of the sun emergence of earth and sky

6. Tapin Tajer ‘[A species of ] Bamboo’

(3) Expansion: bamboo expands to call ancestors and spirits to feast.

7. Jilo Gyoniin ‘Calling Spirits [& Ancestors]’ 8. Duttu Hayu ‘Water’

greening of the earth

(4) Origin of water and fish

9. Wi Sampiu ‘Origin of Spirits’ Pyonii Saber ‘Origin of Pyonii [Spirits]’ Kolyung Saber ‘Origin of & Kolo Saber the Elements’ Armin Acu Saber ‘Origin of Wild Animals’ 10. Wi Myu Saber ‘[Origin of ] Spirit-Man’ 11. Tani Diiri Buniin ‘Genealogy of AboTani’ 12. Doding Dolo Diiri Buniin ‘Genealogy of the Doding and Dolo People’ 13. Niikun Sukun [names of sisters]

(5) Genealogies: genealogy of spirits

14. Hombi Honto ‘Five-Ten Paths’

(6) Descent and exchange: leading sacrificial animals (souls) on dangerous paths crossing the Chayen River, reaching the underworld; spirits, their parentage and sacrificial shares

15. Neli Toniin ‘Descent to Neli’

origin of the spirit world, the elements and the natural world genealogy of wild animals genealogy of ancestors genealogy of Abo Tani & humans genealogy of Apatanis & other tribes (and non-tribals) competition between sisters who become man and mithun

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Chart 3.1 (cont.) Apatani textual sections 16. Siikor Lapang Korniin ‘Naming the Lapangs’ 17. Liimin Layin Kuniin ‘Asking Spirits [for Favours]’ 18. Lyego Kuniin ‘Asking at the Gate’ 19. Mutu Lelo ‘Mithun Hair’32

Author’s thematic clusters: summary naming spirits and lapangs asking favours from the spirits leaving the underworld; return to earth sacrifice offered to spirits

The substance and sequence of these clusters might suggest that the Subu Heniin tells a story. The text begins with births and origins—of the sun, earth, water, people and animals—and it ends with death. It opens with the rising sun and finishes in the underworld. Despite this apparent thematic development, however, I do not think that the Subu Heniin represents a movement from life to death, or from light to dark. In fact, the land of the dead is not a place of darkness or death; Neli is instead a place of light and bounty, of fields, mithuns and forests. In any case, in Apatani thinking, darkness is the kami kamo state of formlessness that exists before the world began and is succeeded by prosperity. In contrast to foundational texts in some cultures, the Subu Heniin is not about dark fate, heroic failure or flawed ambition. It is about the light and growth that emerge when the sun rises.32 Themes Fertility In describing the world that emerges after the sun rises, the Subu Heniin is animated by three themes. The primary theme is fertility, with its associated ideas of birth, growth and prosperity. The opening lines of this text about beginnings are instructive, and images of fecundity pile up as early as the second verse:

32

‘Mithun hair’ is a metaphor for abundance.

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I ask the spirits to protect both husband and wife, of the Tiike Radhe clan; Let their family prosper and grow, with many dogs by the hearth and many chickens in the coop; Let their granaries overflow and their pigs increase; Give them many mithuns in the forests; Let their jungles be thick with cane. After the birth of the sun, the formation of the earth and the emergence of the natural world, this prosperity continues to spread. It leads to the growth and expansion of the tajer bamboo, the birth of water and fish, and then to the origins of humans, spirits and animals. It is temporarily suspended in the final third of the Subu Heniin, when the nyibu travels to the underworld and describes the exchange of meat for favours from the spirits. Once the gifts have been accepted, however, the underlying theme of fertility surfaces at the very end, and with some of the same images as in the second verse: We wish to see our forests thick with cane, our jungles full of animals; We want our granaries to overflow with rice; Give us many pigs in the sty, and chickens in the coop. [. . . ] Bring to both husband and wife wealth and prosperity, As big as the sky, as wide as the earth. This description of fertility in granaries, jungles and animals is repeated half a dozen times in the chant. A phrase or two may change, but this accumulated abundance conveys the core message of the chant. The concluding metaphor—‘as big as the sky, as wide as the earth’—

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measures this imagined prosperity against the visible expanse of the natural world. That metaphor, which recurs throughout the chant, symbolises the centrality of fertility in both the Subu Heniin chant and the Murung feast. Everything, however, begins when the sun rises. The nyibu first identifies himself with ancestral nyibus and then draws around him the protection of spirits: I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, standing on the lapang; I am the Doni shaman, chanting in the early morning; I am Lyarii Tabii and Lyantii Podo, the nyibus of our ancestors; The jilo lyayu spirits are here to help me. He then describes the light shining first in the underworld and later on earth, on known places within the Apatani valley and just beyond: The sun rises over the Tamin and Talo hills, the Lali and Buda mountains; You brighten the Panyu and Pare rivers, the Siro and Sango rivers. Across our valley, from east to west, from high peaks to low valleys, You brighten our fields of Biirii Kensa and Lampiir Siikre. Soon, and continuing into the brief second textual section, the nyibu asks that the rising sun dispel any harmful forces that might disrupt the feast. In its brightness, nothing should cast shadows: Rise up, Sun, rise higher and higher; Rise up and spread your light over this Murung feast.

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The rising sun is an image of birth that is elaborated in the second thematic cluster. First, the sun itself is born. It is Spring, the season for mating, and the earth (Niido), dressed as a woman, seeks a lover. Her search is frustrated by a long series of rejections, but she finally finds a mate and becomes pregnant. Her son is named ‘Sun Water’ (iijan hai), a noun-pair that combines heat and water, the two requirements for life. Then this birth of the sun is celebrated with a Murung, which, by the magical power of association, should bring success to the present festival. Next, the natural world emerges from the body of another procreative female (Niikun): Her knees became the pillars of earth, her hands its flat surface; Her chest became the roof of the sky, her breastbone the firmament above. Domestic and ritual objects, likewise, originate from other organs and limbs: Her spleen became the flap on rucksacks, her lungs the ritual niji leaf; Her liver became the medicinal rino leaf, her palms the winnowing basket. Fields and streams pour forth from this female source, and another Murung is performed. Now the earth, once again imagined as a beautiful young woman (Dobi Layu), unfolds into diverse flora and fauna: She became the beautiful earth, wearing earrings of river reeds; She wore rings of soft moss and wild fruits as a breast cloth; She shone as brightly as the full moon; And in the warm springtime, she brought forth

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chapter three The green plants and soft grass, which decorate our earth.

Still another Murung is held and the nyibu declares: Today, we, too, perform this Murung For husband and wife, so that their family will prosper. As these repetitions build, we begin to see a pattern. The fertility of earth and birth, the emergence and maturation of life, the growth of fields and family, the power of heat and water—everything starts with the rising sun and is generated from the female body. Little wonder, then, that the sun is female.33 This exfoliation of life from the female body is more than a repeated image in the Subu Heniin text. It also illustrates a process of differentiation, underlying much of Apatani mythology and cosmogony, in which a primal whole breaks into constituent parts.34 This would be the Apatani ‘creation myth,’ except that there is no creation ex-nihilo, only an emergence from formlessness. In the Subu Heniin, the differentiated female body is the origin for almost everything important in pre-modern Apatani life, from the sky to a winnowing basket, and especially for anything of ritual importance in a Murung. For example, as seen above, the broad, flat niji leaf that is placed on the lapang in front of the chanting nyibu comes from the procreative female’s lung.35 The expanding bamboo (worn in the shaman’s hair) has a similar origin: When the ancestor Hintii died, her toe became the tajer plant. Somewhat later in the text, the same image is used to describe the origin of the spirit world:

33 The sun is female (and the moon is male) in most cultures in central Arunachal Pradesh. 34 Blackburn 2008: 214–15; Blackburn (forthcoming, “idioms of origin”). 35 This leaf, believed to have medicinal power, has several other uses in a Murung.

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Her hands became the posts of the Pyoyu spirits’ house; Her legs became the pillars of the Pyoyu spirits’ house. The final use of this image of the dividing female body is perhaps the most revealing. When the nyibu leads the souls down to Neli (section 15), he explains that the posts, where he ties the mithuns and cows, emerged from this mythic woman of many names. He says, for example: When Mitu Lonii fell down and died, her forearm became the gyadi post. At first, this seemed to be just another association of the female body with a ritual object. Mudan Pai, however, pointed out that this particular line has significance when allocating sacrificial shares to the spirits. Several weeks before a Murung begins, these same lines are chanted during the divinations that determine which spirit will be given which animal. Later, during the feast, it is chanted in the Subu Heniin to explain which spirit gets which part of that allocated animal. In other words, the distribution of sacrificial shares, which is the culmination of the chant and the central act of a Murung, is signalled by this image of a differentiated female body. Fertility, initiated with the births of the sun and earth, and expressed through the division of the female body, assumes an even more insistent form in the third thematic cluster. The ever-expanding bamboo (tajer) is a potent symbol of growth in the chant. But why should fertility be symbolised primarily by this bamboo and not the rice on which local life depends? The tajer seed is planted, grows and expands everywhere in the chant, while descriptions of wet-rice agriculture are limited and static. ‘Ripe paddy fields’ are mentioned once or twice, and a ‘full granary’ occurs several times. Yet no phrase refers to the carefully tended nursery beds, or to the transplanting, planting, growing or harvesting of the paddy crop. The answer, I think, lies in the physicality of the bamboo and the ritual task it performs. In stark contrast to paddy, the tajer bamboo, one of nine species in valley, grows in a niche environment in the jungle and is not eaten. Its long, supple lengths, hidden in the thick undergrowth, make an apt symbol for the expansive journey beyond the

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valley in order to summon the spirits and ancestors to the feast. Paddy, by comparison, is earth-bound, domesticated and conspicuous. In any case, the growth of the tajer bamboo is magical. At first thwarted by errors or illness, which also plague the births of sun, earth and water, the correct seed is finally planted in the right place and grows. The bamboo swiftly envelops the sponsor’s house, his clan lapang and then his village. Eventually, this expansion of the bamboo goes beyond the valley and stretches into the horizontal realms of Apatani cosmology. The tajer bamboo appears elsewhere in a Murung, outside the chant. Weeks before the feast begins, it is collected in the jungle, usually by young clansmen, who also collect the niji leaves and taser cane used in the festival. Long, thin and pliable, like a creeper, yet solid, the tajer bamboo is a good binding agent and is used to make a variety of everyday and ritual objects.36 In a Murung, its soft lengths are woven into a mesh that decorates the gourds of rice beer held by women in tableau as the Subu Heniin is chanted. More than a week later, it is used to tie up the niji leaves, as part of a series of rituals conducted to dispel any lingering harmful influences. The symbolism of this thin bamboo exceeds its practicality, especially for a nyibu. Chanting on the lapang, he holds several pieces in a bundle, along with a gourd ladle and a name tag for one of the sacrificial animals. He also wears a small, split piece in his hair, which he later displays in his house as a memento of his performance.37 No wonder this little piece of bamboo is said to come from Popi Sarmin, the mythic ancestor who represents miji migung knowledge. Several men also told me that it helps them to chant, or, as Mudan Pai said, to ‘express one idea in ten different ways.’38 This celebration of fertility and growth, represented in the expanding bamboo, continues in the fourth thematic cluster, in which water and fish are born. As with the earlier birth of the sun and the greening of the earth, these origins begin with a description of earth dressed as a young woman, her love-making and pregnancy:

It is about 1 cm in diameter, with nodes spaced 80–90 cm apart. Similar pieces are also given to funeral guests, who take them home and place them on an interior wall for protection. 38 The tajer bamboo (with cognate names) has ritual significance in other societies in the region (Tara 2005: 193–94; Toni Huber, personal communication, 2009). 36 37

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In the warmth of springtime, she became pregnant; In the green spring morning, she gave birth to water. In this cluster, however, the image of fertility is not the dividing female body but rather converging streams. Still, as with the births described earlier in the text, this beginning is beset by a series of failures. The waters flow, but the fish do not survive. These seemingly endless false starts, however, enable the nyibu to list the rivers and streams that flow inside and outside the valley. This long rush of converging streams, which takes up the whole of textual section 8, has other meanings, too. In Apatani culture, water is paired with the sun. As mentioned above, at birth the sun is named ‘sun water’ (iijan hai), which is not only a frequently used noun-pair but also the name of an important path leading to and from the land of the dead. This sun-water compound thus links thematic clusters 1 (sun rises), 2 (sun is born), 4 (birth of water) and 6 (descent to the underworld). The birth of water also has a more specific and cosmological significance in Apatani imagination. Although water ‘appears’ in dozens of rivers, it is ‘born’ at one specific place: Fish appeared in the waters, where Rutii and Hatii converge, ..... Here, at the great confluence, men did not catch fish in baskets, and animals did not eat them; Here, where the waters were born, fish flourished and survived. Rutii Hatii is the ritual name (and noun-pair) for the confluence of the Kuru and Kime rivers, which form the Kamla River, a tributary of the Subansiri River. This convergence of rivers symbolises the unity of clansmen upon which the success of a Murung depends. Further, this metaphor of cooperation is explicit in a formulaic phrase used in the long description of the birth of water. Again and again, Rutii Hatti is said to be the place:

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chapter three Where small streams converge and form large rivers; Where the brothers join together, where Anu Niisan and Aban Niide unite.

Anu aban is the term for clansmen, that is, brothers, paternal cousins and uncles. It is they who must join together to provide labour, firewood, rice and cash, so that the sponsor has the resources required to conduct a Murung. We have seen that the Subu Heniin begins with the rising sun, whose light and heat lead to birth and fertility. It is equally revealing that water, the other half of life, is born at a convergence where clansmen cooperate. Ritual journey Fertility is expressed in these images of the rising sun, dividing female body, converging streams and expanding bamboo. The bamboo is important also because it introduces the ritual journey, the second theme of the Subu Heniin text. These imaginary, verbalised travels by ritual specialists to geographical locations and cosmological realms are commonplace across Asia, and they are particularly prominent in ritual texts among Tibeto-Burman speakers in the extended eastern Himalayas.39 The two ritual journeys described in the Subu Heniin—horizontal expansion of the bamboo and vertical descent to the underworld— traverse the two cosmologies described in the previous chapter. During both journeys a nyibu travels along a network of paths, and when inside the valley he travels on the same paths. Starting in the neha (human) realm, he goes on the paths of sponsor’s house, lapang and village; crossing into the siican (earth) realm, he continues on the paths of other villages, named fields, forests and rivers. Once outside the valley, however, the two journeys take different routes because they have different purposes. On the horizontal journey, described in the middle of the chant, the bamboo expands through a series of cosmological realms in which the ancestors and spirits live (textual section 6). Entering each of these realms outside

39 See, for example, Höfer 1994: 29; de Sales 1991: 292–99; Gaenszle 2002: 122; Blackburn 2005.

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the valley, the nyibu calls the ancestors by their associated place-names (river, field, mountain). Having reached the outermost layer of the cosmology, the nyibu turns around and begins the return journey from the wi (‘spirit’ ) realm. Returning through the sequence of cosmological realms, he moves back toward the valley. This time, however, he calls the ancestors by their personal names rather than their associated place-names. In the liipa, myodi and siican realms he lists more than a hundred ancestors. In the neha realm, he lists another ninety Apatani clan ancestors, plus several for Nyishi and Hill Miri clans, two for halyang clans and one for a Sulung clan. In this first journey, although he summons some spirits, the emphasis is on the ancestors since the purpose is to summon them to the feast. The second journey, which takes up the final third of the chant, has a different aim. Rather than call ancestors to the feast, the nyibu must lead the sacrificial animals (or their souls) to the land of the dead, where they are offered to the spirits. On this vertical journey, once the nyibu is outside the valley, he ignores the horizontal realms of the ancestors and follows another set of paths named after the spirits and their lapangs. Beginning with the paths for a huge creature and the river that it lies across, the nyibu enters a maze in which some spirits and paths have double names. The paths, however, are not arbitrary. They follow a fixed sequence, and if the wrong spirit or path is named, the traveller loses his way. ‘Follow carefully and do not wander,’ the nyibu repeatedly warns the animals. On his return journey, from the underworld back to earth, the nyibu moves through the same spirit paths in reverse. When he re-enters the valley, he travels along the fixed sequence of paths that he used on his outward journey (and the expanding bamboo follows in first type of journey). This time, however, his final destination is the safety of the back right-hand corner of the sponsor’s house. A final difference between the two journeys, and their aims, is revealed in a small detail. Paths both inside and outside the valley are linked by a ‘gate,’ but not the same kind of gate. Inside the valley, this passage is a ‘sacred grove’ on the outskirts of a village, through which the nyibu leaves and enters that village. The nyibu uses these sacred groves only on the horizontal journey of the bamboo, however, because they are associated with the ancestors of villages. Outside the valley, by contrast, the paths leading to and from the land of the dead are linked through another sort of passage called lyego. This ‘gate’ has

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Journey 1. series of horizontal realms: nyibu calls ancestors (and spirits) to the feast

Inside valley follows paths in realms in which ancestors reside: neha paths are house, lapang, village; siican paths are other villages, fields, forests, rivers; ‘gates’ are sacred groves on village outskirts

2. descent to the land same, except little of the dead; nyibu leads emphasis on ancestors sacrificial animals to spirits

Outside valley continues sequence of realms in which ancestors reside, but no named paths; nyibu calls spirits in last realm

follows downward paths of spirits and lapangs; ‘gates’ connect paths

no topographical or social referent and operates like a door that opens in only one direction within this maze of spirit paths.40 The confusion is intentional since a clearly signposted route to the land of dead would too easily allow the dead to return to the living. This barrier between the dead and the living is central to Apatani religious imagination, as we will see in chapter 5. Although they follow different routes outside the valley, the two ritual journeys in the Subu Heniin trace the geo-cosmological space that connects yet separates men, ancestors and spirits. They also represent the two symmetrical tasks necessary for a successful Murung. The expanding bamboo summons the ancestors (and spirits) to the feast on earth, while the journey to the land of the dead leads the sacrificial animals to the spirits in the underworld.41 These connections and contrasts are summarised in the chart (3.2) above.

40 Textual section 18 (Lyego Kuniin, ‘Asking at the Gate’ ) is named after these gates. Cf. speech among Daur shamans in Mongolia, in which a ‘road’ is less a place than a transformation (Humphrey 1996: 297). 41 Gaenszle makes a similar point about Mewahang Rai texts and rituals (Gaenszle 2002: 137ff; 143).

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Exchange The animals are killed on earth, the spirits receive their sacrificial shares in Neli and those gifts obligate the spirits to return favours to the sponsor. Linking men, spirits and mithuns, this reciprocal exchange is the third theme of the Subu Heniin and the focus of its final textual sections (14–19), which are chanted while preparations for the animal sacrifice are nearing completion. There are two kinds of bonds here, not just the familiar one, between men and spirits, but also another, between men and mithuns. This second bond is described in textual section 13, when the nyibu tells the story of two sisters who compete to make the best rice beer: the loser becomes the mithun and the winner becomes man.42 The interdependence in this man-mithun relationship is made explicit in the Subu Heniin chant: Man and mithun, Niikun and Sukun, In Danyi Hartii, you promised to look after one another; At that time, you made a pledge to give each other gifts; Man and mithun, you are joined together like necklaces and bracelets.43 Later, in the very last lines of the text, just before the axe falls on the mithun’s neck, the nyibu reminds the animal of this pact: We are bound together in friendship. This reciprocity between man and mithun, obligating the animal to be sacrificed, is thus one dimension of the more familiar exchange between humans and spirits. Following the man-mithun story, the next three textual sections (15–17) describe, in turn, the sacrificial shares allocated to the spirits, the lapang where each spirit claims its share

42 This story of Niikun and Sukun is found elsewhere in central Arunachal Pradesh (Elwin 1958: 438–39; Tara 2005: 175; Mitkong et al. 1999: 85). 43 ‘Necklaces and bracelets’ symbolise interdependence.

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and the favours given to the sponsors by the spirits. Buried beneath the long lists of spirits in each of these three sections is a reference to an important exchange practice in the Murung. The first list (section 15) explains which portion of sacrificial meat will be given to which spirit. It also names the spirit’s lapang and adds the word ‘pukun’ as the place where the share will be claimed. A spirit named Rontu, for example, has a lapang called murta kondu, so the nyibu says: Come, Rontu, and take a mithun intestine; Come to the murta kondu pukun and accept our gift. The second list (section 16) names each spirit and its lapang in the land of the dead. While a lapang on earth is the ritual platform where the animals are tied before being killed, in Neli it is the place by which the spirits are known (‘their address,’ as one man explained). This underworld lapang is also said to strengthen the spirit by giving it miji migung knowledge: Now I name the spirits and their separate lapangs; First I name Kiiri in tace lapang and then Neli in kempu lapang.44 The third list (section 17) again names the spirits and their lapangs, but this time the word ‘dulu’ is appended. Although dulu has multiple meanings, they all refer to gift-giving.45 In the Subu Heniin, dulu is the place where a spirit gives favours to the sponsor. For example, Kiiri’s lapang is tace, and Neli’s lapang is kempu: ‘Kiiri, give us favours from tace dulu; Neli, give us favours from kempu dulu.

‘Neli’ is the name of a spirit as well as the land of the dead. The valley-wide distribution of meat by the sponsor is called dulu, and dulu ayu is the text chanted the night before the distribution. 44 45

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Chart 3.3. Three Places/Acts of Exchange term

Subu Heniin (in underworld)

Murung (on earth)

pukun

place where spirits receive sacrificial meat

rice donations by women to sponsor’s wife

lapang

place where spirits reside

place where sacrificial animals are tied

dulu

place where spirits give favours to men

meat (not sacrificial ) given by sponsor to all Apatani houses

The three places referred to in these lists of spirits—pukun, lapang, dulu— are also the place where exchange is enacted in a Murung feast. These correspondences, which illustrate a coordination between textual recitation and ritual enactment, are summarised in the chart above. In the Subu Heniin text, spirits, sponsors and sacrificial animals are bound up in the reciprocal logic of exchange. In the next chapter, which turns directly to the Murung, we will see that others are drawn into this network of reciprocity and that it is double-layered: exchange on earth is mirrored by exchange in the underworld. For now, however, I want to emphasise that this gift-giving requires the fertile land and the material prosperity that are the intended consequences of that exchange. That is why, leading up to its conclusion, the Subu Heniin continually celebrates growth and maturation, in the birth of the sun, the earth and water, the dividing female body, converging streams and the ever-expanding bamboo. This pulse of life begins when the sun rises.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE MURUNG FESTIVAL The verbal complexity of the Subu Heniin text is matched by the ritual depth and social breadth of the Murung festival. The two are in fact inseparable. The chant is performed only during the festival, as its centrepiece, and the festival cannot be held without the chant. Since a description of all or even most of the events during the three weeks of a Murung would serve little purpose, a summary is given in Appendix A. This chapter then focuses on three key days and their events—the first day of the sacrifice; the rice donations on the next day; the meat distribution & procession more than a week later. I have chosen these events because they most clearly enact the festival’s focus on exchange and fertility, which, as we saw in the previous chapter, are the principal themes of the Subu Heniin text, too. Descriptions of those three days are followed by a comparative analysis of the Murung, which identifies differences in key ideas and practices, with an emphasis on Apatani ceremonial friendships. Those differences then lead to an interpretation of the social significance of the Murung. Before all that, however, we need to see what a Murung is and what place it has in local society. Murung in Apatani society For Apatanis, Murung is tiigo, which means that is a public ritual primarily intended to bring prosperity and success. Tiigo rituals include the two other major festivals (Myoko, Dree), most life-cycle ceremonies and miscellaneous others rituals (house building, for example). Cicing rituals, by contrast, are intended to prevent a misfortune or to heal an illness or other undesirable condition, like infertility. In other words, the two dozen or so Apatani healing ceremonies are cicing. As explained in the previous chapter, these terms (tiigo and cicing) also identify the spirits usually addressed in each kind of ritual, as well as the chants that summon them. Although this contrast sometimes collapses in the case of individual spirits, it is consistent when applied to rituals. Murung is always called tiigo.

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Most replies to my question about why someone sponsored a particular Murung fit the expectations of a tiigo ritual. Typical answers were ‘to improve our fortunes’ or ‘to bring health and wealth.’ Some people said they conducted a Murung ‘for my sons and their families,’ as a kind of pre-death inheritance. A few men decided to undertake this expensive, time-consuming ceremony because the spirits, speaking through divination, advised or ordered them to do so. Other people mentioned the need to communicate with the spirits: ‘We did it to keep in touch with our spirits’ and ‘to get the spirits to help us.’ One old man who had already sponsored five Murungs said that he was planning another. When I asked him why, he answered without hesitation: ‘Because without the spirits, there is no life. Without Danyi [sun] and the other spirits, we would have no rice, no growth. Without the earth, we can’t live.’ In these few words, this man, who was not a nyibu and had little ritual knowledge, summed up the popular view of the Murung. A few men (straying from a tiigo toward a cicing explanation), added that they hoped their Murung would remedy a specific problem. In most cases, however, these men were sponsoring a less-than-full version of a Murung. Some of them mentioned an illness, often mental or psychological, while others cited a childless wife, daughter or daughter-in-law, or infertility among animals. Still, even when the aim is to cure a specific problem, that condition is usually long-standing, and its remedy is considered part of a general wish to improve the family’s fortunes. No one said anything about the ‘social cohesion’ or ‘prestige’ that appears so often in scholarly interpretations of these large feasts, including mine of the Murung. Forms of Murung One of the difficulties in describing the Murung, and other complex rituals, is that it is celebrated in a number of different forms. In fact, the Murung could be described as a category of related ceremonies, with common core features: individual and voluntary (not calendrical and/ or obligatory) sponsorship, large animal sacrifice, particular exchange practices, the Subu Heniin chant and restrictions on food and movement. Exceptions are that the padu form has no restrictions and that the subu taniin form often ignores some of the exchange partnerships. Other important features—number of nyibus and animals killed, size of

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Chart 4.1. Forms of Murung name

Subu Heniin

nyibus

1. padu1

6–8 hours 8–10 hours

1

2. subu taniin 3. ronser

12–14 hours

4. takun putu

12–14 hours

5. rontii

12–14 hours

animals sacrificed

1 mithun calf or 1 cow calf 1 1 adult mithun2 + 1 mithun calf (or 1 adult cow) 1 1 adult cow + 1 mithun calf; 1 pig3 1 or 2 2–4 adult mithuns + 2–4 adult cows 2 4 (or more) adult mithuns + 4 adult cows; 1 pig

dulu distribution

procession

pukun donation

none

none

none

none

none

none

village

village

valley

Myoko4 group

Myoko group

valley

valley

valley

valley

procession, meat distribution and rice donations—are the criteria by which the various forms are evaluated in public opinion. Chart 4.1 above shows five types of Murung in order of increasing elaboration and expense.Of these five forms, only three are regularly performed today. I discount the first (padu), which is better considered as a ‘preliminary’ Murung. Although it includes the Subu Heniin chant and mithun calf (or cow) sacrifice, it is conducted in order to determine the eligibility of a man to sponsor a Murung that season or in the future. The third type (ronser) is losing ground because it is not considered good value for money, and the fourth type (takun putu) is increasingly rare for the same reason. 1 2, 3, 4

Also known as subu padu and subu tado. Other forms also have variant names. An adult mithun (with four- or five-inch long horns and five or six rings on each) cost 20–22,000 rupees in 2009. 3 This pig (doko alyi) is killed on the seventh day and not on the first day (see Appendix A). 4 ‘Myoko group’ refers to the village or villages that host the annual Myoko festival on a rotating basis. 1 2

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Most people choose the subu taniin because it promises a great deal but requires relatively little time and money. It is over in a day and does not involve the full complement of exchange practices. Still, several people went out of their way to explain that while the subu taniin appears to be a minor event, it is ‘equal, to the rontii in efficacy. Only wealth, they said, distinguishes it from the more elaborate forms. ‘But the Subu Heniin is shorter,’ I pointed out. ‘That’s because the animals sacrificed are fewer,’ came the answer and a look of surprise at my ignorance. Rontii, the most elaborate form, is described in this chapter and throughout this book. Unless otherwise noted, ‘a Murung’ or ‘the Murung’ refers to this type. Rontii includes the largest number of sacrificial animals, a full set of exchange practices, rice donations (pukun), meat distribution (dulu) and valley-wide procession. It earns the most prestige for the sponsor and his clan, and is the type of Murung that I observed most often. The number of Murungs held in various years between 1944–45 and 2009 is shown in Appendix B. While the information from the early years is patchy and probably inaccurate, and the popular but less elaborate subu taniin is surely under-reported, two related trends stand out. First, the number of large Murungs has decreased. The most elaborate form ( yapu yalang), involving fifteen to twenty mithuns, was celebrated regularly until the mid-1950s, after which it declined and died out in 1972.5 Also, the single rontii celebrated during the twoyear period of 2008 and 2009 stands in sharp contrast to the twenty in 1987 and nine in 1999. Second, during the years for which I have reliable information, the number of subu taniin Murungs has risen, probably as a substitute for the more expensive and time-consuming forms. The total cost of an elaborate Murung is now double that for a medium-priced car, and people complain about the enormous amount of time and effort required. A more capricious factor that determines the number of Murungs each year are the divinations. In recent years, unfavourable omens have cancelled many would-be Murungs by willing and able sponsors. Another reason for the decline of elaborate forms of Murung might be that people own fewer mithuns than in the past. Before 1970, when an epidemic of foot and mouth disease killed nearly all these animals

5

Fürer-Haimendorf 1980: 154.

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in the Apatani valley, wealthy men owned as many as 200. By the late 1970s, those same men had only thirty or forty.6 Today, rich men own about ten mithuns, and most people have only two or three. In part, this reflects a change from an economy in which mithuns were used for nearly all transactions to one in which cash is exchanged. This movement from mithun to money does not necessarily mean fewer Murungs, however. A man can and often does purchase the animals he needs for the festival. Still, Apatanis are now less likely to spend cash on mithuns than on other status symbols such as cars and modern houses. Popular perceptions of Murung Nevertheless, while other Apatani ritual practices have declined or disappeared, this expensive and time-consuming feast has held its ground into the first decade of the twenty-first century, Perhaps because of (and not despite) its enormous price tag and the erosion of tradition, sponsoring a Murung remains a goal for Apatani families. Unlike a car or house, it is a socially-embedded means to enhance the status of one’s family and clan. Gift-exchange is widely accepted as the basis of social relations, especially in a segmentary society such as the Apatani, where interactions are largely face-to-face. Since Marcel Mauss, we have understood that exchange is a ‘debt’ economy in which the real currency is not material goods but social relationships.7 Those relations in a Murung are described later in this chapter, but here I want to emphasise that, in Apatani eyes, they are realised through meat, rice and rice beer. These commodities are the local language for talking about wealth, generosity and miserliness. Like any display of wealth, a Murung engenders ambivalent responses. The attitudes expressed by Apatanis in interviews, casual conversations and oral stories combine envy with distrust. Several people, mostly women, commented on the first day, when in-married clanswomen (nyahii), led by the sponsor’s wife, line up opposite the nyibu on the lapang. Wearing ceremonial clothes and expensive necklaces, they decorate the sacrificial animals with rice powder and rice

6 7

Fürer-Haimendorf 1980: 50–51. Mauss 1990 [1925].

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beer. In the past, this minor spectacle was confined to the sponsor’s wife and her daughters-in-law, but now it has become a ‘competition’ involving many more in-married clanswomen. One woman expressed her distaste this way: The fancy clothes they wear now! As if there was a competition. Everyone, from every house comes to put rice powder on mithuns . . . In the past, it was only the close daughters-in-law. But now the wives of all the clansmen come, and some from other clans—even from Assam.8

This contempt, however, is often mixed with envy of the finely dressed women lined up in a tableau of wealth. For example, a minor Murung (subu taniin) was videotaped and shown on the local TV channel in Hapoli in January 2008. The main comment heard the next day was: ‘Did you see that? That line-up had thirty or thirty-five women!’ A large Murung will be judged a failure if it does not muster at least fifty women in the tableau. Misgivings are also voiced about the number of women donating rice on the second day: In the past, the baskets of rice were brought only by barmii [sponsor’s sisters, paternal aunts and nieces]. Now it is terrible . . . up to a thousand people bring baskets, even the huge, thirty kilogram ones!9

If such comments have a taste of sour grapes, there is a similar ambivalence among many men who express both jealousy at the wealth of the sponsor and admiration at his generosity. Whenever I asked about the Murung in general terms, I heard about the most famous ones in the past. Some are remembered by the number of mithuns sacrificed: ‘He sacrificed ten, no fifteen, mithuns!’ But the Murungs that have stayed longest in social memory are identified by the generosity displayed in the dulu, when one piece of meat is distributed to each house in every village. During one Murung in the 1980s, for example, meat was distributed beyond the valley, to Itanagar and North Lakhimpur (in Assam), where some Apatani families live. A decade later, the sponsor of a famous Murung added an extra piece of wild boar to this dulu gift, and another man included meat on the bone. The most famous Murungs, however, are remembered because the generosity of the sponsor

8 9

Interview with Mihin Yalyo by Tage Rupa, 2004. Interview with Mihin Yalyo by Tage Rupa, 2004.

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extended beyond meat in his dulu. Two sponsors, one in 1991 and another in 2000, are praised because they added sugar, a recently acquired taste among Apatanis. Earlier Murungs also remain in social memory because they added something special. Padi Yubbe put the precious commodity of salt in his dulu, and Mudan Laling added a piece of pork in his. While both these Murungs took place in the 1970s, another famous one is much older. Hibu Tupe, it is said, met the first British officer on his visit to the valley in 1897 and later became rich when he established a trade route to bring salt from Assam. What most people remember, however, is that he gave everyone several grams of salt in his dulu more than a hundred years ago. This admiration of generosity does not preclude mockery of rich men. Two popular Apatani oral stories express disdain toward the wealthy miser who sponsors a Murung. In one story, the plight of a poor girl is dramatised when she goes to her brother’s house on the day of his Murung. ‘Even though my brother and his wife are selfish,’ she reassures herself on the way, ‘they will surely give me something nice to eat and drink on this special day.’ Arriving at their house, she sees eight animals tied up at the lapang, which means that he is sponsoring the most elaborate form of the festival. Yet she is turned away without even a grain of rice. Her fortunes are then reversed by the appearance of a large ‘spirit’ mithun near her own house. The rich men of the village dress up in their elaborate shawls and try to coax the mithun to them by offering rice powder on expensive brass plates, just as they would on the first day of a festival. However, the mithun rejects their overtures and goes to the poor girl’s husband, dressed in rags and holding a torn bamboo basket. When the wealthy men threaten to harm him, he restores harmony by giving them meat, as in a Murung. Murung sponsors are mocked in a second story, too. ‘They were very rich and pretentious,’ explained the teller. ‘Even today we have a saying in ritual speech that refers to them. We use it whenever we want to say that someone is showing off.’ Guests at a Murung are also mocked if they are greedy or stingy: One of the guests was a rich man known as ‘Ugly-Lips.’ He was very greedy and ate everything in sight, without thinking of others. As a gift for the sponsors, he brought one tiny piece of meat cut from the lower leg of a scrawny, thin bird. It was small, but he then divided that little piece into ten more pieces! And so his lips became even uglier.

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chapter four Three key days

With this background, we can now look at the Murung in more detail. From its more than three weeks, three days and their events best illustrate the central themes of the feast. 1. Tableau and sacrifice By late morning on the first day, when the early fog has burned away and the January sun shines brightly, the Murung is in full flow. The nyibu has been chanting for several hours, the animals are tethered to the lapang and a small procession of young and teenage boys, led by a few adults, have come to the sponsor’s house. Each boy comes from the family of one of the sponsor’s ceremonial friends, and each brings a good piece of pork as a gift. After the sacrifice, most of these representatives take home the piece of sacrificial meat allocated to their family. Around noon, the first important event of the day begins. Women married into the sponsor’s clan gather together and line up opposite the lapang, where the nyibu continues to chant (see photograph 12). These daughters-in-law (nyahii), and other female kin, wear ceremonial dress: a skirt with bands of white, red and dark blue, a white tunic with an embroidered inset on the back, heavy brass bracelets and light aluminium ones on both arms. What catches the eye, however, is the thick tangle of necklaces that hang down to the waist. Strands of small, yellow oblong beads mix with light blue, tiny red, tubular carnelian and round blue ones. An Apatani would notice the most expensive beads—light grey, like pigeon’s eggs, and dark black with white wavy lines, like ‘eyes.’10 The pièce de résistance, however, is a necklace of chunky conch shell beads, which may cost as much as 100,000 rupees. Each woman also carries two containers. A square bamboo and cane basket, decorated by large, glossy green leaves, holds rice powder. A gourd, encased in a cane-mesh, holds rice beer. While the basket is standard fare, the gourd (supung pinta) is a valued ritual object,

10 These bucker ripo beads are probably made and traded in the same way as the fake ‘Tibetan’ dzi beads.

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usually made by the woman’s husband, father-in-law or grandfather, who carefully weaves the cane-work with various patterns and binds it with the tajer bamboo. Still the nyibu continues to chant, barely audible but clearly visible to all. When he begins to describe the dangerous routes to the underworld, the richly-dressed daughters-in-law, led by the sponsor’s wife, move toward the lapang, where they smear rice powder and pour beer on the mithuns’ and cows’ foreheads and horns. When a few of the women have decorated the animals, important clansmen, especially their husbands, follow behind and add more powder and beer (see photograph 11). Then, the women distribute rice powder to the people (mostly women) gathered on the front porches and to anyone else in the crowd. From their gourds, they also ladle out rice beer to everyone (mostly men) in the neighbourhood (see photograph 13). It is important to remember that nearly all these neighbours are from the sponsor’s clan since their houses are clustered around his clan’s lapang, where the Murung is being held. The tableau of women lined up opposite the lapang is an obvious display of the sponsor’s wealth, symbolised by the necklaces. When the day is over, the necklaces are hung on a wall inside the sponsor’s house, with the owner’s name tag, where they remain for several days (see photograph 14). The line-up is also an exhibition of fertility since only married women distribute rice powder, and new brides are given pride of place. The tableau, decoration of animals and distribution of rice powder has a touch of theatre, too, which brings people onto their front porches to watch. Cameras and video equipment appear, and the crowd thickens in the open space around the lapang. Clansmen who live outside the village also come, from Hapoli, Itanagar and other towns in the state, even from Assam. These men, usually salaried officials, arrive in their cars but always wearing their ceremonial best, a male version of the women’s white, embroidered tunic and a white shawl, and possibly one of the expensive conch shell necklaces. They always reminded me of the rich men parodied in the story summarised above. Throughout this excitement, the nyibu continues to chant. By the time the mithuns and cows have been smeared with rice powder and beer, he has led them close to the underworld, where they will be sacrificed and given to the spirits. As the influential men of the clan preen about in their expensive costumes, the nyibu warns the animals:

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chapter four Mithuns and cows, do not look back! This journey is dangerous, like the swift waters of the Kuru river; The paths are hazardous, like the deep ravines of the Kime river; Be brave, and do not turn around!

Although few are listening, everyone knows that the day is advancing swiftly toward the sacrifice. Already clansmen have driven short wooden stakes into the ground, one for each mithun in back of the sponsor’s house and one for each cow in front, with the animals’ ritual names written on them. In the back, they have also set up a line of tall bamboo poles decorated with shavings. As the Subu Heniin chant draws to a close, the nyibu explains to the animals that, although they will die, they should not blame their owners or him. Their fate was decided by divination: Listen, mithuns and cows! We alone did not decide that you would go down to Neli; That was decided by divinations seen by a group of men; Do not be afraid; do not be anxious; The axe will fall swiftly, like the rays of the sun; The chicken liver divinations took you down to Neli, Where your sacrifice will bring us prosperity. As he chants these lines, the nyibu holds a gourd ladle, with a name tag and several pieces of tajer bamboo (see photograph 10). Eight of these gourds lie at his feet, one for each mithun and cow. He selects one and waves it toward the animal named on the tag. Slowly, the mithun or cow lifts it head, looks toward the man and then turns away. Watching this and knowing what is to come, it is difficult to avoid thinking that a Murung is, in part, a mithun funeral.

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In his final verses, the nyibu asks the animals, in their death, to bring good fortune to the sponsor’s family. Now, nearly dusk, the animals are untied and led to the sponsor’s house by a group of young clansmen, including the man chosen by divination to do the actual killing. Excited but not shouting, these young men work together to manoeuvre each large and not unsuspecting animal into place, and then tie it to its wooden stake. The nyibu, standing nearby, chants for a few minutes and asks the principal spirits to accept these animals. Suddenly someone stuffs a handful of rice powder into a mithun’s mouth, and the young man raises the axe high above his head. It comes down on the mithun’s neck, stunning and felling but not killing it. Jerking wildly, the animal is held by four or five men, while another plunges his machete or a sharpened bamboo pole into its underbelly and slits it open from front to back. Inside, the tightlypacked organs spill out like an opened suitcase. The limbs are hacked off and laid aside, while the large carcass is cut up. When the mithuns have been killed, the nyibu moves to the front of the house and chants briefly as the cows are similarly dispatched one by one. Finally, he conducts a chicken liver divination to confirm that the spirits have accepted the sacrifice. It does not always happen so neatly. Once I watched a boy, the sponsor’s son, about 16 years old, as he raised the heavy axe for the first time. He was wearing a black T-shirt, with the word ‘death’ written above an image of a skull. Bringing down the blade, he failed to make clean contact and only sliced away a side of the mithun’s neck. His embarrassed father snatched the axe and struck a better blow that felled the still standing animal. The division of the sacrifice is unceremonial, even casual. Once the animals have been cut up, a few parts are immediately claimed by their designated recipient. In most Murungs, only the largest mithun’s head is carted off by the sponsor’s oldest clansman, or his representative. Then the meat is spread out on plastic sheets or in a specially built ‘meat house,’ where clansmen, supervised by the designated ‘butcher’ ( yo tarko), hack and cut, separate and divide. By the end of the day, the mithun and cow heads will go to senior clansmen.11 A day or two later, when the meat has been removed by boiling, these skulls will be returned and hung inside the sponsor’s house. Mithun livers, chests and tails go to the sponsor’s father-in-law

11

For details of these (and other) exchanges, see below and Appendix C.

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and brothers-in-law (or their representatives). Mithun forelegs and lower backs are claimed by maternal uncles and their descendants, while the thighs of back legs go to sisters or paternal aunts. A mithun intestine usually goes to the man who swung the axe, while the nyibu receives no specific share of the sacrifice, only good pieces of meat and cash. Mirroring this alliance-building on earth, the spirits also claim their sacrificial share in the land of the dead. Here, too, is reciprocity, as the nyibu coaxes the animals in the final verse of his chant: Do not disappoint us; do not fail this family; Bring wealth and prosperity, to both husband and wife, As big as the sky, as wide as the earth. Within an hour, as the sky turns dark, the killing is over, the meat carried off or cut up and stored away. All that remains are pools of spilt blood, sprinkled with rice powder. The day that began with women and rice ends with men and meat. 2. Rice donations The following day is the pukun, when hundreds and sometimes more than a thousand women donate rice to the sponsor’s wife.12 This morning was always my favourite part of a Murung. After the chanting, killing and dismembering the day before, people tend to relax. Important relations, ceremonial and otherwise, have received their gifts, and the spirits have claimed theirs as well. On this second day, the atmosphere around the sponsor’s house is more festive. The eating and drinking have begun and will continue for many days. It is a day for women to enjoy themselves. Setting out in the early morning in small groups, most will walk half an hour or so from their village to the sponsor’s village. Those coming from Hapoli take the bus, and a few arrive in cars. Everyone brings a gift of rice, usually

12 Millet is also donated, but since rice is given by nine in ten women, I will refer to these donations as ‘rice.’

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in a basket carried on her back. By eight o’clock, when it’s barely light, dozens of women stand in the sponsor’s backyard, where his wife receives their gifts. In a few hours, the crowd swells into a chaotic mass pushing toward the wife at its centre. Once they join this jostling pack of bodies, the women are no longer the dour, muddy figures who work all day in the paddy fields. Jokes and playful insults are hurled about: ‘Hey monkey-face! Out of my way!’ And to the sponsor’s wife: ‘What’s this tiny piece of meat [you’re giving me]? It won’t feed an insect!’ The wife’s retort is also quick: ‘Call this a gift! Can’t your old man do better?’ Each woman carries her basket of rice to the centre of the crowd, pushing herself forward and eventually handing it to the sponsor’s wife.13 The wife receives the rice basket with one hand and with the other gives the donor a piece of dried pig or raw mithun or cow meat in a small basket (see photograph 15). The donated rice is quickly poured into a large, upright basket, which, when filled, will be taken into the house. In a few days, most of this rice will be used to make the rice beer required for the weeks ahead. Meanwhile, on the porches or in the backyard, the sponsor’s clansmen are busily chopping meat into the hundreds of small pieces given to the women arriving with their baskets. This meat is not from the sacrifice and has been provided by a close clansman, usually a paternal uncle or cousin. This exchange of rice for a piece of meat is repeated many hundred, sometimes more than a thousand, times on this day. Before each of these rice donations has been poured into the common container, however, it is carefully noted in a book.14 A son or daughter stands next to the sponsor’s wife and writes down the details in three columns: donor’s name, village and basket size. Accuracy is important because if one of the donors (or her close relative) holds a Murung, the sponsor’s wife is expected to reciprocate with an equal or greater amount of rice. In the afternoon, when most of the women have given their donations and left, the sponsor’s house is full of hustle and bustle. At the front hearth, his wife and daughters cook rice and vegetables in large pots to feed their guests. They also begin to make rice beer by boiling

13 Baskets with twenty-five or thirty-five kilograms of rice are often carried by a male relative. 14 Until the 1970s, I was told, these details were remembered rather than written.

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some millet and, when half-cooked, adding large amounts of rice. After several hours of slow boiling, the mixture is spread out to cool on wide bamboo mats and then returned to the pot, in which a little corn flour and yeast are added. Finally, the concoction is poured through cloth strainers into large, upright baskets, lined with plastic, where it ferments for four or five days. Sometimes, at the end of this long day of rice donations, the sponsor’s wife, her close female relations and friends enjoy themselves by dancing and singing. This is the women’s day, but clansmen are also present. Some are busy chopping meat, while others arrive in the late afternoon for a special meal. A few senior men also sit around the men’s hearth, at the back of the house, gossiping and drinking, while two nyibus chant the Yorda Ayu. Although other ayus are performed during a Murung, only this one is mandatory and requires two men, like the Subu Heniin on the day before. The Yorda Ayu chant begins at sunrise and continues all day until dusk. The two nyibus alternate during these long hours, each chanting for about twenty or thirty minutes before passing a ritual fan (or wand) to the other. The fan (piley), once made of hornbill feathers, is today got up with chicken feathers, bound together by the tajer bamboo. The Yorda Ayu contains many of the same textual sections as the Subu Heniin, but aptly, on this day of donations, it also describes the fertility of rice as a metaphor for the prosperity of the family. Like many ayus, the performance involves verbal duelling between the two nyibus and is enjoyed by the audience in the house.15 In this cramped interior, the nyibu’s words are more audible than when he chants the Subu Heniin on the open-air platform. Several dozen people work, eat and drink in a space about twelve by four metres, but only a small number of older men actually listen and even fewer can follow the ritual speech. Still, at times, and unlike the longer chant that accompanies the sacrifice, the atmosphere is playful. The assistant nyibu’s chanting is scrutinised and sometimes found wanting: ‘No! That comes later!’ ‘Speak up, son! Can’t hear!’ Such comments are good-natured banter, however, and quickly lost in laughter. Despite the contrast in atmosphere and action, this day of women and rice is not so dissimilar to the previous day of men and meat. It, too, strengthens bonds between the sponsor and important relations (see chart 4.2 below). His wife’s parents and brothers, who received

15

For a summary of parts of the Yorda Ayu, see Takhe Kani 1996: 78–79.

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major shares of the sacrifice, make large donations of rice; maternal uncles and non-kin ceremonial friends also return the gift of sacrificial meat with rice donations. These latter relations are welcomed as honoured guests, given a meal and special pieces of pork. In addition to these obligatory exchanges, several hundred bonds are established with women who have no kin or ceremonial tie to the sponsor but still make donations of rice. In a large Murung, one in every six or seven families in the Apatani valley gives rice to the sponsor’s wife on this day of pukun. 3. Meat distribution and procession Several days after the pukun, when the rice has fermented and the large containers are full of beer, a Murung swings into another day of high energy. Early in the morning, before sunrise, a piece of (non-sacrificial) meat is distributed to every house in every village, followed by a daylong procession of men and boys that winds through the entire valley. Viewed together, this meat distribution (dulu) and procession (penii) illustrate the scale of social participation in a Murung. The several thousands of pieces of meat distributed by the sponsor exceeds even the number of rice donations made to his family on the second day; and just hours after the distribution, those who received the meat give food and drink to the sponsor’s clansmen and boys in the procession. Also, the men’s procession is no less fun than the women’s day of donations and also revels in symbols of fertility. Meat distribution (dulu) The events begin the day before, when a select group of men gather in the sponsor’s house. The party includes several of the sponsor’s closest clansmen, some of his non-kin ceremonial friends (buniin) and two men from each of the seven villages. These pairs of men (dulu koda), who may be either buniin friends or ordinary friends, are responsible for making sure the meat is given to all houses in their village. Overseeing the whole party gathered that day is a man, usually a paternal uncle or cousin, chosen by the sponsor. He assumes the role of eko honii, who supplies the food and drink to be given to the hundreds who take part in the procession after the distribution.16 During a Murung in 2007, the meat given to participants in the procession came from the

16

Sometimes the sponsor himself provides this meat.

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legs and thighs of nearly fifty cows bought in the market. The pieces of meat for the dulu distribution, which in that same Murung came from eight mithuns and cows, are usually provided by the sponsor himself. The day before the distribution, these men arrive at the sponsor’s house in the afternoon and stay all night. During the hours between midnight and sunrise, they drink and eat and entertain themselves by reciting parts of ayus. The most common is the Dulu Ayu, which expresses the congeniality of this night:17 Wealthy families sponsor the Murung, others prepare to chant this year; But let us not mention names of men gone to distribute meat; Do not think about the noise outside; let us only chant this ayu. Let us not speak of skills, or name those who cannot chant well; This rich man’s house is full of people, crowded from front to back; Who will go out and distribute the meat? who will stay here and chant? Beneath this banter, most of the Dulu Ayu celebrates an historical chain of Murungs, from the very first to the one being held in the house where the men are chanting. It also describes the preparation of the meat for distribution: Thick thighs of ngadu sotii mithun were cut and placed in ten baskets; Broad shoulders of ngaku soro mithun were sliced and filled five baskets; The meat is distributed in Nyampo village during this Murung festival.

17 Although the full text is now seldom recited, some men know it well (Blackburn 2008: 172–81).

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Another section of the Dulu Ayu expresses the humiliation suffered by a man who lost his mithuns (because of a ritual error) and had no meat to give his guests. Meat, good meat and plenty of it, makes a Murung successful. Reciting these lines, the men continue to chop thousands of pieces of fresh mithun or cow meat, each six to eight inches long and one or two inches thick, one for each Apatani house (see photograph 16). The individual pieces are tied with cane into bunches of ten, and these bunches are packed into bamboo baskets. When each basket is filled with 100 pieces (ten bunches of ten), the name of the village and clan to which it will go is written on it. By about 4 o’clock in the morning, the ninety or so baskets are ready.18 Leaving to a hail of ironic cheers and playful insults, the men load the baskets into cars and deliver them to each house in every village.19 Unloading the baskets, the men move quickly down the line of houses and hand the meat to whoever comes out to receive it. It is all over by sunrise, when the procession begins. Procession (penii) ‘Tomorrow is the penii, the procession,’ said Gyayru with uncharacteristic zeal. I met Gyayru, or rather he found me, after my wife and I had been in the valley for a few weeks on our first visit. I had achieved almost nothing with my project of recording oral stories, though I was making progress with learning the language. One day, as we were walking along the main road, which runs through the valley, a man on a motorbike sped past, turned back and stopped in front of us. ‘Are you doing research here?’ he asked in English. It turned out that a friend in the state capital, several hours away, had asked Gyayru to help us. This encounter, not so accidental in the confined valley, led me to my first Murung. A large festival sponsored by one of Gyayru’s paternal cousins was to begin the next day. I went and heard the long chant, saw the sacrifice and went back every day for a week to document the rice donations and other events at the sponsor’s house. Then, just when the ritual pace had slowed, Gyayru told me about

18 The number of baskets varies because some distributions include extra baskets in case of miscalculation. 19 This provides a fairly accurate method of counting the Apatani population: 90 baskets × 100 pieces = 9,000 households x (on average) 4 people = 36,000 Apatanis. A piece of meat is also given for each married son living in Hapoli, Itanagar or elsewhere, so this total includes all Apatanis, no matter where they reside.

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the procession. ‘It starts early tomorrow morning,’ he said smiling shyly—we both knew that he never got going before 10 o’clock. And he reassured me that there would be no objection to me joining in. Next morning, the wind whipped icy cold as I bumped along the road toward Gyayru’s house in one of the few rickshaws available in Hapoli. Looking out at the thick fog over the fields, I had my doubts about this ‘procession.’ I reached his house about 7:30 in the morning, climbed up the wooden ladder to the front porch, unlatched the bottom half of the wooden door, and entered the house. Inside the fire was blazing, and his wife and children were bustling about. Soon I was given a mug of rice porridge with a boiled egg, the favourite breakfast in this house. An hour later, we were ready. We wore a white shawl with broad orange borders—de rigueur ceremonial wear for men—a necklace of conch shell beads, which weighed a ton, aluminium bracelets and a machete, in its sheath, hanging from a cord slung over the my left shoulder. Gyayru also wore the modern man’s fashionable alternative to a traditional jacket: a white shirt embroidered with blue and orange bands on the collar, the cuffs and down the front. When we reached the main road, the mist had lifted and the sun started to warm us. Soon we found a group of men in their twenties and thirties, who asked us to join them. They were all bright-faced, well-groomed and, underneath their regulation white shawl, wore trousers, shirt and tie, again decorated with traditional colours and patterns. The tall leader wore a full suit. Just the sort of educated, office-going people I tried to avoid in my pursuit of authentic tribal traditions. But, then I saw that they were laughing and full of mischievous energy. ‘This might be fun,’ I thought. As we walked up the road, I counted nine of us, and they seemed pleased to have me in the group. Although I could manage only simple sentences, several spoke some English. At first, however, they paid me little attention and concentrated on practicing the songs that their leader had composed the night before. Holding a piece of paper in his hand, he belted out the lines, while the others quickly repeated them. ‘What are they singing?’ I asked Gyayru. He hesitated and said without conviction, ‘Love songs.’ Grasping this unexpected opportunity for language practice, I imitated the singing as best I could. Before long, the sounds formed into words and then into phrases, which I later discovered invited young girls to make love with us. Even before understanding the songs, however, I had an inkling that this ‘procession’ was not entirely pious. After walking up the road

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a hundred metres, a couple of men in our group drew their machetes, darted into the jungle and emerged with long pieces of cut bamboo, which they quickly hacked into staves. Near one end, they shaved back the outer sheath so that the fibres hung down like ringlets. They seemed to be walking sticks, but who needs one on the flat paths of the valley? Still, I was given one and carried it like everyone else. Curiously, no one used theirs as a walking stick. At Reru, the first village on the fixed route of the procession, my confusion cleared. All along the neat line of houses on each side of the lane, people had gathered on the front porches, eager to watch the proceedings. As we approached, the leader scanned the porches for the most appealing audience. Seeing one with several unmarried girls, he quickly lined us up in two rows of four, marched us forward and launched into the first verse: Come on, come have a look at us; We’re the young men from Bula-Lempya; Come on and do it with us!20 We repeated the lines and marched forward, a little unsure at first and certainly not in unison (see photograph 20). But by now the bamboo staves were held at the crotch and thrust upward toward the girls on the porch: Come out, young girls of Reru, Come quickly to us! So near, yet so far, My love, oh my love! Come on girls, do it with us. With this swaying phalanx of erect bamboo phalluses advancing on them, some girls screened their face with their shawls and a few scurried inside. But most stayed, smiled and enjoyed the fun. The older women clapped, shouted and hurled insults at us. There was nothing new in this erotic playmaking, as a description of a procession in the 1940s makes clear: ‘[T]here was a commotion down the street.

20 Gyayru and his friends are from Reru, one of the villages in a cluster known as Bula-Lempya.

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Women were scuttling indoors from one balcony after another, squealing like unoiled brakes. A man armed with a long bamboo phallus was darting from house to house in pursuit of them.’21 On we went, winding through the narrow rows of houses, circling around each lapang, from one village to the next, through bamboo groves and across paddy fields. Soon we knew the songs by heart, had improved our timing and added a few flourishes to our routine. When approaching a house and singing our first song, we held the bamboo staves across our shoulders and only later fixed it on our crotch for the final thrust forward. Not everyone appreciated our act, but most did and applauded loudly when we departed, swaying around the corner to the next group of houses. As the day wore on, I could also see that the procession was more like a marathon run. Nearly 900 people took part in this event, and a thousand or more is not uncommon.22 We know the numbers with some accuracy because volunteers stand all day at a check-point on the route and pin a ten rupee note on the shawl of every person who passes by. For each note given out, they add a mark on a sheet of paper. In addition, in our procession, at a little bridge over a stream men used bamboo sticks to count the number of people who passed.23 The procession also had a nominal beginning. A group of mostly young children and teenagers, their parents and other clansmen, was led by the main nyibu holding aloft his ritual fan. Everyone in this ‘official’ group carried a machete, and some of the adults held brass plates, which they struck from time to time with bamboo sticks wrapped in cloth.24 Somewhere in the middle was the second specialist, known as the liipa (‘between’) nyibu. The lead nyibu chanted a few verses whenever he came to an important place, a lapang, a stream, field or grove named in the Subu Heniin text, and he occasionally scattered seeds in the paddy fields. But I was too engrossed in the phallic staves and bawdy songs to see much of this. What I did see was a loose confederation of numerous groups, ranging from a handful, like ours, to as many as thirty men and boys, mov-

Graham Bower 1953: 95. Processions in 2005 and 2007 recorded totals of 1,100 and 1,450, respectively. 23 These sticks (kotiir) are the traditional method of counting, especially enumerating grievances during negotiations. 24 This is the only musical instrument played by Apatanis. 21 22

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ing through the valley. All the groups followed the same fixed route, but each was autonomous, starting at a different place and time and moving at its own pace. The uniformity was that all the participants were male, wore the minimum white shawl, carried a machete and put on some kind of performance. The standard display, captured in photographs from the 1940s, is still popular today. The men and boys stop at a lapang, shuffle around in a circle, bending at the knee and shouting ‘Ho! Ho!’ as they brandish their machetes. After a few minutes of this, the local hosts hold out ladles of rice beer and plates of rice and meat. No matter how uninspired the performance, villagers are duty bound to provide the dancers with food and drink. It is hard work, entertaining the whole valley. After walking, singing, dancing and drinking our way through four villages, our group sat down and rested. It was nearly noon. Up again and through pine forests on the edge of the valley, then three more villages, which brought us to our pre-arranged lunch at about 3 in the afternoon. We were ushered down a lane, up another and into a house, where we were served rice, local spinach and wild boar meat, a local delicacy. When lunch was over, it was getting dark and we were nearing the end of our itinerary. After prancing through the last two villages, we again gained the main road and walked toward the sponsor’s house in Old Ziro. We continued to sing loudly and brandish our staves, not at anyone in particular, but as a triumphant gesture, proud of our performance: ours was the only group to use the traditional bamboo phallus (taku tamu) and sing newly-composed songs. The reception on the road near the sponsor’s house was riotous. A large crowd milled about as clansmen received each party when it crossed the finishing line and plied them with more beer. Round and round in a circle we danced and shouted, almost to exhaustion, before being led to the sponsor’s house. Later that evening, small groups of men went from house to house of their clansmen, dancing and shouting all over again. This day-long march through the valley is considered a display of the social standing of the sponsor’s clan: the more who participate, the greater its name.25 In the weeks following my initiation, people often referred to the ‘Padi [sponsor’s clan] procession,’ commenting 25 Until a few years ago, only clansmen, their children and ceremonial friends took part, but now participation is open to all.

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on its size and performance. It compared favourably with another procession that same day for a less elaborate variant of Murung (ronser), which only covered the sponsor’s village. A few days after the Padi procession, another procession for a large Murung wound through the valley, yet when it reached Old Ziro, it seemed spiritless, with little singing and mostly young boys. ‘Poor show’ was the self-satisfied comment in the Padi clan houses that evening. If the success of the procession belongs to the clan, the dulu distribution earns prestige for the sponsor himself since (typically) he alone supplies the meat for everyone. The size of the procession becomes a talking point for a few weeks, but the quality of the dulu distribution can establish reputations for years, even decades, as in the examples mentioned above. In brief, these two complementary events on the same day enhance the social standing of both the individual sponsor and his clan. This point suggests something of the social significance of a Murung, but first we need to look at the festival in a broader perspective. Comparative perspectives Feasts of merit My interpretation of the Murung begins by considering it in comparative perspective, as a ‘feast of merit.’ This approach has its pitfalls. Categories such as ‘feast of merit’ (and ‘shaman’ in the next chapter) sometimes acquire an ethnographic reality beyond the evidence supporting them. Definitions of these categories are also often imprecise, allowing us to fit our material into ready-made boxes and supplying us with pre-existing analyses. Even key terms may mislead, and the ‘merit’ in the feast is far from transparent. Does it refer to prestige, to rank or to credit earned in the afterlife?26 Rather than reveal the meaning of the Apatani Murung, might the category of a ‘feast of merit’ actually obscure it?

26 F. K. Lehman suggests that while merit is earned with the spirits and ancestors, prestige is achieved among the living (Lehman, personal communication, 2009). See also Lehman 1996.

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Against these drawbacks, I would set the value and necessity of comparative analysis. Whether we consider a text, a practice or an institution, we depend on categories in order to reach beyond our own fieldwork, our ‘village’ or ‘tribe,’ to enlarge our data and enhance our interpretation. Looking at the Apatani festival against the backdrop of ‘feasts of merit’ assisted me in two ways. Similarities in the comparative data led me to aspects of the Murung I had overlooked, and the differences pointed to its distinctive features. I also learned that, although we can identify the characteristics of ‘feasts of merit,’ these ritual complexes are not a discreet category or an ideal-type. They are, instead, a cluster of local (and regional) concepts, practices and attitudes inseparable from their wider social and cultural contexts. Best-known from early twentieth-century descriptions in the Naga Hills and Chin Hills, feasts of merit have been more recently documented in upland Southeast Asia and southwest China (see Appendix F). The published evidence for such rituals in central Arunachal Pradesh, on the other hand, is thin. In addition to the Murung, only two other rituals appear to be identifiable as feasts of merit.27 Other descriptions are inconclusive, although further research may reveal them to be this kind of feast.28 The only world-wide comparative study is confident that, despite the variety of societies where they are celebrated, the ‘uniform character of the feasts is obvious.’29 Still, its author, Kaj Birket-Smith, warns that the term ‘feasts’ might simply be a ‘convenient common denomination for gatherings.’30 His own analysis is not without flaws. When discussing Fürer-Haimendorf’s data on Apatanis, for example, he glances at the Murung and emphasises another ritual (the lisudu, last celebrated in the 1960s) because it resembles the potlatch in its ostentatious destruction of wealth to humiliate a rival.

27 One is sobo panam (‘cutting the mithun’), an Adi feast (Mego 1990), which is presumably the example noted by Dunbar (1916: 39) and cited by Birket-Smith (1967: 46). The other is the rialo among the Mra in the upper Subansiri region (Toni Huber, personal communication, 2009). 28 The Idu Mishmi reh festival is a possibility (Baruah 1960: 83–86; author’s fieldwork). The Digaru and Miju Mishmis, further east and south, reportedly did not celebrate feasts of merit, but this needs to be confirmed (Mills 1952: 6). 29 Birket-Smith 1967: 71. 30 Birket-Smith 1967: 70.

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In the end, after dismissing the destruction of property and the erection of megaliths as secondary criteria, Birket-Smith defined feasts of merit by three features: 1. the feasts are a fixed, graded series that increases the sponsor’s rank 2. the sponsor is entitled to prerogatives 3. the feast honours and benefits the dead While his first two criteria are familiar from the Naga and Chin examples, the last is perceptive in highlighting a link between the land of the dead and feasts of merit. This dimension turns out, as we shall see, to be present in feasts of merit not included in Birket-Smith’s survey. More than that, in the Murung, and not only there, this element of local cosmology is key to understanding aspects of exchange in the feast. The term ‘feast of merit’ first appeared in print in 1912, when John Shakespear wrote a brief notice about the Kabui Nagas of Manipur.31 This was followed by detailed accounts of similar feasts in a series of monographs on various Naga and other tribes living in the hills between India and Burma.32 These invaluable descriptions, principally by J. H. Hutton and J. P. Mills, fixed the category of ‘feast of merit’ firmly in ethnographic literature, and they continue to influence research in the region. For instance, Hutton’s idea that the feasts recycle a magical power, from men to grains to animals to ancestors, underpins and distorts recent analyses. The historical trail of influence left by these early descriptions leads directly to the Apatani valley, too. Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf did his first fieldwork in the Naga Hills in the 1930s, where he saw feasts of merit among both the Konyaks and Angamis. That experience stayed with him and coloured what he observed later in the Apatani valley. He never, however, saw a complete Murung. As a government representative in the Subansiri area in 1944–45, he travelled to areas outside the Apatani valley during January when most Murungs are held. And his later, brief visits as an anthropologist did not coincide with any performance of the festival. As a result, he saw neither the Shakespear 1912a: 70. See also Shakespear 1912b: 63, 87–91, 170–72. Hutton 1921a; Hutton 1921b; Mills 1922; Gilhodes 1996 [1922]; Mills 1926; Parry 1932; Mills 1937; Kauffmann 1937–1944; Kauffmann 1939; Stevenson 1943. See also Lehman 1963; Stonor 1950; Jacobs 1990; Brauns and Löffler 1990; Borooah 2000; Saul 2005. 31 32

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sacrifice nor the Subu Heniin chant on the first day of an elaborate Murung and observed only the procession that takes place a week or more later. He did see nyibus chanting as part a mithun sacrifice, but only during minor forms of Murung or other rituals.33 This fragmented and partial observation explains why some of what Fürer-Haimendorf wrote about the Murung (‘Morom’ in his early writing) is misleading or inaccurate. If his simultaneous roles as administrator and ethnographer undermined his ability to document local life, Apatani culture could also interfere with his official duties. On the only occasion, in 1945, when he witnessed a Murung procession, his report was brief because he was pre-occupied with arranging for Apatani porters to make the trek to Assam to bring back supplies for his camp. Persuading them, as he admitted, would be ‘no easy matter considering that the Apa Tanis are in throes of the Morom festival.’34 Without any direct observation of the complete ritual sequence, it appears that he drew on his earlier experience in the Naga Hills, and his familiarity with the work of Mills and Hutton, when he confidently called the Murung a ‘feast of merit.’ While he did not use this term in his diary and notebooks written during the 1940s, he did use it in his first monograph on the Apatanis in 1962.35 Was he misled by the influence of his mentors and the convenience of categories? Was it too easy to identify an Apatani ritual with a label based on Naga material?36 Certainly, at first glance, the Murung does not seem to match the profile of a feast of merit, largely built on the Naga-Chin model and summarised by Birket-Smith. To be specific, it fails to meet his first two criteria. Murung as feast of merit Fixed series Although several forms of Murung are performed, they are not performed in a fixed series. An Apatani man may sponsor any type of Murung at any time, and he is not required to perform less elaborate 33 Photographs of these rituals, and other images in the Fürer-Haimendorf archive, are on online at digital.info.soas.ac.uk. 34 Fürer-Haimendorf 1945: 88. 35 Fürer-Haimendorf 1962: 139. 36 His equation of the types of Murung with the graded series of Naga feasts was perhaps influenced by his earlier fieldwork (Fürer-Haimendorf 1980: 151).

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ones before more elaborate ones, as is the case with most feasts of merit. As mentioned above, one type of Murung (padu) is used to determine the intention and eligibility of a man to hold a Murung. This ritual, however, is not mandatory; anyone, who receives favourable readings of eggs and pig and chicken livers, may sponsor a Murung. Nor would it be accurate to say that a Murung increases the ‘social rank’ of the sponsor. While it clearly raises his ‘prestige,’ rank is weak in Apatani society. Apatanis recognise no headmen, ‘chiefs’ or any hereditary office, such as those among some Naga, Chin and Kachin groups. The two roles of authority in traditional Apatani society are the nyibu and the bulyang, a village council comprised of senior men but without a leader or entitlement. Neither the nyibu nor the bulyang is hereditary, however. Hereditary rank does divide clans into higher status (gyutii) and lower status (gyuci) groups, but a man cannot move from one to the other. Apatanis do have a concept of male ‘achievement’ (ikang), examples of which are Murung sponsorship and hunting success, which may be mentioned during a man’s funeral chant. Achievement, however, does not equal rank, and any Apatani man, irrespective of achievements, clan status or membership in the bulyang, may sponsor a Murung. Prerogatives Weak rank is also consistent with the conspicuous lack of prerogatives gained by sponsors of a Murung. This absence of Birket-Smith’s second criterion stands in sharp contrast to the varied and visible signs of prestige earned by the sponsors of Naga, Chin and Kachin feasts. Those feasts entitle the sponsors to wear special shawls and ornaments, erect stone monuments, decorate their houses and enlarge their roofs, whereas a Murung, as mentioned above, confers none of these nor any other prerogative. The sponsor and his clan do gain prestige, and the sponsor hangs the skulls of sacrificial animals inside his house as trophies, but those skulls may also be hung by men who have not sponsored a feast.37 One apparent similarity in the rewards earned by Apatani and Naga feasts actually reveals a contrast. The only privilege displayed in a Murung is the right to wear a particular shawl (zilang), which is also true of Naga and Chin feasts. Among Apatanis, however, this is

37

Skulls may be hung also on a man’s funeral structure.

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granted not to the sponsor but to the performer, the nyibu. Further, the Apatani ritual specialist wears this shawl not because he has chanted at a Murung but because he is a nyibu. He wears it at other ritual performances, too, and even shamans who have not conducted a Murung may wear it. For his performance during a Murung, he earns only one honour: to be identified as a man who ‘climbed on the platform.’ Lacking a fixed, graded series that confers specific privileges on the sponsor, the Murung seems a poor candidate for a feast of merit. Still, when reading descriptions of the Naga celebrations, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the two events are closely related. The Murung resembles Naga feasts in a number of details, as well as wider patterns.38 In both, for example, the sponsor and his wife pour rice powder and rice beer on animals, and the mithun’s horns are decorated with bamboo shavings. Similarly, the head of the best mithun goes to the oldest clansman (Apatani pinyang; Ao Naga kidong ungr), and the sponsor’s father-in-law receives a prime piece of mithun meat.39 Also, in both feasts chickens are sacrificed over the animals’ skulls, which are given to the sponsor only after first being hung and dried elsewhere (in the Naga morung and the Apatani house). Again, the Apatani women’s rice donation is the functional equivalent of the ceremonial rice pounding by Ao Naga women, and the Apatani distribution of meat throughout the valley is similar to the Ao Naga gift of meat to clansmen in neighbouring villages. Finally, the expanding bamboo in the Murung chant is matched by another symbol of fertility in the Ao Naga chant that accompanies the sacrifice: ‘May we grow and flourish like a cane-shoot which can push its way up past sticks and stones.’40 The similarity between Naga-Chin and Apatani feasts is even more clearly shown by the fact that both are directly connected to the land of the dead. In Chin, Ao, Rengma and Sema Naga feasts, the souls of the sacrificed mithuns go to the underworld, where they become the property of the sponsor.41 This is also what occurs in the Murung, as described in detail in the Subu Heniin chant, the last third of which consists of the nyibu leading the animals’ souls to Neli.

Mills 1926: 376–95. This is the Apatani diran; on the Ao Naga, see Woodward 1989: 125. 40 Mills 1926: 372. 41 Mills 1926: 391–2; 229; Mills 1937: 187; Hutton 1921a: 211; Lehman 1963: 179. One of the three souls of an Ao Naga is said to be a ‘celestial’ mithun (Mills 1926: 224). 38 39

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This link to the land of the dead is the only criterion in BirketSmith’s profile that the Murung meets without reservation. As hinted above, it is also the most fundamental one and reveals other facets of these ritual complexes. Content to document and classify, the Danish comparativist did not attempt any interpretation of the data. Nevertheless, his recognition of the role of the land of the dead (partly drawn from the potlatch ceremonies on the northwest coast of America) has subsequently been confirmed by researchers, who probably did not read his obscure monograph (none cite it). In particular, studies in upland Southeast Asia highlight the relationship between the sponsor and his dead ancestors. Since the 1970s, anthropologists working on these feasts of merit have moved beyond categorisation and into interpretation. Extending the earlier ideas of Mills and Hutton, they have reached near consensus about the components of ‘upland religious systems’ that constitute a ‘feast of merit complex.’42 At the core of this analysis is a cosmological explanation for the link with the dead that focuses on fertility and exchange. Broadly stated, a reciprocal yet asymmetrical recycling of fertility connects humans and ancestors in a tripartite cosmology (sky, earth, underworld). More specifically, wife-takers spread their fertility and enhance their rank through gifts to wife-givers. While both fertility and exchange are central to the Murung (and the Subu Heniin, as seen in the previous chapter), Apatanis have a different concept of fertility, a different cosmology and different exchange practices. These distinctive features underline the social role of the Murung, which also differs in emphasis from feasts of merit in upland Southeast Asia. Fertility To begin with, Apatanis have no concept of magical power or ‘potency,’ which in upland Southeast Asia originates in the sky-world, is possessed by the feast sponsor and is symbolised in the mithun skulls he displays.43 Hutton began this line of thinking, which Mills elaborated by explaining that among Ao Nagas ‘potency’ (aren) is an innate quality of rich, powerful men.44 Mills then sketched the process by

42 43 44

Woodward and Russell 1989: 13; Lehman 1996: 30–38; Kirsch 1973. Kirsch 1973: 7, 18. Mills 1926: 112, 288.

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which this sky-power is transformed into material wealth and social status by feasts of merit and agricultural rituals.45 Building on these observations, Thomas Kirsch centred his interpretation around this ‘innate quality’ in his useful essay, and others have followed his lead and equated it with fertility.46 Both Julian Jacobs and Mark Woodward, for example, argue that Naga feasts increase the status of the sponsor because it generates a ‘symbolic capital’ of fertility and magical power (aren).47 Even Fürer-Haimendorf, despite his sober sociological approach, succumbed to this potency thesis when he commented that during a Murung the nyibu scatters ‘husked rice, thus magically reinforcing the fertility of the soil.’48 Although fertility plays a vital role in the Murung, too, the Apatani conception differs from that in upland Southeast Asia and the Naga Hills. Apatani sponsors are not said to possess fertility or spread it to others, and Apatanis do not think of fertility as a magical commodity exchanged through reciprocal arrangements with affines and ancestors, as proposed elsewhere. Instead, fertility for Apatanis is a quality manifest in tangible, visible forms. The most persistent symbols in the Subu Heniin chant are the expanding bamboo and the full granary, which symbolise the growth and prosperity toward which the Murung is aimed. Fertility is displayed in human form, too. On the first day, women married into the sponsor’s clan line up, opposite the lapang, wearing expensive necklaces and holding baskets of rice powder and rice beer. Potency is unmistakable also in the phallic bamboo poles, which Fürer-Haimendorf and Betts saw (and I waved about) during the procession. What might not be apparent to the outsider is that the shaved ringlets hanging from the pole’s thrusting end are called more ( jungle), a euphemism for ‘vagina.’ Finally, as a whole, a Murung is an unambiguous fertility ritual. Beginning in January, its three weeks extend into the sowing of the nursery fields. Twice, on the tenth and twentieth days of the festival, the sponsor’s wife pours rice beer into her family’s nursery fields. Some sponsors also maintain restrictions on movement and eating until seedlings appear in these beds.

45 46 47 48

Mills 1926: 257, 380, 381. See Kammerer 2003: 47. Woodward 1989: 129; Jacobs 1990: 78. Fürer-Haimendorf 1980: 153.

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When we put all this together—tableau of young, married women with their rice powder and beer on the first day, baskets of overflowing rice donated on the second day, phallic poles during the procession, rites in the nursery fields, expanding bamboo and filled granaries in the Subu Heniin chant—it is easy to understand why a Murung is thought, among other things, to remedy infertility among humans and animals. In sum, Apatanis think of fertility not as the sponsor’s innate potency but as a quality in rice, women and bamboo, to be protected by the spirits. Another difference, perhaps related to this lack of a personalised and magical fertility, is that ancestor cults and founder cults are less prominent among Apatanis than among populations in upland Southeast Asia. Each Apatani clan has named ancestors, but these distant figures are not the basis for claiming prior settlement or status vis a vis other clans. Although the division between high and low status clan groups (gyutii and gyuci ) is traced back to two apical ancestors, they are not the object of any veneration or cult. Similarly, while Murungs held by the ancestors provide precedence for feasts, those ancestors are mythic figures, unlike the historical clan ancestors. By contrast, ancestor and founder cults play a vital role in interpretations of feasts of merit in upland Southeast Asia. As Lehman explains, feasts feed the ancestors, which raises their rank and, in turn, that of the sponsor: ‘The degree of prosperity we can get from our ancestors depends upon the rank they had in life and the extent to which the prosperity attendant upon that rank is maintained among them by our continuing service to them from this world.’49 In some cases, ancestors reside in the underworld but just as often in the skyworld, which is also the source of the mysterious potency. In the end, the distribution of power/fertility/rank through feasting invariably involves this sky-world of ancestors. Apatani cosmology, however, has no such sky-world. The living and the dead All this points to a fundamental difference between Apatani and upland Southeast Asian cosmologies concerning the relationship between the living and the dead. Unlike in upland Southeast Asia where humans feed the dead ancestors, in the Apatani valley humans 49

Lehman 1996: 33; see also Lehman 2007: xliii–xliv.

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feed only the spirits. While Apatani ancestors (kalo) are called to the feast on earth, they do not share in the sacrifice. Only spirits (wi ) receive that meat. What this means is that the reciprocal logic of the gift that binds men and ancestors in Southeast Asia is replaced among Apatanis by a mutuality between men and spirits, who are not the human dead. In fact, as noted above, Apatanis are keen to separate themselves from the dead. That separation is the principal purpose of the funeral and its chant, and other rituals are performed to prevent the return of those who die an accidental or premature death or commit suicide. Still other rituals are designed to prevent retribution by human (and animal) victims of a violent death.50 Likewise, the second section of the Subu Heniin (diima hama) is chanted in order to keep these malevolent souls away from a Murung. Even the normal dead, and everything associated with the land of the dead, must be kept apart from the living. When the chanting nyibu leads the sacrificial animals down to Neli, every effort is made to distance himself and his charges from death. On his downward journey, he repeatedly says, ‘I take nothing from this path,’ which acts as a charm to avert harm on the dangerous journey to the underworld. Once there, he warns his troupe of soul-travellers not to consume local beer or food, and when he departs, he is careful not to leave any trace of himself, even taking back the ropes used to tether the mithuns. Those sacrificial animals, as symbols of death, however, must be left behind, as he tells the spirits: Keep the mithuns, which we gave to you; Keep them in Neli and share the meat with others; But do not attempt to rear mithuns in Neli; We will rear them on earth and bring them to you. This separation is equally explicit in the funeral ritual. At the same time that men pile up a mound of earth and then erect a small fence

50 The most common of these rituals is the ropi (see Tarr and Blackburn 2008: 134–38).

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at the grave site, the chanting nyibu declares that these physical barriers must be built between himself and the dead: Here we must part; I must build a wall between us, A bund of mud and clay, a fence of split bamboo.51 But why, if there is so little mutuality between the living and dead, does the Subu Heniin spend so much time on the journey to Neli? Why not simply describe the physical sacrifice on earth? Why must the spirits receive their shares in the land of the dead? The answer is that the sacrifice is held in Neli because it is the land of the dead for mithuns as well as for men. This takes us back to Birket-Smith’s third criterion, the link between feasts of merit and the world of the dead. We saw, for instance, that Naga-Chin feasts are linked to the dead, especially by leading the sacrificial mithuns to them. I have also mentioned resemblances between a Murung and an Apatani funeral, and other examples could be cited.52 Nothing, however, is more striking than the fact that the section of the Subu Heniin describing the journey to the underworld is also chanted during a funeral. In one ritual context, the chant leads the mithuns to the land of the dead; in the other, it leads humans there. A Murung is also double-layered like a funeral. Despite the separation between living and dead in Apatani cosmology and practice, the two worlds are parallel. The land of the dead in Apatani imagination is a mirror image of the human world, with villages, paddy fields, forests and spirits. Even the animal sacrifice on earth, as we have just seen, is matched by a sacrifice in the underworld. Not only that, but the main exchange practices in the Murung on earth are also enacted in the land of the dead, as described in the Subu Heniin. The sections of the chant describing exchange in Neli list the spirits by naming their Blackburn 2008: 201–09. Kabui Naga feasts of merit entitled the sponsor ‘to special funeral honours’ (Shakespear 1912b: 170); sponsors of Tangkhul Naga feasts enjoy a ‘better afterlife’ (Fürer-Haimendorf 1939: 220); feasts in Nuristan resemble a funeral ( Jones 1974: 169–72); Konyak Nagas sing funeral songs during feasts of merit (Fürer-Haimendorf 1939: 219–20), as do the Zhuang in southwest China (Holm 2003: 206–07). 51 52

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lapang, pukun and dulu, which are also the places associated with giftgiving in the feast among the living (see chart 3.3, chapter 3). A similar parallelism between the human world and the underworld appears in feasts of merit in upland Southeast Asia, especially in Lehman’s interpretation of the Chin material.53 The Haka Chin land of the dead, as he explains, is a replica of the villages in the land of the living. Lehman’s creative insight is then to explain how this correspondence between the living and the dead fits into the logic of exchange. By sending gifts to the ancestors through animal sacrifice, the sponsor raises their rank and (by association) his own, or at least that of his lineage. Feasting the ancestors maintains or improves the sponsor’s social status, which is inherited, in part, from his ancestors, whom he must in turn sustain. Rank is achieved not so much by the gift as by its return. This formulation applies more or less to the Murung, too, with the important exception that humans do not feed the ancestors, only the spirits. This difference is consistent with two other contrasts already identified: separation from the dead; and weak ancestor and founder cults among Apatanis. Apatanis do not feed or celebrate ancestors because they want to limit contact with those in the underworld. Ritual exchange and ceremonial friendships The other type of exchange in a Murung—between humans—both confirms and differs from the general pattern identified in upland Southeast Asian feasts. In that region, asymmetrical marriage alliances govern the roles of host and guest: wife-takers give important shares of the sacrifice to wife-givers, while clansmen and women of the wife-taker receive minor shares and assist the feast sponsor in a variety of ways. Exchange practices between humans in the Murung follow different patterns and include groups not reported in upland Southeast Asia. An Apatani feast of merit, for example, involves many ceremonial friendships (with affines, maternal uncles and non-kin), substantial assistance from clansmen, as well as gifts to and from virtually everyone in the Apatani valley. Chart 4.2 below gives a composite picture.

53

Lehman 1963: 177–83; Lehman 1996: 31–33; Kirsch 1973.

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chapter four Chart 4.2. Human-Human Exchange in a Murung54

Type/name

Relation to sponsor

Task/gift/reciprocity

I. Ceremonial friendships a. affines diran

wife’s father

gets liver and chest of best mithun and liver of special pig;54 gives large cash and pukun rice donation

lace

wife’s brother or paternal cousin

gets liver and chest of a mithun; fatty tissue of special pig; gives large cash and pukun rice donation

ari mecu

wife’s brother(s) or paternal gets mithun tail; gives smaller cash and cousin(s) pukun rice donation

b. non-kin buniin

men outside clan

give large cash and rice donations; prepare meat for dulu distribution

gyotii

men outside clan & village

give large cash donation and sometimes a sacrificial animal

pinyang

man in village but outside clan

gets head of best mithun (and returns it after boiling off meat)

c. maternal uncles alii (foreleg) husband’s and wife’s 2 koro maternal uncles 2 korbu

each koro gets mithun foreleg each korbu gets cow foreleg or good piece of pork wife’s koro and korbu get left side of special pig’s back; husband’s koro and korbu get the right side each koro gives large piece of pork; each korbu gives small piece; all four give small cash and pukun rice donation

gyasi 4 maternal uncles of hus(lower back) band’s & wife’s parents

each gets cow or mithun lower back; all give small cash and pukun rice donation

lyiyo panyi (fatty piece of pork)

each gets good piece of a pig; all give small cash and pukun rice donation

54

8 maternal uncles of husband’s & wife’s grandparents

For details on this special pig (doko alyi), see Appendix A, day 7, and photograph 18.

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Chart 4.2 (cont.) Type/name kutin

Relation to sponsor 16 descendants of above maternal uncles

Task/gift/reciprocity each gets small piece of meat or cash gift

II. Voluntary assistance anu aban

clansmen: brothers, paternal cousins and nephews

give cash, labour & materials, esp. firewood; a few senior men get mithun and cow heads (and return them after boiling off meat); other men get buttocks

siilan

young clansman, chosen by kills sacrificial animals; gets mithun small divination intestine

pukun honii clansman, chosen by divination

provides meat given to women donors of rice at pukun

eko honii

clansman, sometimes chosen by divination

provides meat and drink for procession participants

o tarko

clansman

provides rice beer; gets small cash gift from sponsor

yo tarko

clansman

oversees cutting, storage and distribution of sacrificial meat in sponsor’s house for meals and guests; gets small cash gift and/ or meat

barmii

sisters, paternal aunts and nieces

prepare rice beer and food

pukun koda husband’s and wife’s sisters and maternal aunts

inform women throughout valley about day of pukun

dulu koda

2 men (buniin or ordinary friends) from each village

oversee dulu distribution of meat in their village

women with various ties to sponsor (see chart 4.3 below)

give rice to sponsor’s wife; get small piece of meat

men with various ties to sponsor

give cash (50 to 5,000 rupees) to sponsor

all Apatanis

1 piece of meat given by sponsor to each house in valley; followed by procession in which clansmen are given food and drink in every village

III. Valley-wide pukun

dulu & penii

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Apatani ceremonial friendships differ from other kin relations and informal friendships in that they place individuals in specific, reciprocal and obligatory roles of gift-giving. At the same time, and while these partnerships are widely accepted, they follow no fixed rules. In practice, people do not always agree about who has what obligation to whom. Likewise, the type and amount of gifts given to ceremonial friends vary between clans and even families in the same clan (see also Appendix C). Apatanis enter into eleven different ceremonial friendships, and only one is not activated during a Murung. The odd one out is manyang, a bond with a Nyishi or Hill Miri man, which was valuable when trading or attempting to resolve a conflict with these neighbouring tribes.55 The other ten ceremonial friendships are mostly ritualised forms of affinal and consanguineal ties, but important relations are established with non-kin, as well. These various ceremonial bonds serve many purposes, as Apatanis themselves recognise. One man summed them up as ‘an insurance policy,’ a safety net that opens when one faces emergencies, such as debt or house fire. Affines Three ritualised bonds about which there is little ambiguity are those established by marriage. The events that bring about the union of an Apatani boy and girl begin when the son-in-law goes to his future father-in-law’s house.56 There, after a series of chicken liver divinations, his father (and paternal uncles) negotiate a marriage agreement with the bride’s father (and maternal uncles). As a rule, the boy’s family gives a ‘Tibetan’ sword (ciri, worth about 4,000 rupees) to the girl’s father, and the girl’s mother gives a shawl to the young man. The core of the marriage contract, however, is that the son-in-law pledges three gifts: diran: an adult mithun (20–22,000 Rs.) to his father-in-law lace: a small mithun (8–12,000 Rs.) to one of his wife’s brothers or paternal cousins ari mecu: a small cow (2–4,000 Rs.) to one or two of his wife’s brothers or paternal cousins

55 56

Today this relationship survives only in vestigial form. This is known as the mabo inci (‘son-in-law goes’).

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The terms diran, lace and ari mecu refer to the relationship, the gift and the person who receives it.57 In return for the gift of a mithun or cow (or cash), each of these persons promises to supply the new couple with rice during the next harvest. This means that the husband’s family is permitted to harvest a certain number (usually five to ten) of the paddy fields owned by the diran, lace and ari mecu (or as much as can be harvested in a morning), after which the husked rice is stored in the couple’s granary.58 The girl’s family may also promise to hold a miida feast sometime in future, at which they host a group of their son-in-law’s relations and give the couple a special basket of rice and meat, plus a large amount of cash (20–30,000 rupees). They are also expected to assist their daughter and son-in-law when difficulties arise. Although thin in spectacle, an Apatani marriage creates three ceremonial friendships that remain during the lifetime of the bridegroom. In effect, it places him in debt since few young men are able to supply the mithuns and cows (or cash, about 30,000 rupees) to their in-laws at the time of marriage. Instead, these are promises to be fulfilled whenever he can muster the necessary resources. When he makes good on these pledges to give meat, and only then, his affines will make good on theirs to give him the harvest from their paddy fields. The gifts made by a Murung sponsor to his affines are an extension of these marital debts. During a feast, the sponsor is obligated to give sacrificial meat to the same three in-laws to whom he promised a mithun or cow many years before. As we can see in chart 4.2 above, the father-in-law (diran) receives the chest and liver of the best mithun and liver of the pig killed on the seventh day, while the brothers-in-law (lace, ari mecu) get somewhat less prestigious parts. In return, all of them are expected to make pukun rice and cash donations to the sponsor. Non-kin Apatanis also form three types of ceremonial friendships outside kin networks. They are established by two men with little fanfare, except the exchange of pieces of pork, but the bonds are permanent and devolve to their sons when they die.

These gifts are referred to as ari (‘price’ or ‘payment’). This is known as riitu piniin. For a description of Apatani marriage rituals, see Radhe Yumpi 2006. 57 58

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The most demanding and prominent of these non-kin bonds is buniin.59 Most Apatani men have several (about three to seven) buniin friends, who must come from another clan but no more than one from a single clan. Also, buniin partners must not, in principle, share marriage links for five or six generations. The reciprocal obligations between buniin partners are equal to those formed by marriage, and failure to help during unexpected emergencies is a serious breach of trust. As a proverb explains, ‘He who breaks a buniin bond first will die first.’ Buniin friends are also obligated to make ritual exchanges. During the Myoko festival, for example, a man living in the host village is expected to give hospitality, including good pieces of pork and cash to all his buniin friends who visit from other villages. Obligations carry over to Murung, too, although they do not include the exchange of sacrificial meat. When a man’s buniin friend, or (though the obligation is weaker) a buniin friend of one’s brother, paternal uncle or nephew, sponsors a feast, that man’s wife should give a large amount of rice on the second day. He is also expected to make a substantial cash donation (several thousand rupees) to the sponsor. In addition, he often supplies the sponsor with the dry (rat or squirrel) meat necessary for an important ritual that clears the sponsor’s house of harmful influences.60 He may also help to chop, pack and distribute meat from the sponsor to all the houses in the valley in the dulu distribution. Some buniin friends play the role of dulu koda, the pair of men responsible for making sure the meat is given to all the houses in each village. Finally, buniin friends sometimes host the procession when it arrives in their village. The second, non-kin ceremonial friendship (gyotii) is similar to buniin, although it is now less common. As with buniin, most men have several gyotii friends, who must come from another clan. Unlike buniin, however, they must also be from another village. Again, like buniin, gyotii partners are expected to give a considerable amount of cash if one of them conducts a Murung in order to help offset the enormous expenses. Sometimes a gyotii friend also donates one of the mithuns or cows to be sacrificed.

59 Buniin is similar to the ashimbu and atombu ritual relations among Ao Nagas (Mills 1926: 198–99, 257–61). 60 On this ritual (taba neniin), see Appendix A, day 9.

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The third non-kin ceremonial friendship is the pinyang. An Apatani man has only one such friend, who must be from another clan yet the same village as his partner. In contrast, to the buniin and gyotii, he is primarily a recipient rather than a donor of meat or cash during a Murung. A pinyang is given the head of the largest or ‘best’ mithun, which, after boiling off the meat, he gives back to sponsor to hang on his interior house wall.61 Maternal uncles Apatanis also form four other kinds of ceremonial friendships, which are collectively known as alii kutin. In total, thirty-two people are involved, all of whom are the maternal uncles (aku), or their descendants, of husband and wife, their parents and grandparents.62 The first relation (alii, ‘foreleg’) are four maternal uncles, two of the husband and two of the wife. These four are further divided into two koro (the more favoured) and two korbu. One koro and one korbu are from the husband’s side, and one each from the wife’s side. The two koro receive a mithun’s foreleg, while the two korbu receive either a cow’s foreleg or a good (two-inch thick) piece of pork. These four maternal uncles also share the back of the pig sacrificed on the seventh day of a Murung (or whenever the rice beer is ready). The left side is divided between the wife’s two maternal uncles (her koro and korbu) and the right side between the husband’s (his koro and korbu). The second relation in this collective group (gyasi, ‘lower back’) also comprises four maternal uncles, two of the wife’s parents’ uncles and two of the husband’s parents’ uncles, chosen from among those still living. Each of these maternal uncles receives the lower back of a sacrificial animal. The third relation (lyiyo panyi, ‘fatty [pig] tissue’) is a further eight maternal uncles, this time of the grandparents of both husband and wife, each of whom receives a choice (two-inch thick) piece of meat of the pig sacrificed on the seventh day. The fourth relation (kutin) is sixteen descendants of these maternal uncles of the grandparents, eight on each side. These relations, who are often now

Another ceremonial friend (lyicu pinyang) used to get the head of the Myoko pig, but this bond no longer exists. 62 This group of kin is known collectively as nyanii miida. See also Sharma and Duarah 1990. 61

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forgotten or ignored, receive either a small piece of meat or amount of cash, typically 100 or 200 rupees. All of these bonds with maternal uncles may be passed on when a person dies. If my father was alii to someone, for example, I will (probably) assume that role when my father dies. Today, however, many of these alii kutin gifts are bought out by their cash equivalents, which range from about 1,000 to 2,000 rupees for mithun parts and up to 3,000 for specific pieces of pig meat. Finally, the obligations in all these alii kutin relationis are asymmetrical. Most of the maternal uncles receive good parts of a mithun (or cow) and the pig killed on the seventh day. In return, they give the sponsor only a small cash gift (100–500 rupees), plus a small basket of rice during the pukun on the second day of the feast. Along with all the other ceremonial friends described above (and their young children), each of the alii kutin friends also brings a good piece of pork to the sponsor’s house early on the morning of the sacrifice. Similarly, the favoured koro uncles give a piece eight to ten inches long, while the korbu uncles present a piece four to six inches in length. Still, the sacrificial share that each of these alii kutin relations receives carries greater prestige than the gifts they give. Voluntary assistance These Apatani ceremonial friends—affines, non-kin and maternal uncles—are involved in most of the exchange practices during a Murung. Also, most of them receive more than they give, especially as recipients of sacrificial shares. The sponsor’s clansmen and women, on the other hand, are recipients in a Murung, with two exceptions. The sponsor’s (and/or his wife’s) eldest sister or paternal aunt sometimes receives a mithun hind thigh (soli, see Appendix C). And, as mentioned above, senior clansmen receive a mithun skull, but this gift/relation has no separate term, and the gift is returned to the sponsor. Otherwise, clansmen and women receive nothing of the sacrifice and instead provide the materials, labour and money without which a Murung cannot be held. This voluntary assistance is primarily the role of the sponsor’s clansmen (anu aban). Some of their tasks are formalised with a title and selection by divination, while others are decided by informal discussion. Strictly speaking, these roles are voluntary, but since the pool of potential helpers is limited to brothers, paternal cousins and nephews,

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there is an element of obligation, too. As we can see in chart 4.2 above, most of these tasks involve men and mithuns. When eight animals are killed in a Murung, a large number of clansmen are required. Some men will provide the two or three truck-loads of firewood necessary for the three weeks. Others will go into the forest and collect the leaves and the tajer bamboo to be used by the nyibu. These same men will also cut the more than 100 metres of cane that they will later twist into ropes to tie the animals to the lapang (see photograph 9). During a Murung, they will use those ropes to lead the animals from the lapang to the wooden stakes that they will have cut and driven into the ground in front and behind the sponsor’s house. There, as they hold the animals still, another man swings the axe, and several will help to dismember the carcasses. Cash, as elsewhere in the network of Murung obligations, is replacing many of these voluntary clansmen tasks, especially the gifts of meat, firewood and beer. Only the gathering of cane, leaves and bamboo remains unmonetised. Informal female assistance during a Murung centres on rice. The sponsor’s wife is responsible for the preparation of food and drink throughout the three weeks of the festival. She is assisted in this work by a variety of women, including friends, but principally by her husband’s sisters, paternal aunts and nieces (barmii).63 One female task, however, has a special name. Female relatives from the wife’s and husband’s natal families—mostly sisters and maternal aunts—are chosen for the role of messenger ( pukun koda). Selected because they have a good knowledge of the family’s genealogy, their task is to inform people in other villages about a Murung, especially women about the day of the pukun rice donations. Valley-wide exchange Finally, there are three kinds of exchange during a Murung that stand apart from those already described. Each of these involves both obligatory exchange with ceremonial friends and voluntary assistance from others, and each covers the entire valley. The first of these valley-wide exchanges is the pukun, or donations of rice by women to the sponsor’s wife, as shown in chart 4.3 below:

63

Daughters-in-law (nyahii) also help but less prominently.

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Basket name

Kilograms (approx.)

Donors (all women)

liiha/liira

1/2

anyone, well-wishers

paro

2–3

friends

poi/puye/puhe/pai

5–7

close friends, alii kutin relations, wives of buniin friends of husband, wives of close clansmen

mecu yakan

15

wife of ari mecu (sponsor’s wife’s brother or her paternal cousin)

lace yakan

25

wife of lace (sponsor’s wife’s brother or her paternal cousin)

diran yakan

35

wife of diran (sponsor’s mother-in-law), sometimes husband’s and wife’s sisters, paternal aunts & nieces

giida

45

husband’s and wife’s sisters, paternal aunts & nieces

On the second day of a Murung, as described earlier in this chapter, hundreds and sometimes thousands of women converge on the sponsor’s house with baskets of rice. As we can see in chart 4.3, while these donations are made by many groups of women, from sisters to casual friends, their relation to the sponsor determines the size of their basket. Sisters, paternal aunts and nieces (barmii) of both husband and wife give the largest basket, which holds about 45 kilograms of rice (worth more than 700 rupees).64 The next largest basket is given by women in a ceremonial relation (through their husbands) with the sponsor or his wife. In particular, the wives of men in the three affinal bonds with the sponsor give baskets named after those bonds. Women related by a buniin or alii kutin bond usually give a smaller basket holding five to seven kilograms, while the most numerous donations are made in the smallest, half-kilogram basket by women who are friends or well-wishers. Like the cash contributions by men, each of these thousands of donations by women, no matter the size, is reciprocal: an equal or greater amount is expected to be given back to the

64

A kilogram of rice cost approximately 17 rupees in 2009.

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donor at some point in the future, if her husband sponsors a Murung or another major ritual. For this reason, the basket size, name and village of each donor is carefully written down in a notebook. The pukun gift also has a token immediate return, too, in the form of a small piece of meat given to each female donor. Rice is not the only donation that pours into the sponsor’s house from throughout the valley. Cash gifts are also made, ranging from 50 to 5,000 (or even 10,000) rupees, although many give 100. The total at the end of a festival reaches about 25–35,000 and sometimes as high as 80,000 rupees. The number of these cash donors in a major Murung usually exceeds 300 and sometimes approaches 1,000.65 As with the rice donations in the pukun, though not so formally, cash gifts vary according to the relation of the donor to the sponsor. Among ceremonial friends, for example, affines and non-kin give fairly large amounts (several thousand rupees), while the maternal uncles and affines are expected to offer only a few hundred rupees. Again, like the rice donations, the details of each cash gift—name, village and amount—are entered in neat columns in a notebook because it must be equalled or exceeded if the donor conducts a Murung. Finally, like both the rice and cash donations, the dulu distribution of meat involves the entire Apatani population. Unlike them, however, the donor of this meat is the Murung sponsor. Early on the morning of the procession, a piece of meat is distributed to every house in the valley, without regard for kin relations or ritual friendships. Nevertheless, the dynamics of exchange still exert a quiet pull. Soon after the meat pieces have been delivered, clansmen and boys in the procession are given food and drink in each quarter of every village. When the various groups in the procession stop for lunch en route, they are hosted in a house belonging to one of sponsor’s ceremonial friends (usually buniin). Even in these wide geographical and social spaces, when a piece of meat appears to be freely given, the wheels of reciprocity turn.

Prices have risen in recent years. In 2001, the sponsor of a major Murung received many gifts of 20 rupees, while in 2006, the lowest was 50. Overall, the number of donors and their total donations have increased about two-fold. 65

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chapter four Conclusions

As we have seen from the comparative analysis in this chapter, the Murung closely resembles other festivals routinely referred to as feasts of merit. While the Apatani feast lacks the hierarchical features (graded series and privileges) of the Naga-Chin examples that originally served to establish this category, it shares with them (and many feasts elsewhere) other important elements: a large animal sacrifice; voluntary sponsorship by an individual; close link between feast and land of the dead; an emphasis on fertility; asymmetrical exchange between wifetakers and wife-givers. At the same time, the Murung presents enough variation on these common features to require a different explanation. Let me summarise the main differences. First, Apatanis do not think of fertility as a personalised, magical potency innate to wealthy men who sponsor a feast. Instead, fertility is symbolised in reproductive metaphors of growth (inmarried clanswomen, full granary, expanding bamboo). Nor is there a sky-world, from which such a magic power might derive and where, in many cases, the ancestors live. This difference in cosmology appears correlated with others: the Apatani desire to separate the dead from the living; the absence of ancestor and founder cults; and the fact that a Murung feeds spirits, not ancestors. A final dissimilarity exists in the roles played by clansmen and nonkin ceremonial friends in feasts. Non-kin ceremonial friends are found in the Apatani valley and elsewhere in the extended eastern Himalayas (among the Ao Naga, Mizo and Chin, for instance). But they do not play the same role. The Ao Naga atombu and ashimbu, like the Apatani buniin, are men from outside the sponsor’s clan who are bound by strict reciprocity and must assist each other in times of misfortune and emergency.66 During Ao feasts of merit, however, these non-kin ceremonial friends assume the role played by a Murung sponsor’s clansmen: like the Apatani anu aban, they collect firewood, kill animals and cut up meat.67 As Woodward points out, they represent an ‘extension’ of the sponsor’s ‘genuine’ agnates, which leads him to conclude that

66 67

Mills 1926: 198–99, 257–61. Mills 1926: 257–58.

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‘there is intense political competition within the clan and that feasts of merit are intended to establish agnatic, rather than affinal ranking.’68 In a Murung, by contrast, non-kin ceremonial friends do not play a major role in supporting the sponsor. They are mostly recipients, and the supportive role is filled instead by the sponsor’s clansmen. In other words, while Ao Naga clansmen compete with each other during a feast, Apatani clansmen tend to cooperate. This contrast, added to others noted above, leads to the following interpretation of the social significance of the Murung. Competition and cooperation All interpretations of these feasts face the apparent contradiction that they involve competition and hierarchy, on the one hand, and cooperation and cohesion, on the other. For some writers, the answer to this paradox lies in the nature of exchange. The asymmetry of the gift, and the inequality in the alliance formed by that gift, lead them to emphasise the hierarchy and power in the transaction. ‘To give is to get power,’ as Lehman succinctly put it.69 Generosity is an exercise of power, and exchange is a means to increase rank. In other analyses, a lack of social ranking is precisely what encourages competition in the form of a feast of merit. Working from Naga examples, for example, Jacobs argues that societies with weak ranking would be the most likely to hold feasts of merit because they ‘would allow men the opportunity to advance in social status.’70 Although societies with strong ranking also celebrate feasts, sponsorship in those cases is either restricted to a chief (Konyak) or, if open to others, does not create a rank that undermines the chief (Sema). The opposite claim—that feasts of merit are least likely in societies with weak ranking—has also been made. According to Paul Durrenberger, for instance, the Lisu do not hold feasts of merit because they are ‘egalitarian and resent domination or control.’71 This distinction between ‘democratic’ and ‘aristocratic’ Naga societies, however, has recently been questioned by Pascal Bouchery. All Naga groups, he argues, have the same institution of ‘ritual hereditary 68 69 70 71

Woodward 1989: 125–26. Lehman 1996: 38. Jacobs 1990: 78. Durrenberger 1989: 115.

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chieftainship’ based on ‘direct descent from founding ancestors.’72 If true, this suggests (contra Jacobs) that rank associated with feasts is a reflection of a wider social hierarchy and that the most hierarchical societies are also the most likely to celebrate feasts that confer or display rank and prestige. A similar correlation between strong social ranking and graded feasts of merit is found also among the Chin.73 The converse also seems to hold: feasts with weak grading and few privileges (like the Murung) would be more likely in societies without chieftainship and founder cults (such as the Apatani). At the very least, the Murung cautions us against assuming that a feast of merit is primarily a means for creating or reinforcing rank. Hierarchy does exist in the Murung, principally in the exchange with affines, and a frisson of competition is evident among the women who dress up for the tableau on the first day and among those who make rice donations on the following day, as well as between the processions of different clans. Overall, however, I would say that Apatani exchange practices generate cooperation among clansmen (anu aban) and with maternal uncles (alii kutin). Social cohesion is created in the wider community, too. Men from different clans, even competing clan groups (gyutii and gyuci ), are allied in ceremonial friendships (buniin, gyotii, pinyang). Men throughout the valley also make cash donations to the sponsor, while thousands of women, with a variety of ties to the sponsor, make donations of rice to his wife. Finally, every house in the valley receives a small piece of meat from the sponsor, and everyone (potentially) gives food and drink to the participants of the procession. It is no exaggeration to say that the entire Apatani population participates in a Murung. Individual and group status A second and related conclusion is that the Murung increases group more than individual status. To be sure, the individual prestige gained by sponsoring a Murung is considerable. The sponsor’s generosity may be remembered for years, even decades, and his achievement is

Bouchery 2007: 110–15. The northern Chin have both greater social hierarchy and graded series, while the southern Chin have weaker social stratification and ungraded series of feasts. However, the southern Chin feast earns privileges, including a title (bawi) borrowed from the northerners (Lehman 1963: 144, passim). 72 73

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visible in the rows of mithun and other skulls hanging in his house. Indeed, some of the most influential leaders of Apatani society, including leading politicians, have sponsored Murungs. However, in contrast to feasts of merit elsewhere, this achievement does not lead to any formal privilege or increase in rank. A Murung sponsor does not, for example, acquire a title or membership in a club, the right to wear special clothes or erect a post or memorial stone, or to add architectural features to his house. The status gained by the sponsor of a Murung is simply the recognition that he had the wealth to fulfil the substantial material obligations built into the numerous exchanges in the festival. But that is possible only if his clansmen assist him. While the feast is sponsored by husband and wife, its three weeks of activity require extensive cooperation by his clansmen and women, who make large contributions of rice, meat, cash, firewood and labour. That is why, as mentioned above, a Murung is known not by the sponsor’s personal name but by his clan name. That is also why clansmen go in procession and why that event is referred to by their clan name. In addition, the main nyibu in a Murung usually comes from the sponsor’s clan, who also own the lapang on which he performs. In short, while an individual is the nominal sponsor, in practice a Murung is the work of his clan. Rather than raise the rank of an individual, it primarily increases the social status of his clan. The social effects of an Apatani feast of merit extend beyond the clan, too. The cross-clan alliances created by ceremonial friendships and the valley-wide scope of some exchanges, plus the cultural coherence represented in the Subu Heniin chant (discussed in the previous chapter) and by the nyibu and his performance (see next chapter), lead to a third conclusion, which follows from the other two. If a Murung generates more cooperation than competition, and more clan than individual status, its main consequence is a thickened texture of social cohesion. The debts that bind the sponsor to dozens of ceremonial friends, hundreds of clansmen and women, and thousands of others are largely repaid not in goods but in social relations. No single analysis, of course, can explain the social significance of ‘feasts of merit’ as a category. Perhaps the most we can say is that these feasts everywhere generate both competition and cooperation, both individual and group prestige, and that the emphasis will vary in each specific case, according to local ideas and practices. For Apatanis, who have weak ranking, no chiefs, founder cults, ancestor worship or

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personalised notion of fertility, the balance between individual rank and group solidarity is maintained by a feast with several forms that may be performed by anyone in any sequence and confers no formal privileges or permanent status. Each year a few men raise themselves above the normal patterns of social interaction and display their wealth. They gain prestige, which may last for years, yet at the end of three weeks they return to a society in which individual authority is held in check by a dense network of criss-crossing ties, inside and outside the clan, most of which are renewed in a Murung. Finally, cooperation or competition in a feast of merit are not polar opposites. Those who emphasise competition do not deny an element of cooperation. Nor do I think that the Murung is without hierarchy. Most of us, however, choose to highlight one over the other, a choice that may be less objective than we would wish. Cooperation and competition (like debt, reciprocity, rank, status and merit) are not easily measured or even defined, and our decision is probably determined as much by our personal experiences as by social realities. To me, the cooperative conviviality of a Murung is unmistakable, though perhaps ineffable, and I take some comfort from the fact that I am not the first observer to be struck by this quality. ‘[E]ven though I had only been able to see the end of the celebration,’ wrote Fürer-Haimendorf, ‘[it] helped me to assess the Apa Tani way of life. The execution of the ritual within the social framework had stressed the cohesive forces that integrate Apa Tani community.’74

74

Fürer-Haimendorf 1955: 167.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE NYIBU PERFORMER Whatever significance we might assign to the Murung festival, and however we might interpret the Subu Heniin text, their principal purpose for Apatanis is to make contact with the spirits. Reputations will be enhanced, social relations strengthened and fertility increased through the reciprocity of the gifts given to the spirits. Everything depends on clear communication with them, and that requires the nyibu because only he can speak to the spirits in their language. Before looking at the nyibu, however, we should have some idea of these spirits and other elements of the local religious system. Apatani religious system Spirits Apatanis classify spirits (wi ) in two loose categories (tiigo and cicing), the same two that classify texts and rituals.1 Broadly speaking, tiigo spirits bring prosperity and health, as well as protection against misfortune, while cicing spirits cause accidents, illness and death. This division often breaks down in practice, however, and some protective spirits are thought to cause a particular disease or unwanted condition. Likewise, no harmful spirit is considered intrinsically evil or intentionally malevolent; some are only dangerously powerful or wayward.2 Several spirits also appear to have two aspects, one more protective than the other, and, finally, many spirits are invoked in groups, such as the protective jilo lyayu and pinii siyo and the powerful giirii and arii. Apatani spirits have several distinct features. Unlike ancestors, for example, they are recipients of the sacrifice. Spirits are also invisible,

1 2

Some clans use the term gyunyang instead of cicing. The most dangerous spirits are sometimes called yalu.

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except to nyibus, whose visionary power is a legacy of Abo Tani.3 In fact, Apatanis do not attribute many anthropomorphic qualities to spirits, who are largely impersonal figures, known by little more than a name. Many spirits are associated with a specific illness (Hirii causes trouble during childbirth; Yachu is responsible for mental illness), some are associated with a location (a field or grove) and a few have a dominant trait (Pilya strengthens; Kharun protects). None, however, has anything like the assemblage of human characteristics of gods and goddesses in Hinduism or other world religions. One of the more anthropomorphic spirits, who is important in the Subu Heniin, is Chantung. She is conflated with the earth, or born of it, and protects the house and family. She is also the only spirit with a permanent altar in the house, in the back right hand corner, where a small basket hangs, decorated with bamboo leaves, safely holding the souls of family members and domestic animals. In the Subu Heniin chant, the nyibu carefully places these souls in this basket before leading the souls of the sacrificial animals on the dangerous descent to the underworld. Danyi, the sun, is also a female protector but stands at a greater remove from everyday life. Another spirit with human traits is Popi Sarmin, the wise advisor, who appears in several key events in the Subu Heniin, such as the birth of the sun, the birth of the first human and the competition that separates two sisters into man and mithun. While Chantung, Danyi and Popi are important, none is developed as a character, with a personality and emotions. Only one figure in Apatani mythology approaches that kind of anthropomorphism. He is Abo Tani, the ancestor, trickster and culture hero, who has a cycle of stories and a family—sister, brother, wives, sons and powerful father-in-law. Abo Tani is not, however, a spirit. Although he is ‘half-man and half-spirit’ at the beginning, his life story is an evolution from that hybrid state to a full human being. Abo Tani is never mentioned in ritual texts or conversation as a ‘spirit,’ nor is he ever invoked to bring prosperity or avert misfortune. A final notable feature of Apatani spirits is their sheer number. Although it is difficult to know exactly how many spirits are recognised in the valley, a good estimate would be about 150, which is not

3 Abo Tani was able to see spirits until his enemies stole the eyes on the back of his feet and head.

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unusual among other tribes in central Arunachal Pradesh.4 While only about two dozen of the Apatani spirits are regularly named in chants or mentioned in conversation, the others are known and sometimes named in ritual texts. The Subu Heniin performance translated in this book, for example, lists fifty-three spirits, twenty-five of whom are also named as recipients of the sacrifice. Ancestors Ancestors (kalo) exist alongside spirits in Apatani cosmology, and the distinction between them is sometimes unclear. They are often mentioned in the same phrase, particularly when both are invited to the sacrifice in the Subu Heniin chant. Ancestors and spirits are, nonetheless, different. As just noted, for instance, ancestors, unlike spirits, do not receive sacrificial shares and are visible. The two groups are also distinguished by their separate lists and cosmological locations in the Subu Heniin chant. Long lists of spirits are recited more than once during the chant, but always when the nyibu is in their territory: the ‘spirit’ (wi) realm of the horizontal cosmology and the spirit paths leading to the land of the dead. Ancestors, by contrast, are never mentioned on these occasions but only when the nyibu travels through their realms (neha, siican, myodi and liipa). Also, crossing the boundary from ancestor to spirit territories in the horizontal cosmology is clearly marked in the Subu Heniin chant by the beginning of a new textual section (‘Calling the Spirits’). A final difference between ancestors and spirits is that only the former have souls (yalo). Humans (myu) and some animals ( jungle cat, tiger, eagle and goose, for example) also have a soul. Spirits, however, do not. A yalo is often conflated with or substitutes for its owner, especially on ritual journeys. The soul of a dead person, for instance, is led to the underworld, where it assumes a normal life as if on earth. The Subu Heniin chant similarly leads the souls of mithuns and cows to the land of the dead, where they are offered to the spirits. Souls are taken to Neli, but the spirits are not.

4 A local scholar counted thirty-eight different spirits among Apatanis (Hage Naku 2006: 28), while a western anthropologist reported that Nyishis in the Koloriang area recognized 170 (Aisher 2006: 54).

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Not all souls go to Neli, however, because Apatanis imagine two other afterworlds as well. Only those who die naturally go to Neli, which is a prosperous land, a mirror-image of this world, where the dead enjoy fertile fields, mithuns and family life. Neli is somewhere ‘below,’ but men who die prematurely or accidentally or commit suicide go to Tali Myoko, described only as ‘up.’ When angry, someone might say, ‘Tali myoko cato’ (‘Go to hell’). Women whose lives are similarly truncated go to Libung Myoko, again said to be ‘up.’ As in many other cultures, those who suffer these unnatural deaths are said to become ‘wandering souls’ or ‘ghosts’ (igii). Straddling the boundary between the living and the dead, these beings have an ambiguous status. In ritual speech, a ‘ghost’ is known as a ‘spirit-ancestor’ (wi kalo) or ‘spirit-human-ancestor’ (wi myu kalo), which refers to an ancestor who might appear one day and cause harm. Another term for these ‘ghosts,’ used only in the Subu Heniin, is diima hama, the name of the second textual section of the chant, in which the nyibu attempts to drive these potentially harmful beings away from the sacrifice. Whatever its form and name, this concept of the unwanted revenant is central to Apatani religion. As we saw in the previous chapter, several rituals (chiefly the funeral) and sections of the Subu Heniin chant are designed to separate the dead from the living. Keeping the dead where they belong, at a safe distance in one of the underworlds, so that they cannot disturb the living, is as important as summoning the spirits and ancestors to the world of humans. Spirits and ancestors, on the one hand, and ghosts on the other, are thus two opposed yet complementary categories. One must be prevented from coming to a Murung, while the other must be induced to attend. Animism Taking all this into account, we can describe Apatani religion as a form of animism, but only reluctantly. The conventional definition of ‘animism’ is a belief that souls or spirits (anima) animate nature, such as trees, hills and rivers and so on. Recent, influential analyses continue to make this claim that animism endows non-humans with the same ‘interiority’ as humans.5 However, this makes no sense in Apa5

Descola 2005.

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tani cosmology. As we have just seen, Apatanis believe that humans and animals have souls but spirits do not. Similarly, although many places in the natural landscape are associated with mythic ancestors, and a few with spirits, this is not the same as endowing those places with animate life. Although spirits are widespread in Apatani cosmology, they do not have souls and do not animate nature. Bedevilled as much by the imprecision of the term as its Victorian vision of ‘primitive religion,’ some anthropologists have attempted to reconceptualise animism. While the emphasis in these studies varies (epistemological, cosmological and environmental), the general thrust is to focus less on the animation of natural phenomena and more on the relations between humans and non-humans in specific environments. Animism, in this view, is primarily a system of interactions in which ‘the realm of the social does not end with human beings.’6 This sociological perspective is a welcome corrective that demystifies ‘animism’ and frees it from some misleading preconceptions. At the same time, it neither adequately differentiates animism from other religious systems nor accurately describes the spirit world in the Apatani valley. Although relations between human and non-humans are part of a broader framework of social interaction in Apatani cosmology, this is also true in many cosmologies, from Hinduism to Christianity. In any case, Apatani relations with spirits are not the same as relations between humans. They cannot be equivalent because, as just noted, humans and spirits are different conceptual categories, endowed with dissimilar capacities and ritual roles. For example, although Apatani exchange between humans and spirits resembles exchange between humans, these practices differ in the gifts given. Both humans and spirits get meat, but whereas humans give rice, cash, meat and labour, spirits give protection and prosperity. For Apatanis, the main point about spirits is that they are not human: they are not visible, do not have souls and are not taken to the underworld. Unlike humans, they are contacted only by a specialist who can see into their world and speak with them. Still, ‘animism’ will probably have to serve as a label for Apatani religion, if only to distinguish it from other religious systems. However, I would prefer to describe Apatani religion as a set of ideas and

6 Pederson 2001: 415. See also Bird-David 1999; Descola 1996, 2005; Viveiros de Castro 1998; Triosi 2000.

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practices designed to contact a large contingent of impersonal forces in order to increase prosperity and ward off danger. Danger lies mainly in crossing boundaries, in trespassing on the spirits’ territory, during transit to and from the land of the dead, in ghosts and in the return of the dead to the living. With this in mind, we can now see that the horizontal realms and maze of pathways to the underworld are created to maintain boundaries and impede these perilous crossings. Apatani anxiety about the dangerous disorder in death, a not uncommon attitude, is inseparable from a keen attachment to life, which is perhaps less widespread. The sunny land of the dead, the celebration of growth in the Subu Heniin chant and the belief that a Murung brings prosperity—all this reflects an optimism. If Apatanis are unnerved by unpredictable ghosts—many people say they fear meeting one while walking alone at night—they are also reassured by a confidence in their fertile valley. Even the possibility of an unsuccessful Murung is faced with resilience: Spirits, show favour to husband and wife, and give them a prosperous life; If the signs are favourable, then show us a sunny day; But if the signs are bad, then show us now. NYIBU and shaman The man who speaks these words is the nyibu. Not an unfamiliar figure, he is similar to a type of ritual specialist found across the world, and not least in the extended eastern Himalayas, who is often called a ‘shaman.’ At first, I hesitated to use this term to describe the nyibu because it has been stretched out of shape to fit virtually any kind of ritual specialist. Besides, the nyibu does not do what many ‘shamans’ do. He does not, for example, go into ‘trance’ or become ‘possessed.’7 That

7 Although early scholars emphasised a shaman’s control over spirits rather than his possession by them, others have shown that the spectrum of shamanic experience includes possession (see, for example, Hutton 2001; Vitebsky 1993).

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is, his actions are not those typically described by these vague terms.8 Nor, crucially, do Apatanis think he enters into any unusual mental state or acts in a strange manner. Mild displays of loss of physical and mental control sometimes happen during healing rituals, but this is not explained locally as possession by spirits, and it does not occur during a Subu Heniin performance. Compared to the trembling, ecstatic Siberian shaman, the Apatani specialist is sober and static.9 Spirit possession (wi aniin, ‘coming of a spirit’) happens but not often and usually to women. Apatanis were reluctant to discuss possession with me, and I never observed any instances first-hand. The few cases I heard about concerned women who were said to be ‘mentally ill’ because they were possessed by a ghost (igii), the wandering soul of a person who died unnaturally and did not go to Neli. These revenants, as mentioned above, are considered dangerous boundary-crossers, and some are said to reveal the identity of those who harmed or killed them. Women possessed by them, however, are cured not by nyibus but by another woman.10 Two or three of these female healers exist on the margins of the miji migung tradition, and I also heard stories, always set in the past, about benign cases of possessed women, who were said ‘to be married’ to a spirit that occasionally ‘visited’ or ‘protected’ her. In sum, spirit possession does occur but not to a nyibu. In another contrast to the standard portrait of a shaman, an Apatani nyibu does not retrieve fugitive souls. While the idea of a wandering soul exists, Apatanis usually ascribe illness and accidental or premature death to the influence of dangerous spirits and ghosts. Only rarely are these forces said to ‘enter’ their victims, whom they more often lead astray. In all cases, a nyibu is called to repel the spirit or ghost and to fortify the patient with the power of protective spirits. In effect, the nyibu drives out unwanted spirits but does not bring back lost souls. Compared to the flights, descents and travels of most ritual specialists in Asia, the nyibu is stationary. As described in an earlier chapter, he undertakes only two ritual journeys.

8 On the imprecision of terms such as ‘trance’ and ‘possession,’ see Hamayon 1995. 9 Apatanis sometimes summon Nyishi ritual specialists, who are thought to have more power and who exhibit ‘shamanic’ behaviour, in order to counteract dangerous spirits. 10 These women were said to ‘operate in the secrecy of their houses’ (FürerHaimendorf 1980: 173).

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The relative insignificance of dreams in a nyibu’s diagnosis and treatment of illness is also noteworthy. He uses dreams to identify problems but far less frequently than his counterparts in central Arunachal Pradesh, let alone Siberia and elsewhere.11 Dreams are likewise not cited as initiatory incidents in becoming a nyibu. Similarly, although a nyibu, like most shamans, wears a costume and uses ritual paraphernalia (see below), he does not play a drum, or any other musical instrument. Nor does anyone assist him by playing one. Apatani nyibus are also set apart from many (especially Siberian and north Asian) ritual specialists in that they do not gain mastery over spirits or have a familiar spirit.12 The proto-typical beginning of this relationship is the ‘calling’ of the future shaman by his tutelary spirit, an often violent visitation, extraordinary vision or other disruptive experience. Once he has tamed this spirit, it becomes his ‘familiar,’ at his command. Nothing like this, however, occurs to an Apatani nyibu. One or two men mentioned a particular spirit, who they feel protects them, but these spirits do not act like a familiar, and there is no ‘shamanic illness’ as a sign of unusual powers. Related to this lack of an initial visitation is the absence of any formal training, apprenticeship or initiation for a nyibu (see below). In many respects, then, the Apatani ritual specialist does not fit the conventional profile of the shaman, as described by Sergei M. Shirokogoroff, popularised by Mircea Eliade and refined by others.13 There is no retrieval of fugitive souls and no ecstatic trance, no mastery of spirits and no familiar spirit, no illness and no initiation, no drum, few dreams and fewer journeys. In other respects, however, the nyibu is similar to the shaman in Siberia and elsewhere in Asia. First and foremost, he is a healer who makes contact with spirits. He leads human and animal souls along the pathways to the land of the dead, where he offers animals to the spirits. He both drives away and summons spirits, threatens and flatters them on behalf of his clients. And, above all else, he speaks to the spirits in a special language.

11 Tagin (Nyishi) specialists in the Daporijo area often cited dreams, disease, ‘madness’ or orphan hood in their life-histories (interviews by Dugli Don, 2003–2004). 12 Shirokogoroff 1982 [1935]: 269, 271; Eliade 1995: 202. 13 Maskarinec (1995: 98; 1998: viii), for example, applies Shirokogoroff’s profile to Nepalese ritual specialists.

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An Apatani nyibu has one other specific trait that he shares with many shamans in Asia.14 He has the ability to ‘see’ the spirits. I was repeatedly told seeing spirits is the definitive power of a nyibu ( just as invisibility distinguishes spirits from ancestors). The first ancestor, Abo Tani, who was half-spirit and half-man, had this power, but the spirits stole it, and ever since the only men to retain it are nyibus. This local yet widespread attribution of vision is instructive. I was in the habit of writing that nyibus ‘read’ divination signs in chicken and pig livers and eggs, but they do not read them. They see them. I winced also at Fürer-Haimendorf’s calling the nyibu a ‘seer,’ yet that old-fashioned word captures something that ‘ritual specialist’ does not. While a nyibu does not go into trance or depend on dreams, he is a visionary. On balance, I think we might as well call the nyibu a ‘shaman,’ if by that term we mean a ritual specialist who uses powers of travel, vision and speech to contact the spirit world for the purposes of healing, guiding souls to the land of the dead and otherwise shielding the living from harm. ‘Shaman’ may be imprecise, but ‘priest’ is at least as misleading, and the somewhat clinical term ‘ritual specialist’ becomes opaque when repeated too often. Finally, as with ‘feast of merit,’ the category of ‘shaman’ helps us to refine our understanding of the Apatani nyibu by lining him up alongside his counterparts. When we look at him in this comparative light, we see one final, intriguing difference: the nyibu is the sole specialist in his society. Caroline Humphrey reports that ‘no north Asian society has only one specialist,’ and this applies to most of the rest of Asia, as well, where two, three or four different practitioners are common.15 Despite some exceptions, ethnographers throughout the Himalayas have found that the shaman coexists with at least one other specialist, often called a ‘priest’ or a ‘lama,’ and that these two form a complementary pair.16 If the ‘shaman’ does the dangerous nocturnal work—contact powerful spirits, travel, tremble and beat the drum—the ‘priest’ performs the more public and sedate rites during the day.17 A similar division of ritual labour exists among tribes in central Arunachal Pradesh. See, for instance, Samuel 1993; Humphrey 1996; Bowie 2006. The Daur in Mongolia have four or five ritual specialists (Humphrey 1996: 51). 16 In Nepal, a single ritual specialist is found among the Gurung and Thangmi. In Arunachal Pradesh, Idu Mishmis appear to have a single specialist, although different types perform different rituals (Chaudhuri 2008; Bhattacharjee 1983: 121–22). 17 See, for example, Strickland 1983; Höfer 1994; Maskarinec 1995; Gaenszle 2002. 14 15

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Most of these populations have a specialist called nyibu (or a cognate term) who shares ritual duties with one or two other specialists (often a ‘hunter,’ ‘diviner’ or ‘storyteller’).18 Some Nyishi groups divide ritual tasks among three such specialists, an arrangement similar to that in parts of Nepal.19 While more detailed descriptions are necessary before we can attempt a regional typology, the Apatani case of a single ritual specialist is rare. Not every ritual task, to be sure, is carried out by the nyibu. As mentioned above, a few Apatani women sometimes conduct minor healing rituals, and other women frequently perform the funeral chant. These women, however, are not locally recognised as specialists, nor are the men who assist the nyibu in divinations and building altars. The crucial point is that these women and men do not contact the spirits through ritual speech. Other exceptions exist. For example, one young man, with no nyibu credentials, performs ceremonies, of his own devising, for recently-converted Christian families in his neighbourhood. And Christians are turning more and more to their own specialists. Nevertheless, for the vast majority of Apatanis, the nyibu remains the only recognised ritual authority. Only he can visit, see and speak to the spirits. Only he is tasked to bring them to a Murung in order to ensure prosperity. ‘Task’ is a term borrowed from Roberte Hamayon, whose critique of ‘shaman’ literature drew attention to his socially-defined function.20 What best defines him, she argued, is that he is charged with the business of contacting spirits. In her commendable zeal to discredit prevailing ‘mystical’ perspectives on the shaman, however, she perhaps downplayed the ‘religious’ dimension of his work. As with recent sociological redefinitions of animism (discussed above), her approach tends to ignore the fact that contacting spirits is more than a social act. While the shaman’s role is embedded in social relations, it requires and is locally understood as something beyond normal interaction. Other Apatanis, for example, do not see, travel or speak as a nyibu can.

18 Roy 1997 [1960]: 244–46; Kumar 1979: 239–42; Banerjee 1999: 161; Megu 1990: 127; Aisher 2006: 136–41. 19 The Nyishi nyub/nyubu/nyib/nyob closely resembles the Apatani nyibu, although there are three types: bunyio, bute and nyoki or jeri (Rikam 2005: 28–29; Tara 2005: 106–07). 20 Hamayon 1995.

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This more-than-social nature of the shaman’s task is implicit in Caroline Humphrey’s observation that the best question is not ‘Who is a shaman?’ but ‘What is the cosmology that requires a shaman?’21 As she explains, the apprehension of various causal processes, symbols and objects in a local cosmology requires different specialists, one of whom might fit the profile of a shaman. For example, the Daur people in Mongolia, whom Humphrey studied, have a shaman figure to ritualise the processes of growth, maturation, decay and regeneration, as symbolised in fertility and exemplified in trees—all of which, if we replace ‘trees’ with ‘bamboo,’ would apply also to the Apatani nyibu. Her broader argument that differentiation within a cosmology is correlated with diversity of ritual specialists underlines the rarity of the Apatani nyibu. Apatani cosmology, like the Daur, has a number of beings, symbols and objects. Unlike, the Daur, however, it has only one practitioner. NYIBU in Apatani society Until recently, Apatani society had only one other formal institution. This was the bulyang, or village council, which gradually lost authority with the imposition of an external political system from the 1940s onward and now survives only in vestigial form. Although some nyibus were council members, they did not conduct rituals as council members. Today, of course, nyibus are not the only authority figures in the Apatani valley. If the council men have vanished, teachers, doctors, politicians and government officials have appeared, while Christian and Hindu ritual specialists are also gaining influence. Alongside computers, private cars and contemporary Indian fashions, a nyibu does not attract much envy. Wearing the elaborate hair style and facial tattoos that most men abandoned two or three decades ago, he almost looks out of place in his own society. His payment is not derisory—4,000 to 6,000 rupees for a three-week Murung is about what a primary school teacher earns each month—but neither does it make him wealthy. Most months he will earn only about 2,000 or 3,000. His clients are also beginning to drop away since some traditional rituals, such as a Murung, require more time and money than

21

Humphrey 1996: 4, 50–51, passim.

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many Apatanis are willing to spend. And Christianity, whatever else it may offer, is less expensive and seldom asks for more than a few hours on a Sunday. Still, although their influence is declining, most nyibus are respected. Today there are approximately 90 nyibus among nearly 35,000 Apatanis, who are divided into 78 exogamous clans. Many clans, especially the smaller ones, have only one nyibu, while others have two or three and a few have none. Although his work is largely clan-based, a nyibu performs rituals for anyone who calls him. In fact, demand often exceeds supply and catching hold of a man at the right time is not easy. Nyibus are occasionally summoned by Nyishis living in Hapoli or in the hills surrounding the Apatani valley. Assamese in Hapoli also call them, but less often. Only men are nyibus. Women possess little formal authority in this patrilineal and patrilocal society. Clan membership is passed through the father, and a wife becomes a formal member of her husband’s clan only after eating a meal during the Myoko festival. When married, a woman retains her natal clan name but then moves to her husband’s clan neighbourhood in his village. Land, animals and cash are inherited by sons, while expensive necklaces, brass plates and bells are handed down from mother to daughter. This power differential is changing, however, and today Apatani women occupy leading positions in NGOs and government departments. They also have considerable power of the purse. In particular, they have formed numerous saving co-operatives, to which members pay a small amount each month which entitles them to low-interest loans when necessary. As a sign of changing times, while walking through a village one day, I saw a large group of women sitting on a lapang, once an all-male preserve, toting up the annual accounts of their co-operative. A young man does not train to become a nyibu. Rather, he learns by exposure, absorption and guidance. Although Fürer-Haimendorf reported that a nyibu must undergo a ‘lengthy process of training,’ I saw no evidence of this, and nothing of the sort was mentioned by the specialists whom I asked.22 Most of these men said that they had simply listened to chanting while they were young, especially when

22 Fürer-Haimendorf 1980: 150. Fürer-Haimendorf is also mistaken in reporting that all nyibus are from gyutii clans.

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assisting older men on firewood collection expeditions.23 A few said they had been ‘taught for a few nights’ by a senior man during these (now abandoned) overnight stays in the jungle. Similarly, there is no formal initiation, although divination is sometimes used to confirm that a young man who has begun to chant should continue. Nor is the nyibu’s role hereditary. Several practicing specialists had a father, uncle or brother who was a nyibu, and this lineage is one factor that helps a man gain public recognition as a specialist. It also means that, as a young man, he has considerable exposure to chanting. Mudan Pai’s comments (in Appendix E) are typical: ‘My father’s brother was a nyibu, but he died when I was young. I didn’t train with anyone, but I liked to listen to other nyibus while they chanted. I also asked some questions from time to time, how to do this and that.’ Exposure, allied to interest and intelligence, may mature into competence if a young man has opportunities to display his fledgling skills. When a relative falls ill and no nyibu is available, for example, he may be forced, prematurely, to conduct a minor healing ritual or a divination. If that proves successful, or at least does not fail, he may be asked to do another, and then another, and within a few years, he may be recognised as a nyibu. Again, Mudan Pai’s words are exemplary (Appendix E): Once [when ill] my brother asked me to do an egg divination—he had heard what people were saying about me. That’s about all I could do then, an egg divination. My brother said that he had called a lot of nyibus but still wasn’t cured, so he wanted me to try. No nyibu would come back, he said. ‘But I can’t do it,’ I said to him. ‘You can try,’ he said. ‘Even though you’re not really a nyibu, even if you can’t do it properly, you can try.’ [. . .] So I did the bidu ritual, saying to my brother, ‘If you don’t get well, I won’t do anything more. I’m not a nyibu and I can’t do this kind of thing. If I don’t do it right, the spirits won’t accept it.’ My brother didn’t get well, but he lied and said he was better [. . .] After that other people asked me to do longer rituals.

As this anecdote suggests, informal public recognition of competence turns a young man into a practicing ritual specialist. Once he begins, a young nyibu often plays the role of ‘assistant’ (bo). The assistant works alongside the main nyibu, building altars, chanting parts of a long text and performing some rituals, such as liver and egg divinations, killing 23

This practice, known as kiibo, seems to have been discontinued in the 1970s.

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chicks and sprinkling blood on altars. However, the bo is not a separate category of specialist. Rather, it is part of a nyibu’s role, which even a senior nyibu may assume during complex rituals. Most of a nyibu’s time is spent conducting healing rituals inside houses, usually overnight and sometimes for two or three days and nights. Payment for these treatments ranges from about 500 to 800 rupees. He also chants at a number of major events, such as house building, house protection, hunting a jungle cat, birth, naming, funerals and weddings. His reputation, however, rests on his performances during the big set pieces of Murung, Myoko and miida. For these ceremonies, he usually receives between 3,000 and 6,000 rupees, in addition to various pieces of meat or their cash equivalents, which add another few thousand. On the other hand, he is sometimes sidelined by taboos. For instance, he must leave at least a month between a cicing healing ritual and a tiigo ritual, such as Murung. In addition, some rituals require him to stay at home for several days afterwards.24 Otherwise, a nyibu is nearly always busy. On a typical morning he may be taken from his village to Hapoli on the back of a motorcycle because someone’s aunt is ill. After two hours of chanting, divining, putting up an altar and twisting the heads off a few chicks, he is given a meal, his fee and a ride back home. Sitting on his porch, he spends the afternoon making baskets or doing carpentry, which are extra sources of income. Later, a few friends join him in preparing altars for an agricultural ritual planned for the next day. In the evening he goes to his paddy fields, where he helps to build up bunds and realign the wooden troughs through which water passes into the fields. In summary, the role of a nyibu requires no formal training, is not marked by an initiation and is not hereditary. Nor does it confer any fixed privileges. While he enjoys widespread (if declining) respect and some precedence during social and ritual events, he has no formal authority outside the ritual sphere. If one or two nyibus are public leaders this is not because they perform rituals but because of their judgement and character. Above all, a nyibu is the sole ritual specialist, with all the authority that such a position entails. When not chanting, though, he is an ordinary, if admired, older Apatani man.

After performing most rituals, a nyibu is also prohibited from eating certain kinds of food, especially wild animals and the blood of domestic pigs. 24

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NYIBU in a Murung Given the weak ranking in Apatani society, the above portrait of the nyibu is not surprising. We have already seen that, unlike feasts of merit elsewhere, a Murung does not earn any privileges for the sponsor, and the same is true for the performer. Standing on the lapang and chanting the Subu Heniin, nevertheless, is the apex of a nyibu’s career. In that time and place, he is not just himself but the embodiment of a tradition. As he frequently declares: I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, on this early morning; I am the Ato Doni shaman, standing on this lapang; I stand here to conduct this Murung for husband and wife; I chant here to support this feast of the tiike rade clan; I am here to make this Murung a success as our nyibus did long ago, For our ancestors, Kulyi Kulo, when they performed a Murung. Here is a Murung in miniature: ‘I am the ancestral nyibu; I stand on the lapang; I do this for the sponsors and their clan, that they might prosper.’ In fact, a Murung is so important that its ritual work is divided between two nyibus.25 The main specialist is known as the lapang nyibu because he chants on the platform. The second man is called the liipa (‘between’) nyibu because he walks in the middle of the procession (led by the main nyibu). The main specialist is also known as the ura (‘back hearth’) nyibu and the second man as the ago (‘front hearth’) nyibu because this is where they sit when performing rituals inside the sponsor’s house. Lapang and ago, however, are not separate categories or grades of specialists, as among Nagas, Nyishis and others. Instead, and like the bo (‘assistant’), they are roles that any Apatani nyibu may assume. The duties of the two men during a Murung are outlined in the chart 5.1 below: 25

Two nyibus are also required to conduct the Myoko festival.

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chapter five Chart 5.1. Tasks of two nyibus in a Murung

lapang/ura nyibu 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

chosen by divination chants the Subu Heniin leads procession sits at rear hearth conducts major rituals at sponsor’s house 6. wears headdress (abyo) 7. chants the Yorda Ayu 8. payment: good pieces of cow & mithun meat + 4–6,000 rupees + several pieces of pork (or cash equivalents)

liipa/ago nyibu 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

chosen by sponsor chants some of this text walks in middle sits at front hearth assists in these rituals

6. no headdress 7. also chants this text 8. 1,500–2,500 rupees + pieces of pork (or cash equivalents)

As we can see from this list of tasks during a Murung, the lapang nyibu is the principal specialist. While the two men share some duties, especially chanting the Yorda Ayu on the second day, the main nyibu does the lion’s share of the work during the three weeks of the festival. He chants the great majority of the Subu Heniin, perhaps ten of its twelve hours, including the important minutes at the sacrificial stakes at the sponsor’s house just before each animal is killed. He also leads the day-long procession through the valley, as well as a series of important rituals on the following day that conclude the spirits’ stay in the sponsor’s house and keep the souls of the sacrificial animals in the underworld.26 Only the most respected men, known for their ritual knowledge and ability to chant the Subu Heniin, are asked to lead a Murung. While they are chosen by divination, this is less random than one might think. The name of the man who the sponsor wants to conduct the feast, usually a nyibu in his own clan, is first suggested and then confirmed, or not, by looking at eggs and/or livers. For his labours, the main nyibu receives several good but unspecified pieces of mithun and cow meat, often a lower hind leg. He also receives several large pieces of pork plus a fee that ranges between 4–6,000 rupees (twice what the second nyibu is given). If, as often happens, he is given cash equivalents for the meat, his intake might total as much as 8,000 rupees. This is a not an inconsiderable amount, but neither is it an incentive to become

26

On these rituals (ude tiniin), see Appendix A, day 9.

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a nyibu. His chief reward is the prestige that a Murung and Subu Heniin performance brings. Part of that prestige lies in the costume worn by the main nyibu, as outlined below.27 Main nyibu’s Murung costume and paraphernalia 1. tajer: bamboo piece worn in hair; other pieces fastened to gourd ladles 2. abyo: headdress that hangs down the back of the neck; once of Tibetan wool and local cotton, now factory-produced cotton and synthetic fibre, but still locally handwoven and dyed in the distinctive Apatani design with dots and diamonds 3. zilang: thick, outer shawl (same materials and design as abyo) 4. zike tarii: jacket in black and white diamond pattern 5. zilya: plain shawl, worn under the zilang shawl 6. sampo: large, conch shell bead necklace 7. denko: metal skewer through hair 8. denko ranyii: strings of small beads hanging from denko 9. larang: large brass, hoop earrings 10. dimpin: string of metal beads on the hair line 11. kobyang: brass (now aluminium) bangles worn on forearms 12. tarin: cane (now plastic) bands below the knee 13. ciri: sword with scabbard decorated with cowrie shells 14. piley: ‘fan,’ bundle of hornbill (now mostly chicken) feathers, with cane-mesh handle 15. yaju: gourd ladles, with tajer bamboo and name tag, one for each animal 16. dutin & byoda: low, carved wooden stool & jungle cat skin beneath it This full costume is expensive, and not every active nyibu owns a full set. A good headdress, for example, costs about 1,000 rupees; a pair of larang earrings close to 2,000; a tightly-woven zilang shawl about 3,000 and a ‘Tibetan’ sword (ciri) upwards of 4,000.28 Other items—such as the jacket, plain shawl, bracelets and animal skin under the wooden 27 Some parts of his costume are worn also by a nyibu during the Myoko festival, by the second nyibu in a Murung and by senior men (and women) during both events. 28 Several metal items (ciri, kobyang, larang) are thought to come from Tibet and invested with great value; like other valued objects (bells, beads, metal plates), however, they are often traded up from Assam.

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stool—would add another 3–4,000, making the total cost of a nyibu’s costume almost 15,000 rupees. Of course, a man would recoup this outlay after three or four Murung performances, but that honour is not given to everyone. A few nyibus have two, or even three, costume sets, which they sell or rent out to others. The most personal items— headdress, zilang shawl and sword—are often buried with the nyibu’s body. They may also be handed down to a young protégé or kept by his family to sell. Performance on the

LAPANG

Above everything else, however, the performance on the platform defines the nyibu’s role during a Murung. That is why he is called the lapang nyibu. The second man will chant for a while, especially during the initial hours, but the performance belongs to the main nyibu. He is the one wearing full ceremonial dress, including the tajer bamboo in his headdress. Later, he is the one said to have ‘climbed on the lapang,’ an honour given only to one in three nyibus. The Subu Heniin announces the rising sun, yet there is only darkness for the first few hours of his performance, and early January mornings at 1,500 metres in the Himalayas are close to freezing. The small fire at his feet creates a little circle of warmth around him, the second nyibu and one or two other men on the platform. By late morning, when the sun has driven off the fog and shines at a slant, small currents of activity begin to swirl around the lapang. The mithuns and cows are brought and tied to the platform, more men have gathered to sit on its flat surface and others soon arrive to take part in the events that will culminate in the sacrifice a few hours later. The nyibu continues to chant, and now his upright figure on the raised platform stands out, visible from almost any porch in the neighbourhood. Even before we hear his chanting, his costume distinguishes him from everyone else. His shawl displays a long embroidered strip of bright orange, red and black dots set among diamonds, against a dark blue background, with white bands and purple borders. Beneath this shawl, set loosely on his shoulders, the nyibu wears a jacket woven in a black and white diamond pattern, with orange and red lines on its borders. Around his neck hangs a necklace of heavy conch shells, and on his lower arms are aluminium bracelets. He wears a brass skewer through his hair knot, and from one end dangle thin

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strings of small beads. He wears large, hoop earrings, suspended from smaller, brass earrings. The shoulder strap of his sword sheath is covered with cowrie shells and sometimes a mirror with a jungle cat’s lower jaw and teeth. He stands on a low, wooden seat, cut along the sides in a scallop design and placed on a jungle cat skin. At his feet lie several bundles, each with tajer bamboo sticks, a gourd ladle and a name tag for one of the animals tied to the lapang. During the second half of the performance—when leading the animals to the land of the dead, explaining which animal is intended for which spirit and requesting them not to blame him for their death—he picks up one of these bundles and turns toward the mithun or cow named on the tag. Leaning forward, he waves it toward the animal, gesturing like a conductor waving his baton. Less visible is a single piece of the same tajer bamboo worn in his hair. This finely split piece is only a few inches high, but once you know it is there, standing up straight like a little flag, it draws your attention. It is the same bamboo whose luxuriant growth symbolises the elemental force of fertility that courses through the chant. At the end of the first day, the nyibu will take it home and put it in a safe place as a memento of his performance, a visible sign of his achievement, like the animal skulls hung on the walls inside the sponsor’s house. Except for gesturing with the bamboo sticks, there is little theatre during a nyibu’s performance. For long stretches of time, he stands almost motionless. Around him on the lapang and elsewhere, people move about but nothing happens quickly. Throughout the chanting, even while gesturing, his voice remains low, measured and inaudible beyond a few metres. His demeanour is calm, and from a distance he resembles a mannequin. He does not tremble, shake or walk about. He goes on ritual journeys, to the outer limits of the known world and along dangerous paths to the world of the dead. But he is not possessed by spirits, and he does not enter into an altered state. Audience Nor is the nyibu a storyteller. No one listens to a story, or even an episode, during the Subu Heniin performance, only to the sounds flowing from the figure standing tall on the lapang. The small group of men gathered on the lapang do not respond to his words, and, although they may listen, neither are they spoken to. The nyibu is overheard rather than heard.

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This does not mean, however, that nyibu’s chanting escapes scrutiny. Public evaluation of his performance focuses on the clarity (darii) of his voice. Men who do not enunciate properly—and there are those who do little more than mumble—are targets of ridicule. Nyibus themselves also mentioned the necessity of a ‘clear voice,’ but they added that knowledge of the text separates good from ordinary performers. A few explained that one must be able to chant the nineteen textual sections of the Subu Heniin in the correct sequence. ‘He goes back and forth, doesn’t follow the right order,’ was a common criticism. Another test that many nyibus fail is the negotiation of the pathways that lead to and from the land of the dead as well as connect spirits with their various locations in Neli. The nyibu’s limited human audience is consistent with an earlier observation about the Subu Heniin. Of the two types of ritual texts described in chapter 3, we found that the Apatani chant is more recitation than dialogue. In ritual dialogues, such as divination and healing chants, the specialist’s speech is tied to the here and now of the performance by addressing the spirits, ancestors or human participants (by name or pronoun) and by using temporal markers (‘this,’ ‘here,’ ‘today’), which fix his words to the specific circumstances. Ritual recitations use the opposite strategy. By reducing these contextual signals to a minimum, the specialist lifts his words beyond the present and merges his voice with that of the ancestors. As Joel Kuipers and Martin Gaenszle found in eastern Indonesia and eastern Nepal, respectively, this kind of performance is associated with increased authority of the specialist and formalisation of the text.29 Ordinary speakers and specialists of lower status, who perform healing and divination rituals, on the other hand, rely largely on dialogic speech, using their own voice and less of the ‘ancestral’ speech. While these two strategies—fixing and detaching speech from its context— distinguish the two ritual genres, the most skilled specialists combine them in the same performance. A nyibu on the lapang likewise uses both dialogic features and ancestral speech. His performance has one difference, however. While a nyibu continually contextualises his words, he never speaks to a human audience, yet he speaks often and at length to the spirits and sacrificial animals. At the same time, a nyibu’s performance on the lapang is

29

Kuipers 1990: 169–71; Gaenszle 2002: 183–85.

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always raised above its immediate context because both speaker and speech are identified as outside the present time and place. In the very first lines, for example, he conflates himself with ancestral shamans, and he repeats this identification throughout the chant, especially at the opening of each new textual section: I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, standing on the lapang; I am the Ato Doni shaman, chanting in the early morning. These lines are self-referential. ‘Standing on the lapang’ and ‘chanting in the early morning’ refer to the present. Several of the most frequently repeated words in the chant also call attention to the performance: lapang, nyibu and pyakun perre (the noun-pair for ‘Murung’) are all used more than thirty times in the Subu Heniin. Their repetition, however, flattens them out into a formula that refers to all lapangs and all performances, merging present with past. Similarly, the nyibu repeatedly mentions the sponsors and their clan but only by their generic noun-pairs (takar dumi, tiike rade) and never by their specific names. The nyibu’s performance thus combines the strategies of both ritual dialogue and ritual recitation. This is the ventriloquism that M. M. Bakhtin called a ‘doublevoiced utterance’ and ethnographers call the ‘words of the ancestors.’30 By speaking this ritual language, and by identifying himself with his predecessors, a nyibu’s performance of Subu Heniin has the authority of an extended proverb. In fact, the Apatani term for ‘proverb’ (niting horming) is a compound of two ancestral shamans’ names. Ritual speech If a nyibu is reputed to visit and see spirits, it is his more observable competence to talk with them that sets him apart from other men. Chanting is what turns a young man into a nyibu; it is what a nyibu and no one else can do. This does not mean, however, that the ability to use ritual speech is uniformly spread among Apatani shamans.

30

Gaenszle 2002; Hoskins 1988; Kuipers 1990.

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James Fox’s description of ritual speech on the Indonesian island of Roti applies well to Apatani: This ritual code, in its entirety, is probably beyond the comprehension of any of its individual participants. To these participants, it is an ancestral language that they continue. It is a language into which individuals ‘grow’ as their age and acquaintance increases.31

Although nyibus also mature in competence, I found that even after many years, some men still had a limited command of Apatani ritual speech. This special speech is the defining feature of all Apatani ritual texts. Local oral tradition is known as miji migung, a compound of two types of text—miji and migung.32 These two categories are distinguished primarily by type of speech (agung), and to a lesser extent by context and intent, rather than by narrative content. Migung texts, delivered in conversational prose, are mostly stories that we would call folktales, legends and local histories. However, when the same stories or episodes are chanted in ritual speech in order to contact spirits, they are miji. Apatani ritual speech is thus known as ‘miji speech’ (miji agung) or more commonly ‘nyibu speech’ (nyibu agung). As outlined in chapter 3, Apatani shamans chant three types of miji texts, which are largely differentiated by their purpose and the spirits they address. Whatever their dissimilarities, all miji texts are the same in that they alone use ritual speech. How does ritual speech differ from ordinary Apatani? Its grammar is the same, and its syntax is not much different either, only having (as with most forms of oral poetry) more concision and flexibility of word order. The texture of ritual speech, however, is more recognisable by its euphony, imagery, repetition and cadence. But the major difference between ritual speech and ordinary speech lies in vocabulary. Apatani ritual speech is dominated by the pairing of nouns. Nounpairs also occur in conversational Apatani, especially as kinship terms, and they may be part of a wider compounding tendency in TibetoBurman languages, but they are extremely common in Apatani ritual 31 Fox 1974: 83. Although Rotinese ritual speech is not used to communicate with the spirits, it is the ‘language of formal social or ceremonial interaction’ (Fox 1971: 221). 32 Miji migung also refers to the body of knowledge that a nyibu must possess in order to chant effectively.

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speech.33 As a quick illustration, the thirty-six lines of a version of a well-known folktale contained not a single noun-pair, whereas the first thirty-six lines of the Subu Heniin performance translated in this book has twenty-four different pairs, which occur a total of thirtythree times.34 In the first 250 lines of the chant, seventy-one different noun-pairs occur, several of them more than once. And in the full text, there are more than 600 noun-pairs (mainly place-names and personal names). Parallelism In order to grasp the role of noun-pairs in the Subu Heniin, we need to put Apatani ritual speech into some kind of comparative perspective. Used in a variety of texts and societies, from the Hebrew Bible to Siberian hunters, the organising principle of ritual speech is extensive parallelism. Almost a hundred years ago, Roman Jakobson declared that ‘poetic language consists of an elementary operation: the bringing together of two elements.’35 When this ‘bringing together’ is ‘compulsory,’ he called it ‘canonical parallelism,’ which James Fox rephrased as a ‘strict, consistent and pervasive’ form of linguistic pairing.36 Studies by Fox and his colleagues have revealed a good deal about this kind of parallelism in Austronesia, especially in the islands of eastern Indonesia. While studies of ritual speech in the Tibeto-Burman languages are not as extensive, the published literature largely confirms the pattern identified in eastern Indonesia. Apatani ritual speech, however, diverges from this pattern in its reliance on a particular kind of noun-pair. The primary form of parallelism in eastern Indonesia is the couplet, a pair of semantically and syntactically equivalent or similar lines.37 These paired lines are typically linked by a pair of related nouns (‘dyadic sets’), as in one of Fox’s examples from Rotinese:

On these compound formations in Galo, see Post 2007: 274–76. Blackburn 2008: 253–57. 35 As quoted in Fox 1988: 3. 36 Fox 1988: 4. 37 Keane 1997: 101–06; 112–14; Kuipers 1990: 72. For Papua New Guinea, see Rumsey 2005: 47–49; for southwest China, see Holm 2003: 34. 33 34

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The goat of Oe No from Dai The goat has a yellow-necklaced beard And the cock of Kedi Poi from Sela The cock has gold-stranded tail feathers.38 ‘Goat’ and ‘cock’ are the related nouns that connect lines one and two with lines three and four. Another example, from Weyewa, on the island of Sumba is similar: horn that cannot be clipped, tusk that cannot be cut.39 Ritual speech in Tibeto-Burman languages in the extended eastern Himalayas also relies heavily on parallel lines or phrases.40 Ample evidence is supplied in Martin Gaenszle’s analysis of Mewahang Rai in eastern Nepal, as in these examples: O respected men, sew (our clothes) where they are torn, mend (our threads) where they are broken.41 ............ From the roof I come and stand below the eaves, at the entrance stairs of the sakchami [clan group]. From the stairs I come and stand on the veranda of the house. From the veranda I come and stand at the threshold.42 This kind of parallel construction, with pairs of lines and/or phrases, is common in Apatani ritual speech, too. Identifying ‘phrases’ and ‘lines’ in Apatani ritual speech, I should first explain, is difficult since there are few grammatical or syntactical markers. Delivery in performance, however, breaks up the stream of speech. Phrases (which I separate by a comma) are marked by a slight pause and usually by a case marker, filler word, pronoun or finite verb at the end. Phrases do not have a fixed number of syllables, although none has fewer than four or Fox 1974: 74–75. Kuipers 1990: 72. 40 On parallelism in Tibeto-Burman languages in Nepal, see Allen 1978; de Sales 1991: 301–09; Höfer 1994; Gaenszle 2002, 2005. For Kachin in northern Burma, see Hanson 1906: 33; Sadan 2007: 79–85. 41 Gaenszle 2002: 160. 42 Gaenszle 2002: 291. 38 39

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more than twelve. An extended pause after two or three phrases signals the end of one ‘line’ and the beginning of another. A new group of phrases, or new line, is marked as well by the elongation of a syllable (usually the fourth) in the first phrase after the pause. The most common line has two phrases, one of five syllables followed by one of eight syllables, as in this example (naming the sponsors and their clan), in which the extended syllable is the first mi: Benyi anyi mi, ngo tiike jaka rade mi [pause] Lines in Apatani ritual speech typically have two (or three) semantically and syntactically parallel phrases, with only minor variation in vocabulary, as in the opening lines of the Subu Heniin chant: example 1: Siro dodu la, ngo dodu jaka aro so, aba nibo nyibu ngo, ngo ato doni jaka nyibu ngo, mudo jilo ngo, wi jaka doni ngo, lyarii tabii ngo, lyantii podo ngo. Standing here today, standing this early morning, I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, I am the Ato Doni shaman, I am [protected by] the jilo [spirits], I am the spirits, I am Lyarii Tabii, I am Lyantii Podo.43 Each line in this example contains parallel phrases, and parallelism between two full lines is also common, as in the second and fourth lines. In fact, no less than two of every three lines in the Subu Heniin chant are coupled with another line or contain parallel phrases. Noun-pairs The distinguishing feature of Apatani ritual speech, however, is another kind of parallelism: not lines or phrases but noun-pairs. Related nouns are also reported widely in eastern Indonesia, as in the examples above (cock and goat; tusk and horn). In fact, Fox found that the building blocks of parallelism in Rotinese ritual speech are not couplets but

43

This literal translation differs slightly from that in chapter 6.

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these linked nouns.44 Whether or not this applies to other languages in eastern Indonesia, it is true of several Tibeto-Burman languages in the extended eastern Himalayas, including central Arunachal Pradesh.45 The most sophisticated analysis of this feature is found in Gaenszle’s studies of the Kiranti languages of eastern Nepal. Building on Allen’s earlier work, Gaenszle demonstrates that ritual speech among the Mewahang Rai makes extensive use of linked nouns, which he (following Nick Allen) calls ‘binomials.’ This kind of parallelism usually consists of two similar or synonymous nouns (or noun phrases), which are linked also by rhyme or alliteration. While Apatani noun-pairs resemble Kiranti binomials in these general aspects, they are nonetheless different. The most obvious differences are morphological. Nouns in Kiranti pairs are typically composed of three syllables, but those in an Apatani pair have only two syllables. In fact, virtually all Apatani nouns, in ritual or ordinary speech, have two syllables.46 In addition, Gaenszle’s analyses of Kiranti languages have shown that these noun clusters contain not just two terms but sometimes three or four. All Apatani nounpairs, by contrast, contain only two terms. So, while Kiranti noun clusters might contain six, nine or twelve syllables, all Apatani noun-pairs contain four syllables, no more and no less. A more fundamental and interesting difference is semantic. Most Kiranti (and many eastern Indonesian) noun clusters consist of two similar but semantically independent entities. Typical examples are ‘ducks’ and ‘pigeons,’ ‘offering on banana leaf ’ and ‘banana leaf on calabash.’47 As Gaenszle explains, ‘[b]oth limbs of the binomial have an independent meaning, but they usually do not occur alone but only together.’48 This kind of noun-pair, however, is extremely rare in Apatani ritual speech: only a handful of the more than 600 noun-pairs have two independent terms. And in most of these rare cases, the two

Fox 1974: 75. See also Fox 1988: 25. Noun-pairs, some identical to those in Apatani, are reported in ritual speech among the Galo (Ete 1974: 12–15), Adi (Megu 2000: 1–2) and Mra (Huber 2010). Both Ete and Megu point out that these terms are used only in pairs and make no sense if used singly, which is also true for Apatani ritual speech. 46 ‘Apatani’ is a recent formation, used mostly in English, of two words (apa, tanii), each with two syllables. ‘Wi’ is an anomaly. A few place-names (‘Hapoli’) and personal names have three syllables. 47 Gaenszle 2002: 280; Gaenszle 2005: 8. 48 Gaenszle 2005: 11. 44 45

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words refer to a single entity: danyi pulo (sun moon) denotes one spirit; anu aban (younger brother, older brother) refers to patrilineal clansmen as a group; miji migung is a compound of two types of texts (miji and migung) that means ‘oral tradition’ as a whole. In many Apatani noun-pairs, which combine a common speech noun with a ritual speech noun, one noun has an independent meaning. A good example is tapin tajer, which denotes the bamboo so important in a Murung and the Subu Heniin chant. While tajer is the common name for this local species of bamboo, tapin is used only in ritual speech. The same is true of dolo sibo, in which the first term is a ritual noun and the second is the ordinary word for ‘male mithun.’ This pattern—first noun as a ritual word and the second an ordinary noun—is found in many noun-pairs. In these instances, most people would know the referent of the noun-pair from the second word, but only nyibus would be familiar with the first word, and only they would use the compound. More numerous are noun-pairs in which both words are used only in ritual speech and neither has an independent meaning. In some cases, these pairs refer to the everyday world: nutii nurii (‘eye’); myodi myoso (‘forest’); tiike rade (‘[sponsor’s] clan’). Other examples include most of the noun-pairs for rivers, mountains, fields and forests. More obscure are the many noun-pairs that are names of spirits and ancestors, mythic mithuns, paths to the land of the dead and so forth. In all of these instances, the two ritual nouns together refer to a single entity. Sometimes the relationship between the two elements is ambiguous, perhaps intentionally so. This is especially true for the names of spirits. Kiiri Kilo, for example, refers at times to one spirit, at other times to two spirits and sometimes to the double-identity of a spirit. A similar confusion clouds the meaning of many place-names. The noun-pair dolo mando is obvious since anyone can see the two high peaks rising side by side on the western edge of the valley. Noun-pairs for rivers and mountains beyond the valley, however, are not so easily explained. While everyone agreed that supyu gyayu means ‘river,’ no one could tell me whether it was one or two rivers. Even when a noun-pair refers to a known location, confusion is not eliminated. Apatanis know, for instance, that the Kuru River joins the Kime River and that together they form the Kamla River, about a two day-walk from the valley. In ritual speech, however, that larger river is never referred to as ‘Kamla’ but only as the noun-pair kuru kime. In

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addition, the place where the Kuru and Kime converge (rutii hatii) is both an important place in Apatani cosmology—the source of water and fish—and a metaphor for alliance: Where small streams converge and form large rivers, Where the brothers join together, where Anu Niisan and Aban Niide unite. Anu aban is the kinship term for the clansmen who assist the sponsor during a Murung. Clan cooperation, in other words, is conflated with the confluence, and this image of two rivers merging into one illustrates not only the unity required in the feast but also the ambiguity inherent in Apatani noun-pairs and ritual speech in general. Let me sum up this semantic difference between Apatani and Kiranti noun-pairs. In Kiranti ritual speech, two similar but independent nouns (ducks & pigeons) join together to form a compound. By contrast, very few Apatani noun-pairs contain two independent words, many contain one and more contain none. Most important, in nearly all cases, the two words fuse together to create a single, indivisible meaning.49 A final contrast between Kiranti and Apatani noun parallelism is syntactical. While the two elements in a Kiranti pair typically occur side-by-side, as if coupled by a hyphen, the elements in an Apatani pair are often separated by words, phrases or even lines, and in a variety of patterns. For instance, although tiike rade (‘[sponsor’s] clan’) does occur as a hyphenated pair, just as frequently the two terms are separated by a ‘filler’ word: ngo tiike bo rade mi, takar dumi mi The two elements of a noun-pair ( pinku jorku) may also occur in the two phrases of the same line: pinku solyang ngo, jorku songo ngo This example, incidentally, contains a ‘silent’ noun-pair (solyang songo) which increases rhyme but adds no meaning.

49 In Nepali ritual speech, two alliterative words also denote one object or idea (Maskarinec 1995: 180).

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In a third pattern, the two elements of a noun-pair are separated by one or more lines: pinku rila ka, ngo rilo ja koye mi, ngo aba kulo ka, jorku rile ka, rido jaka koye mi This pattern resembles the eastern Indonesian arrangement of linked nouns in successive parallel lines. However, to return to an earlier point, while each of those linked nouns in Austronesian ritual speech has an independent meaning, this is not true for Apatani noun-pairs. Pinku jorku, in our example, refers to a single path, leading to and from the land of the dead. A fourth and final Apatani pattern is more complex because it involves two noun-pairs. In this not uncommon usage, one element of each pair appears in the first of two parallel phrases, and the other element occurs in the second phrase: ngo arki tajer bo, no aro ka tapin pa. In this example, the two noun-pairs are arki aro (mythic forest; spirit sponsors of a Murung) and tapin tajer (special bamboo). Noun phrases, verb phrases and repetition While noun-pairs dominate and define Apatani ritual speech, other features are important, too. We can, for example, differentiate verb and noun phrases. While some verb phrases have no nouns, most consist of a noun (often one element of a noun-pair) and a finite verb (root + aspects, such as gii + lyi + ku), which together express a complete thought. The great majority of these verb forms are similar or identical to those used in everyday speech. In noun phrases, however, most of the words are found only in ritual speech. Also, noun phrases contain only nouns—a noun-pair, or one element of a pair or two elements of two different pairs—plus pronouns, filler words and/or case markers. A frequently repeated line of the Subu Heniin illustrates a common type of noun phrase: ngo benyi anyi mi, ngo tiike rade mi, takar dumi mi Here we have three noun phrases, each containing a noun-pair: benyi anyi (‘both of them [husband and wife]’); tiike rade (‘[sponsor’s] clan’);

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takar dumi (‘husband wife’). Added to these pairs are a case-marker (mi in all three) and a pronoun (ngo in the first two). While case-markers and pronouns in ritual speech sometimes add meaning, they often function as filler words. Although ngo means ‘I,’ and mi is the accusative marker, in practice such words are usually optional and often omitted because their main function is to fill out the phrase to the length desired by the nyibu. Another important feature of Apatani ritual speech is repetition. As is apparent from the few samples above, single words recur with great frequency in Apatani ritual speech. Here, again, are opening lines of the Subu Heniin (example 1 above): Siro dodu la, ngo dodu jaka aro so, aba nibo nyibu ngo, ngo ato doni jaka nyibu ngo, mudo jilo ngo, wi jaka doni ngo, lyarii tabii ngo, lyantii podo ngo. Even in these few lines, several words are repeated: ngo (‘I’), nyibu, dodu (‘standing’) and jaka (filler/intensifier/possessive marker). Noun-pairs themselves are another form of repetition, and some (tiike rade, pyakun perre, takar dumi, benyi anyi) occur more than two dozen times in the Subu Heniin chant. A somewhat different type of repetition is a participial phrase. Although not used exclusively in ritual speech, it recurs in the Subu Heniin with some regularity. For example, binii ngo (lit. ‘given by me’ but meaning ‘let it be provided’) is chanted in nearly every line in the following verse: example 2: Benyi anyi mi, ngo tiike jaka rade mi, takar dumi mi, ngo myodi jaka likan so, rici binii ngo, ngo myoso likan so, kemyo binii ngo, ngo mirii jaka likan so, kiipu binii ngo, paker jaka likan so, tunii binii ngo, ngo gondu jaka likan so, ngo yui jaka binii ngo, suchi naran so, ngo endin mi binii ngo, suro nako, ngo lyakun jami binii ngo, ngo lutii likan so, dolo binii ngo, ngo giira jaka linyi so, ngo sibo binii ngo, gantii aku, kedo binii ngo, ngo lyaso lada so, hada binii ngo.

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I ask the spirits to protect both husband and wife, of the Tiike Rade clan; Let their family prosper and grow, with many dogs by the hearth and many chickens in the coop; Let their granaries overflow and their pigs multiply; Give them many mithuns in the forests; Let their jungles be thick with cane. This long cluster of lines, with the recurring participle, was repeated six times during the Subu Heniin chanted by Mudan Pai. In the Subu Heniin text as a whole, approximately 15% of all phrases are verbatim repetitions. One such phrase from example 1 above (aba nibo nyibu ngo, ‘I am the aba nibo shaman’) occurs twentynine times in the chant. Many more phrases (about 65%) are semantically (and near-syntactically) equivalent combinations of words that vary only by the substitution of a single word (plus optional fillers). Again, in example 1, the two phrases in the second line differ only by adding two filler words (ngo, jaka) and substituting one shaman (ato doni) for another (aba nibo). Similarly, in example 2, several phrases are constructed by repeating likan so (‘let there/it be’), adding a filler word and varying the key noun (myodi for myoso, which together form a noun-pair that refers to a mythic forest). These repeated or near-identical phrases sometimes form a cluster of lines, as in example 2. Such clusters are not numerous in the Subu Heniin and do not recur often, but they add a considerable amount of textual repetition. Finally, a nyibu must also be able to recite several long lists in the Subu Heniin. One list (in textual section 12) contains the names of more than fifty distant ancestors in the genealogy of Apatanis, Nyishis and Hill Miris. Even longer is the list of 165 clan ancestors (in textual section 7), mostly Apatani but also a few others. The names of spirits are enumerated in five different sections in the Subu Heniin (nearly sixty names in one case), and on each occasion the nyibu must match the spirit with its associated lapang. The recitation of these various lists of ancestors, spirits and lapangs occupies several hours of a Subu Heniin performance.

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What is the function of these namings? In his detailed study of chanting by Nepalese shamans, Gregory Maskarinec argues that ‘names are not just words, they are also things’ and that naming a spirit is not just an evocation—‘it is that spirit.’50 Mudan Pai, for his part, offered a more prosaic explanation: ‘We call spirits by name because they like hearing their name.’ Another explanation for the extensive repetition in the Subu Heniin is the oral formulaic method of composition. Studying oral epic singing in the Balkans, Milman Parry and Albert Lord discovered that performers neither invent nor memorise what they sing; instead, they rely on fixed phrases and clusters of lines that they recombine as they sing. A similar technique of improvisation, I believe, guides a nyibu’s chanting of the Subu Heniin. Within the sequence of textual sections, he draws on a repertoire of single words, noun-pairs, phrases, line clusters and lists, which he rearranges as he chants. The shorter forms of repetition help to keep the verbal wheels turning while chanting, and whenever he needs to pause in order to recollect what to say next, he brings out a larger set piece and moves on. Repetition has an aesthetic appeal, too. Rhyme is heard in nearly every phrase of the Subu Heniin, not only in noun-pairs but also in the repetition of words and syllables. If spirits like to hear their names, as Mudan Pai suggested, I suspect that a nyibu also enjoys listening to his own words. All repeated sounds create a pattern, and the noun-pairs we hear throughout the Subu Heniin produce a particular rhythm. As shown in the examples given above, most noun-pairs, including the most common, are alliterative: tapin tajer, miji migung, arki aro, benyi anyi. The syllables in every noun-pair form a 2 + 2 pattern, which has a distinct cadence. The overall effect of this patterning, in which similarly sounding nouns are separated in time but fused in meaning, is expectation. When we hear the first word of a familiar pair, as when we hear church bells tolling the hour, we know that we will soon hear another. The fulfilment of that auditory anticipation is a small pleasure.

50

Maskarinec 1995: 130 (emphasis in original).

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Conclusions From the details and diverse topics in the foregoing description of the Apatani nyibu, we can now draw out two or three general conclusions. We have seen, for example, that he is the sole ritual specialist in Apatani society and that this is unusual. While most populations in Asia divide ritual tasks among two or three (or more) specialists, Apatanis concentrate all of it in a single role. The nyibu is the only recognised figure of ritual authority and knowledge in Apatani society. What is the social significance, if any, of a single ritual specialist? I would suggest that it is related to the cohesion of Apatani society, demonstrated by the network of ceremonial friendships and exchange in a Murung described in the previous chapter. A solo ritual specialist both reflects and reinforces this cohesion. The sheer number of nyibus, a consequence of concentrating ritual work in one specialist, is itself a factor. With close to a hundred of them moving around the narrow valley, they are conspicuous symbols of traditional authority. The single specialist also reduces competing voices and perspectives. Other senior men assist in ritual activities, and they usually settle disputes over money or marriage by themselves. In ritual matters, however, the nyibu has the final say. Apatani ritual speech also contributes to this sense of unity. We have seen that the nyibu’s role is defined by three powers attributed to him—mobility, vision and speech—and that the most important of these is speech. If, as Robin Dunbar and others argue, the primary purpose of language is to negotiate social relations, speaking to the spirits is no exception.51 By summoning them to the feast, to share in the sacrifice like ceremonial friends, the nyibu’s words foster cooperation between spirits and humans. The ability of ritual speech to influence relations between humans and spirits is also enhanced by its own internal uniformity. Despite variation in words and phrases between individual nyibus, the amount of semantic and acoustic consistency across all performances is substantial. A Subu Heniin performance, as we have seen, follows a fixed sequence of textual sections, and the rhythm of its recitation is instantly recognisable. Apatani ritual authority speaks with one voice.

51

Dunbar 1996; Locke 2001; MacNeilage 2008.

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This redundancy also helps us to understand a fundamental point about the Subu Heniin performance. As noted earlier in this chapter, the nyibu does not tell a story and no one listens to the content of his words. Although the chant contains a great deal of information (about spirits, ancestors, cosmology), the performance does not convey content. Instead, it communicates a sense of coherence. Standing on the lapang, unmistakable in his costume and speaking like no one else, the nyibu is a singular representation of tradition. The extensive use of noun-pairs contributes to this cohesion, too, since they express a sameness that single and independent words do not. Many of these pairs have the same omnibus meaning in Apatani as ‘from A to Z’ has in English. This means that words in ritual speech do not stand out but merge together and reduce their semantic range.52 This is why a nyibu’s performance is overheard rather than heard. Ritual speech and society Finally, there is the larger question of how all of this might influence social realities. Building on earlier ideas about the transformative capacity of language and performance, recent studies have considered the power of ritual speech not just to influence social relations, which it surely does, but to change them. At the ‘strong’ end of the spectrum is Maskarinec’s argument that ‘shamans used words to constitute reality, not to denote or imitate it.’53 At the weak end, few of us would doubt that ritual speech reinforces social relations, influences ideas and affects physical conditions. James Fox, for example, thought that parallelism in eastern Indonesian languages ‘undoubtedly contributes to a dualistic perception of the world.’54 Somewhere in the middle of these positions is the idea, borrowed from speech act theory, that a shaman’s words become deeds. As we have seen, for example, the Subu Heniin describes the division of the sacrifice that is soon enacted. To me, however, this does not demonstrate the power of ritual speech ‘to transform events, relations and objects.’55 Rather, it illustrates ability of Apatanis to orchestrate verbal and ritual behaviour. 52 53 54 55

See also Lehman 2007: xxix. Maskarinec 1995: 191. Fox 1988: 26. Kuipers 1990: 6.

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Nor do Apatani understandings of ritual speech fit this model of ritual speech as social transformation. Judging from the performance of the Subu Heniin text, Apatanis seem to believe that a nyibu can influence life because his words portray an ideal. We hear him say again and again, ‘Let the fertility of the past be replicated; let that prosperity be imitated today.’ For example: So that the family of Duttu Hayu would flourish ever after, So that the rivers would always flow, The ancestor and nyibu, Nyampo Tanyo, sponsored a great Murung; He sacrificed two mithuns, and distributed the meat; He sacrificed Sito Sibo so that the waters would increase. [. . . .] Today, in this murung, we, too, sacrifice mithuns, So that this family and others will prosper and grow. This is the logic of the prototype, the power of precedence and the association of similar things. A successful sacrifice, the distribution of meat, the convergence of rivers and the expanding bamboo are symbols of prosperity. Abundance is itself modelled on the spacious world: Let the Tiike Rade clan increase and their animals multiply; Let them all flourish like the tajer bamboo; Let their families spread like the tapin bamboo, As wide as the sky, as broad as the earth. Perhaps the most we can say is that these verbal images have the capacity to stimulate imitation.

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Studies of ritual speech elsewhere have come to similar conclusions. In particular, they emphasise the power of ritual speech to establish, or recreate, the harmony between humans and spirits at the beginning of time.56 A good illustration is Gaenszle’s observation that the formal parallelism in Mewahang Rai ritual speech ‘reflects the order . . . in the times of origin.’57 Attempting to understand the elusive relation between ritual speech and the social world, Gaenszle chooses his words carefully when he describes the ability of these specialists to create a ‘discursive universe.’ This is a world of the imagination, of invisible spirits, of journeys to cosmic realms and communication with spirits. He is at pains to point out, however, that this is not ‘ “another” world . . . but rather an extension of the experiential world.’58 A discursive universe, hovering somewhere between imagination and experience, would describe the nyibu and his ritual speech, as well. While the cosmology in the Subu Heniin is mapped onto the fields and forests of the Apatani valley and its surrounding region, it also contains places beyond ordinary experience. Nevertheless, I am uncertain about the impact of this parallel world on Apatani society. One reason for my caution is that, unlike most of the ritual texts others claim can change social realities, the Subu Heniin is not a healing chant. It does not, therefore, have the dialogic urgency intended and expected to alter the mental and physical states of participants. A Subu Heniin performance, as already noted, has little interaction with a human audience and does not induce trance or possession among onlookers or performer. The nyibu’s unhurried, measured voice may calm, but I doubt that it transforms. For these reasons, I prefer to conclude this portrait of the Apatani ritual specialist with his static visual image. Fully costumed, impassive and proud, holding the special bamboo in his hand and wearing it in his hair, the nyibu chanting on the lapang personifies an Apatani image of authority and knowledge. While his performance may not create or even alter social realities, it displays local ideals of cohesion and coherence.

56 57 58

Kuipers 1990: 4. See also Lewis 1988b: 259. Gaenszle 2002: 190. Gaenszle 2002: 190–91.

CHAPTER SIX

THE SUBU HENIIN IN TRANSLATION The Subu Heniin text translated below was recited by Mudan Pai, a nyibu of about 55 years, in his house in May 2004. It was recorded by Hage Komo, my research assistant, who also provided a rough translation and transcription. During the next four years, I worked on the translation, going over the entire text more than once with these two men. As explained in the Introduction, the final result presented here cannot be said to express the full spectrum of meanings, let alone the rhythms and metaphors, in the Apatani chant. However, I believe it does reproduce the sense of the original. The structure of the original performance, on the other hand, is not always recreated. The nineteen textual sections of the translation are those recognised by nyibus, and the beginning of each new section is marked by Mudan Pai’s signature phrase (‘I am the Aba Nibo nyibu’). The arrangement of lines within each section into ‘verses’, however, is largely my own doing, although in some cases they correspond to groupings recognised by Mudan Pai. Similarly, though to a lesser extent, the phrases and lines in the translation do not always match those in the Apatani chant (as shown in Appendix D). Here and there I have also omitted repeated lines and twice cut sizable chunks of repeated material. As for the ubiquitous noun-pairs, I have written some of them as if they refer to two entities (‘Kuru and Kime rivers’) and some as if they refer to only one (‘field of Biirii Kensa’), although this is not always clear. Overall, I have tried to replicate the cadence of the chant by using a sequence of short semantic units. No italics are used. Although the techniques of the nyibu’s verbal art await further study, it is clear that Mudan Pai did not recite a memorised text. He relied on set phrases, lists of names, a repertoire of noun-pairs, a fixed sequence of events and the animating themes of the Subu Heniin. Mudan Pai sometimes hesitated for a moment before drawing out the next line, and he occasionally fell back on one of his favourite phrases. Yet the delivery was smooth, and the lines flowed without interruption. His brief pauses between lines, when he seemed to be searching for words, were moments of silence that emphasised the authority of his speech, like an accomplished speaker who knows when to pause.

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1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, standing on the lapang; I am the Ato Doni shaman, chanting in the early morning; I am Lyarii Tabii and Lyantii Podo, the nyibus of our ancestors; The jilo lyayu spirits are here to help me. 2. I ask the spirits to protect both husband and wife of the Tiike Rade clan; Let their family prosper and grow, with many dogs by the hearth and many chickens in the coop; Let their granaries overflow and their pigs multiply; Give them many mithuns in the forests; Let their jungles be thick with cane. 3. I am the Biipin nyibu; I am the Biiger shaman; Today spirits will not oppose me, and men will support me. 4. I am favoured by the spirits of the tapin tajer bamboo;1 I am supported by the spirits from east and west; I am protected by the spirits from above and below. 1

Tapin tajer is the ritual noun-pair for the tajer bamboo.

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They give me the ability to chant the Subu Heniin; They grant me the skill to use this tajer bamboo; With their help, I chant one idea in ten ways. 5. Standing on this lapang, from early morning to evening, I am the Abo Nibo nyibu, performing this ceremony For the benefit of husband and wife of the Tiike Rade clan, So that they may prosper and flourish. 6. In this darkness before dawn, the sun begins to rise. The eyes of Kolyung Anii become the rising sun; The heart of Kolo Anii becomes the rising sun. The sun climbs higher and higher, and lights up our world. 7. The sun shines first in Neli, the land of our ancestors; It lights up the land of Myotii Pilya and Achung Abyo, Dingia Si and Tubyo Lyabo. When the sun rises, Neli is filled with glowing light. 8. The sun rises higher and higher, brightening the human world; You shine on the Panii Manii paths, and on the Regan Rebii routes.2

2

Both panii manii and regan rebii have multiple meanings (path, river and ancestor).

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9. You rise over the Tamin and Talo hills, the Lali and Buda mountains; You brighten the Panyu and Parre rivers, the Siro and Sango rivers; You shine on the Kuru and Kime rivers, the Supyu and Gyayu rivers; Your light slants through the Tanan and Siya forests, the Liiri and Piisa forests; You shine in the Balyi and Ngiira forests, the Landin and Payin forests. 10. Across our valley, from east to west, From high peaks to low valleys, You brighten our fields of Biirii Kensa and Lampiir Siikre; You light up our sacred groves of Jalyang Siire, Pume Putii and Dilan Pengu; You rise over our paddy fields of Taku Siidi, Neyun Saran; You shine through the tall trees in the sacred grove of Rantii Pige.3 11. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, asking the rising sun to protect my jilo lyayu spirits; Climb into the sky and shine for both husband and wife of the Tiike Rade clan; Rise up, sun, rise higher and higher; Rise and spread your light over this Murung feast.

3 Each village has a ‘sacred grove’ of hardwood trees or bamboo where rituals are conducted. Associated with the ancestors, it acts as a gate through which the nyibu passes from the ‘human’ realm to the other realms of the horizontal cosmology. These groves are Siilang Siikre, Pume Putii (Dutta and Hija villages); Dilan Pengu (Mudan Tage); Jalyang Siire (Michi Bamin); Ranchi Rantii (Kalung); Rantii Pige (Hari); Lampiir Siikre (Hong); Taku Siidi (Reru); Ditii Latii (Tajang).

the subu heniin in translation 12. For these two, for husband and wife, who sponsor a Murung this year, Help their family increase, like thick cane in the forests; Give them many dogs by the hearth and many chickens in the coop; Give them many pigs in the sty and many cows near the house; Do not forget the mithuns in the forest and the paddy in the granary; Make their fields ripen and their groves flourish. Rise up, sun, rise up, higher and higher in the sky; Climb up high and shine on this Murung feast; Spread your light everywhere and bring us all long life. 13. I stand on this lapang today, calling the spirits to this feast; For both husband and wife, I invite the Murung spirits; I ask them not to block the sun or cast shadows on this day; I ask them to prevent rain and storms, and disharmony between husband and wife. Let the spirits come to this Murung and take their share of the sacrifice. 14. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, chanting the ancestral words; I am the Abo Nibo shaman, speaking to the spirits; Be kind to husband and wife and give them a prosperous life. If the signs are favourable, bring us a sunny day; But if the signs are bad, then show us now.

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15. I ask the jilo lyayu spirits of this Murung feast To protect me and give me strength, As I chant for husband and wife of the Tiike Rade clan. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, standing on this lapang; I am the Ato Doni shaman, chanting for prosperity. 2. Driving Danger Away 1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu performing this Murung ceremony, Chanting from morning to night, for husband and wife. Cousins, brothers and sisters who died in fields or forests, Ghosts of unnatural and early deaths, do not come here; Stay away and do not disturb this feast! 2. Souls of children and women who died before your time, All of you souls who died an unnatural death, All of you who would disturb this feast, Stay away and leave us alone! Spirits, safeguard this feast from these dangerous souls; Make my voice clear, as I chant today. 3. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, on the lapang in the early morning;

the subu heniin in translation Spirits, you must drive away the harmful forces; Send them to Lantii and Kartii, send them under the earth; Drive away bad omens and protect this feast. 4. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu sprinkling rice beer to repel danger; I am the ancestral shaman, chanting all day to protect this lapang. 5. I sprinkle rice beer to prevent misfortune; I pour it in all directions to protect against bad luck; I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, driving death away. 3. Niido’s Love 1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu; I am the Ato Doni priest. As we stand here in this early morning light, Our jilo lyayu spirits guide us and clear obstacles away; The sun brightens our passage along the Kami Kamo paths; It drives off the darkness from these shadow darkened paths. 2. You are Niido Niikun, born in the land of the ancestors; You are Niido Niikun born at the time of the spirits;

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In the months of spring, in the time of mating, You decorate your hair with soft grass; You wear a skirt of deep green moss. 3. You make yourself beautiful with things from this earth; You wear deep green moss as your dress; You wear river reeds for earrings, and small plants as nose jewels; Over your breasts, you wear a cloth of soft vines. 4. You are Niido Niikun, one of our great ancestors; Grown to maturity, you are ready to mate. You searched for a partner in the house of Kami; You looked for a mate in the house of Kamo; No one was willing, and no one accepted you. 5. You courted the sparrow, but it flew to the lyori lyomo tree; You courted the swallow, but it perched on the pale sampiir tree; You approached the housemartin, but it preferred the wild creeper; You proposed to the wild boar, but it routed in the tango sanke tree. None of them wanted you; not one accepted you. 6. You made love to the young monkey, but it chose the sweet champa flower;

the subu heniin in translation You wanted to mate with the squirrel, but it ran along the branches; You followed the jungle fowl, but it hid in the dry grass; You loved the young rodent, but it burrowed in the river bank; You made love to the bluebird, but it flew to the sembo cherry tree. Not one of them was a good match for you. 7. You made love to the sweet pigeon and to the young crow, But they flew away and perched on the garden fence; You made love to the mole, but it hid in the sampo wood; You made love to the mouse, but it fled into the straw; You made love to egret, but it flew off to the bund. 8. You made love to the mynah bird, but it alighted on the road; You tried the cora piigia bird, but it flew onto the fence; You proposed love to the lyanka bird, but it escaped to the kiira tree; You made love to the tangiir ngiipe fish, but it swam away in the water; You wanted to mate with the squirrel, but it ran through sweet grass; You wanted a mate somewhere, among birds, fish or animals, But not one of them returned your love. 9. Finally, Niido Niikun, you found your lover; You met Jindo Miti of Mudo Tiida, and your love was returned.

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10. Niido Niikun and Jindo Miti made love, and she became pregnant. Together they built a house using dimbo lipa wood for posts, Biipi tade wood for the cross beams and jaya ale wood for ceiling beams; Together they made a roof of bihan dalyang wood. 11. The sturdy cooking ring was made from wild boar’s teeth; The floor was laid down well, smooth, hard and flat. 12. When Niido Niikun was pregnant and ready to give birth, She was attended by Popi Sarmin, the wise ancestor; She was helped by Arre Amyo and Pinii Siyo, the protective spirits. 13. Sitting together, they suggested names for the child. ‘Hudo Koji of Tahu Tinda,’ said those who did not know; ‘Sedo Milo of Tase,’ said others who did not know; Still others said, ‘Gyodo Pulo of Pyagan and Gyado Pulo of Pyagan; ‘Supyu Munii of Supyu and Gyayu Dimbo of Gyayu.’ 14. But those who knew named the child ‘Liinyi Liyan of Iijan Hoda, and Koli Koyan of Hai Hoda.’ They named him ‘Sun Water.’ 15. When the child was born, and the sun was formed,

the subu heniin in translation He became brighter and brighter, and the people flourished; They sacrificed two great mithuns, named Hintii Tade and Murta Tapu; They performed a Murung feast, and then they thrived. 16. When Biirii Tabi, the nyibu of the sun, performed a Murung for the sun, The sun’s family and descendants increased and multiplied; They grew and flourished, and affluence spread everywhere. Likewise, in this Murung feast today, let husband and wife also prosper; Like the sun long ago, let them enjoy good fortune. 17. I ask that the Tiike Rade clan flourish and multiply; Let the families of husband and wife, know wealth and longevity; As with Murungs long ago, I ask my jilo lyayu spirits to guard them; Let these spirits protect them so that they grow and grow, As broad as the earth, as wide as the sky. 4. Earth and Sky 1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, performing the Murung today; I am the ancestral shaman, describing the formation of the world. I ask the jilo lyayu spirits to clear the paths before me.

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2. Niikun was born of the spirits, Ranku Niikun and Rampa Niipa; But she was abnormal and deformed, and did not know why; During a single night, she expanded up to the sky; In one day, she grew tall as a pine tree; Her illness came from the spirits from the north and south, And she could not cure herself. 3. Niikun, the great ancestress, was unwell; Her hands were sucked by the leeches; Her feet were covered with the worms; Her body was swollen and her shape distorted. 4. Niikun was ill and needed someone to heal her; She went to Mudo Lemba and looked for a nyibu; But the Dohii shaman had a cough and could not come; She called the Dobi nyibu, but he had gone away; She asked for the Docha shaman, but he was not found; These men were suffering from diseases in their legs; No one in Mudo Lemba, could help Niido Niikun. 5. Niikun finally found a nyibu to cure her; He was skilled in chanting and learned in ritual;

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He was the wise Pai Sori, from a distant land. 6. Pai Sori went into the forest to perform a cure for Niikun; He walked a long way, deep into the forest. ‘Take food and water,’ he was told; But Pai Sori did not listen; ‘The jungle has food,’ he said, ‘and the forest has water.’ 7. Pai Sori went a long way into the forest; When he felt hungry deep in the jungle, He ate tapyu tilling vegetables and mima fruits; But they were overripe and were past eating; When he ate wild mushrooms and drank bad water, Pai Sori died in the middle of the jungle. 8. Pai Sori died and was buried in Dii forest; The great nyibu was dead and was buried in Holo forest; The following day he returned from the burial ground as the sound of the cicada;4 On the second day he came back from his grave as the sound of the bome yaya.5 4 5

A nyibu’s voice, it is said, should be like the clear sound of the cicada at dawn. An unidentified insect.

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9. No one was able to heal Niikun, the female ancestor; Then Popi Sarmin and Arre Amyo, the wise ancestors, arrived; They knew that she had not harmed anyone; They knew that her illness was caused by spirits, By leeches from Kiinan forest and by worms from Kembya forest; They told her to lie down, but they warned her: ‘Do not fall on the aha slope or on the asan slope.’6 10. Popi Sarmin spoke to Niikun and told her what to do; Niikun lay down, and her lower body became the world of the spirits;7 She lay down again, and her upper body became our flat earth. 11. Her long hair became soft nests for wasps; Her nose turned into large nests for kites; Her buttocks became the ocean floor; Her arms turned into channels where water flows; Her neck became the horizon of the rising sun.

6 7

Aha and asan ( yordo and yorko in ordinary speech) are the two sides of a mountain. The world of the protective pyokun pyopa spirits.

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12. Her eyes became Kar Simi, the white lake in the mountains which turns viewers blind; Her heart became duri yalang, the stone near the lake which swallows those who sit there; Her knees became the pillars of earth, her hands its flat surface; Her chest became the roof of the sky, her breastbone the firmament above. 13. Her hair became green grass covering the earth, her sinews the long creepers in the forest; Her stomach became vegetation and plants, her liver the flat surface of earth; Her spleen became the flap on rain shields,8 her lungs the ritual niji leaf; Her liver became the medicinal rino leaf, her palms the winnowing basket. 14. Her fingers became the mortar, her thumbs the pestle; When her fingernails were smashed, they turned into insects, Which swarmed everywhere, and grew larger and larger; Niikun expanded her form and became earth and sky. 15. The Panyu and Parre rivers formed, the Kiyan and Didu streams appeared; Rutii Hatii became the meeting place of the Kuru and Kime rivers; The Tanang and Siya rivers formed, the Landing and Pai streams appeared.

8 This cane flap can be flipped up over the head, like a hood to protect against rain.

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16. Rivers and valleys, hills and streams appeared; Fields and forests, ravines and hollows formed: The Siya Balyi and Ngiira Piisa streams, Padu Tiike and Sipyu Gyayu rivers, The Karin Parin and Hambo Halo and Ngenchi Peji mountains, The Liri Lilya and Patu Page, Yachu Yaja, Siiro Sango and Soka Petii rivers. 17. Fields and forests grew, and their vegetation covered the earth; Trees and flowers emerged and spread over our land. 18. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu who has seen the paths; The paths have been cleared by the jilo lyayu spirits; The obstacles have been removed by these protective spirits; The paths have been opened for husband and wife; The earth has been formed and offers its bounty to them. 19. Once, in the time of the ancestors, when fields and forests died, Lyarii Tabii and Lyantii Podo9 performed a Murung; They sacrificed two mithuns, named Tendin Sibo and Paba Hango; When they celebrated the feast, fields and forests flourished.

9 Although not named, Lyarii and Lyantii are ancestral nyibus who are assumed from the context.

the subu heniin in translation 20. In the same way, we perform this Murung today, For husband and wife, so that their family will prosper; I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, calling the spirits to this feast; I ask the jilo lyayu spirits to protect men and women, So that they grow and increase, like our fertile earth. 5. Greening of the Earth 1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, standing on this lapang in the early morning; I have described how the earth formed and fields and forests appeared; But the land was bare, the fields lacked crops, and the forests had no animals; Then the face of earth became a thing of beauty. 2. In the time of the ancestors, the face of our earth changed; Plants and trees appeared, animals spread everywhere; Dobi Layu, our ancestress, was born in the spirit world; She grew and developed, wearing a scarf of green grass and a dress of velvet moss; She matured into a young girl and was ready for mating. 3. She became the beautiful earth, wearing earrings of river reeds;

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She wore rings of soft moss and wild fruits as a breastcloth; She shone as brightly as the full moon, And in the warm springtime, she brought forth The green plants and soft grass, which decorate our earth. 4. Water flowed over the barren earth, and vegetation flourished; In the empty forests, saro and sanga bamboo grew; Kendi hiini trees appeared, and creepers covered the trees; Our earth was made beautiful with lyodi lyomu and pale sampiir trees; She issued forth thick vines and long grass, And soon our earth was filled with life. 5. Dobi Layu, the great ancestress, placed squirrels among sweet herbs; She put wild fowl among the leaves of the forest; She created the pabyu piise bird10 and the tako lyaso bird, And put them in the climbing vines; She created wild boars among the tree-filled forests. 6. Sparrows and swallows appeared in the dense forests; Pigeons and crows perched on fence posts;

10

A type of roller.

the subu heniin in translation Little moles and rodents lived in the sama sampo wood; The egret and the lalyi lalyo bird sang in high river grass, And jungle fowl ran through dense forests. 7. Some birds alighted on village paths and perched on bamboo fences; Other birds walked on mud-caked bunds and hopped down narrow trails; Still different birds skimmed over swift streams; The women of Dobi Tamang decorated our wide earth; The women of Layu Yato covered it with plants and animals; They put dragonflies in the air and crabs in the paddy fields. 8. For the flowering of this earth, the fertility of plants and animals, Those women in the past performed a Murung; They sacrificed two mithuns, named Tendin Sibo and Pabu Hango, And ever since that time, our earth has flourished. 9. The women of Dobi Tamang spread green grass over our earth; Fields and forests increased and covered the land; Animals flourished everywhere, each in its proper place; Following that first Murung, by Lyarii Tabii and Lyantii Podo, Our wide earth grew green with plants and abundant with animals.

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10. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, performing this Murung For the benefit of both husband and wife; Let their family, fields and forests flourish in our fertile world; Let husband and wife be free from worry; Let their descendants enjoy a prosperity, As broad as the earth, as wide as the sky. 6. The Expanding Bamboo 1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu; I am the Ato Doni shaman, Performing for husband and wife of the Tiike Rade clan. I chant on this early morning, holding the tapin tajer, The special piece of bamboo which makes my words fluent, As I describe the origin of the tajer bamboo. 2. When the ancestor Niikun died, her toe became the tajer plant; But it was wrongly used in a funeral; When the ancestor Hintii died, her toe became the tajer plant, But it was incorrectly used in a ritual; Those tajer plants became two kinds of wild bamboo;11

11

Hiijo and yai bamboo, the latter of which is eaten by Apatanis.

the subu heniin in translation They cannot be used as tapin tajer in a Murung. 3. When Neha Tarin died,12 his toe became the tajer plant; But it was used in a ritual for hunting boars and bears; When Arii Anii died, her toe became the tajer plant; But it was used in the ritual for resolving disputes; It cannot be used in a Murung. 4. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, chanting for husband wife. I cannot use those tajer plants to call the spirits to this Murung; I planted another tajer seed in the garden of ancestor Mikin; On the first morning, it sprouted as a small shoot; On the second morning, it was the size of a snake’s fang. 5. Gently the tajer plant grew in the garden of ancestor Mikin; It pushed up through the soil, without disturbing other plants; It grew in the garden, reaching higher and higher; On the third morning, it was as long as a lizard’s leg. 6. Today that tajer bamboo grows for husband and wife of the Tiike Rade clan;

12

Neha Tarin is Abo Tani’s son and the first full human being.

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It spreads farther and farther, over the front porch railings; It grows and grows for the benefit of husband and wife; The tajer bamboo spreads wide, bringing success to this feast; It makes my words flow and my voice clear. 7. The tajer bamboo grows and gives me fluent phrases; The correct bamboo has been chosen and planted in the ground; Now it extends everywhere, spreading out from this house; It covers the entire floor, and climbs the inside walls; It crawls up and reaches the racks above the hearth; It wraps itself around the house, from front to back. 8. Nothing stops the tajer bamboo as it moves ever outward, Exanding everywhere and covering the ceiling; Longer and longer it grows, running along the cross-beams; The tapin tajer pushes out further and further, Expanding and extending, it reaches the roof corners; Enveloping the house in a web of bamboo, It stretches everywhere and encases the house Of husband and wife of the Tiike Rade clan.

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9. The bamboo spreads from front to back; It grows and grows from inside to outside, Never stopping on its journey out into the world; Now it stretches from this house to the rest of the village, And soon it touches all the houses of the clan. 10. The tajer bamboo spreads farther and farther, Beyond houses and lapangs, expanding ever outward; It pushes beyond the human world, outside the safety of the village, Out through the ‘gate’ of the Dilan Pengu grove,13 Out to the worlds beyond, where ancestors and spirits live; On and on it goes, to fields and forests in the valley; The tajer bamboo leaves the sponsor’s village through the Dilan Pengu gate; It moves outward to contact ancestors and spirits beyond. 11. The tajer bamboo pushes even further, to the other villages in the valley; The tapin bamboo extends to the siican world of ancestors in nearby forests, fields and rivers; It grows ever outward, to the ancestors of Pyuchi and Pyutii, to those of Sulan and Sukre.

13 Dilan Pengu is the sacred bamboo grove associated with ancestor Khando Bakhang of Mudan Tage village. See note 3 above.

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chapter six The bamboo stretches everywhere to protect husband and wife; It reaches the sacred groves of Biirii Kensa, Lampiir Siikre and Pyechi; The boundless bamboo reaches the ancestors Rido Tari and Hage Tatang.

12. The tajer bamboo spreads further and further outward, To our ancestors within this valley, in the siican world; It reaches the ancestors of Siya and Pyali, of Yachii and Yatii; It contacts those of Pabiir and Onyi, of Dango and Lehan; The tajer bamboo stretches to the limits of our valley; It asks the ancestors to bring good fortune to this Murung. 13. The tajer bamboo continues to expand, reaching all our ancestors; The tapin bamboo extends to the forests of Pange and Lalyang, to the fields of Lesin and Lebya; The expanding bamboo reaches the Supyu and Gyayu rivers; It crosses the mountain paths of Regan and Rebii; The tapin tajer stretches to Piri and Pungo, Ngiiko and Ngiira, Hulo and Yabyo, Hagin and Pado. 14. The tajer bamboo reaches farther, to Panyu and Parre, to Norpi and Nolya; It spreads unimpeded, to the places of our ancestors; Farther and farther it grows, to Danchi and Dantii, to Tahu and Hudo.

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The tapin bamboo reaches the ancestors of Tase, Seda and Pindo. 15. This tajer bamboo, which I hold in my hand, This little piece of bamboo, which I place in my hair, Reaches out beyond our valley, to nearby forests and mountains; It stretches outside the siican world and enters the myodi world, Where it alerts the ancestors and spirits to this Murung; It reaches the Puyu and Mendii mountains, the Pai and Pamum peaks; It calls the ancestors of the Koji and Kure hills.14 16. The tajer bamboo calls the ancestors of Kuyi and Kuyang; The tapin bamboo alerts those of Tadin and Pai; It spreads to Chatu and Dile, to Diipu and Rambo; It climbs up the Dolo and Mando hills, which surround this valley; It summons ancestors and spirits to this Murung; It strengthens my voice and makes it clear. 17. The tajer bamboo reaches the ancestors beyond our valley; The tapin bamboo climbs the Larin and Lambia mountains, and into the Pepu and Sala forests;

Kure, a three- or four-hour walk from the valley, was the location of the government outpost attacked by Apatanis in 1948. 14

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chapter six It stretches farther and farther, to the Niigin and Pusa hills; It reaches Rutii Hatii, where the waters meet; The tajer bamboo calls the ancestors of Nenker and Pakur; It summons the ancestors of Landing and Paying, Doji, Dorii and Sa.

18. The tajer bamboo reaches the ancestors of Hasi and Koke; The tapin bamboo spreads to Dinku and Yalyo; It calls the ancestors of Ziro and Kobo, Kolin and Yombin; It alerts those of Nenchang and Dulyang, Gano and Ga, Burin and Dabo; The bamboo calls them all and strengthens the jilo lyayu spirits. 19. The tajer bamboo calls our ancestors from the next realm; The tapin bamboo reaches nearby mountains and forests; It enters the liipa world, which lies between men and spirits; It reaches the ancestors of Ako and Soki, of Gano and Ga, Dubo and Duku; It summons the ancestors Byaci and Byasan, Laru and Pindo; The bamboo calls the ancestors of Rinyo, Siike and Lanta, Kombo and Diiko; It asks the ancestors and spirits to protect husband and wife during this Murung feast. 20. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, performing for husband and wife;

the subu heniin in translation I am the Ato Doni shaman, holding this tajer bamboo; I am the ancestral nyibu, who sees into the tapin tajer; I use this special bamboo to alert the ancestors and spirits; I call them all, beginning with Khando Bakhang of the Dilan Pengu grove;15 I ask them all to attend this Murung to bring prosperity to husband and wife; I use this tajer bamboo to make them all content. 21. The bamboo has spread to our ancestors and spirits; I have seen it grow for husband and wife; But I have not taken their souls, nor the souls of their family, nor those of their animals, On this journey through the Dilan Pengu gate to the lands of our ancestors; I have taken only the tajer bamboo, And placed it safely among our ancestors. 22. I call on the jilo lyayu spirits to protect husband and wife; I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, calling the spirits to this Murung. Let the Tiike Rade clan increase and their animals multiply; Let them all flourish like the tajer bamboo;

15

See note 3 above.

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Let their families spread like the tapin bamboo, As broad as the earth, as wide as the sky. 7. Calling Spirits and Ancestors 1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, chanting in the early morning; I am the Ato Doni shaman, standing on this lapang; I perform this Murung for husband and wife of the Tiike Rade clan; Long ago our shamans conducted this feast for Kiilyi Kiilo; In the same way, I will make this Murung a success. 2. I summon ancestor Ato Diyu, who performed the first Murung; I invite that same ancestor, who called the spirits to his Murung; I call the jilo lyayu spirits, all of them as a group; They may not be ready to listen, but I will strike their ears; They may not be alert, but I will strike their nose. 3. Jilo lyayu spirits, come as one group; Come to this Murung and nowhere else; Do not wander in the Nyishi country of Dolo Talan and Hambo Tadu; Close your ears and nose to the calls of others; I call on you jilo lyayu spirits, whom I have named and not named;

the subu heniin in translation I summon all of you as a group to come to this Murung, As you did for our ancestor, Kiilyi Kiilo, long ago. 4. I do not call any spirits who are deaf or dumb; I do not invite any of you who are angry or spiteful; I do not summon spirits of ill-will or those with dull senses; I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, inviting the spirits, But I do not call any dangerous spirits. 5. All malevolent spirits, all disharmonious spirits, I send you back to the land of Anii Lantii; You must return to the place of Aba Kartii; I am Aba Nibo nyibu, calling spirits of good will, all my jilo lyayu spirits; I call the spirits of Hani and Hake, Kimi and Laying; I call on those of Gonda and Lyida, Soso and Yoyo; I gather only those spirits who are amiable and kind; I ask them all to accompany me on this journey. 6. All you spirits, let us start! I follow the path of Anii Relyang; I lead you on the path of Aba Rebo;

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Anii Relyang and Aba Rebo16 gave birth to me; They are the ancestors who gave me wisdom; Even inside the womb, they gave me ritual knowledge; Even as a child, I tasted miji migung. Now, you pinii siyo spirits, of the haker hare lapang, Open your ears and remain alert; Be ready and support me on this long journey. 7. Long ago, the Dotii nyibu called the jilo lyayu spirits; In the past, the Penji shaman summoned these protective spirits; They asked these spirits to attend a Murung; Today, I call on these spirits to support me. I summon the jilo lyayu spirits from east and west; I call them all from north and south; I call the pinii siyo spirits of the haker hare lapang. Come, all of you, in one large group. Listen as I call your names! 8. I summon Kolyung of karii lapang, and Liitu of taku lapang;

16

Relyang Rebo is a variant of Regan Rebii (see note 2 above).

the subu heniin in translation I call Potur of gulan lapang, Metii of doji lapang, Botii of santi lapang, Nyibo of sari lapang and Gyolan of dacan lapang; I call on these spirits to assist me during this Murung. I alert Popi of cantu lapang, Sarmin of diika lapang, Lyapin of piilan lapang, Pinsan of lanje lapang, Kiri of tace lapang, Neli of kempu lapang, Rontu of murta lapang, Ronsan of biyu lapang, Kirun of rupu lapang, Kilo of ayen lapang, Siiki of bindu lapang, Charun of tatu lapang, Rintii of tatan lapang, Riiji of biilii lapang, Nipu of dilan lapang and Nyime of pinku lapang. I call on these spirits whose lapangs gives them strength and the knowledge of miji migung. I summon Gyame of jorku lapang, Pyotii of garlan lapang, Dadu of hilan lapang, Liitii of landu lapang, Ketun of piiri lapang, Chudu of myodu lapang, Lyike of aju lapang, Danyi of suju lapang, Lubii of piimar lapang, Mepin of canya lapang, Hiiri of tatu lapang, Pungio of kordu lapang, Korlan of halan lapang, Myorii of murta lapang and Myole of taha lapang. 9. I call on all these spirits, to help me in this Murung; I call their names, so that they will be pleased; I call Chidu of marti lapang, Siicu of lalyi lapang,Talya of siitor lapang, Gyo of gyolan lapang and Su of ruji lapang. 10. I summon this group of jilo lyayu spirits; I name their names so that they are happy; I call these spirits of the outer worlds, who came to the feasts of our ancestors;

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chapter six Now I call the ancestors of the middle sphere, The ancestors of the liipa world, lying between spirits and men; I call Yardan Tatang of Donyi Hoda and Tarsi Berri of Horming Chokan; I name Pindo Kangu of Papin and Medo Kage of Pame; I summon Hitu Punu of Nyomping and Rido Tari of Hachan. Let them come and be pleased.

11. I call these ancestors, living between spirits and men; I summon Kaju Miru of Siiber Lempii and Kahu Buru of Sibo Lempii; Let them be pleased and come as one group; I call Dulu Kanu and Dula Kage, Dotii Penji and Dolyang Chanja; Let them all come and enjoy this feast. I summon Ato Charun, the great ancestor, Who made the red node of the bamboo and gave us miji migung; I call Ato Charun, who made the praying mantis And taught the crocodile to live in the river bank; He showed the eagle how to make nests in trees And gave the gift of stillness to the wild cats in the forests; He gave the cicada its clear voice and the goose its sonorous sound;17 I call him and all ancestors of good will. 17

The eagle, goose and cicada are often mentioned as models for a clear voice.

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12. I have called the ancestors of the liipa world; I have summoned these ancestors between men and spirits; Now I call those of the myodi world, lying just beyond this valley.18 Listen and be alert, all of you! I invite Regan Tatan and Rebii Taman, Nesi Taji and Nebya Pilya; I call you ancestors to this feast, come and be content; I call Supyu Muku and Gyayu Mube, Pange Lalyang and Piiri Bobi; I call Puyo Lalyang and Pado Tako, Khando Bakhang and Ngiiko Bakhang; I summon Ngiira Lalyang, and Kulo Tatan of Parre; I call Norpi Malyi of Palyu, Yabyo Taman and Hudo Koji of Tahu; I invite Sedo Milo of Tase and Chubin Chupo of Yachu; From Yabyo I call Byomi Byopo, Hadu Papi, Danchi Bakhang and Dantii Lalyang, Puri Mendii and Piilan Yamyang; From Gano I call Ga Hale, Dado Taman and Birin Yapin. I call all you ancestors from the myodi world; Come to this Murung feast, come and be content. 13. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, calling ancestors of the myodi world.

18 This list of ancestors in the myodi realm starts in the east and makes a circle, moving south, west and north.

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chapter six I call Pamum Pinii from Nopai and Pai Konii from Amum; I call Tadin Koji, Kure Lako, Lyapu Jarjo and Puko Tamang; From Lyayu Pabin I summon Kuyi Tatan and Menko Tamang, Kiyan Koji and Pai Tamang, Chatu Tapu and Dile Tade; From Dipii I call Rambo Hale, Dolo Yalyo and Mando Yabo; I summon these ancestors from these places beyond our valley; I call Larin Tachi, Lembya Taha, Pepu Empu and Sala Dolyang; I call Niigin Yamin and Pusa Budan, Landing Bakhang and Pai Lalyang; I call Doji Dorii and Ru Tajo from Nenker; From Rutii Hatii, the confluence of waters, I call Landiir Bakhang and Pungo Lalyang, Yachi Tatan and Yatu Tamang, Jilyu Ku and Nide Kaga, Koke Maku and Harsi Tai.

14. I have called the ancestors of the distant myodi world; Now I call those of the siican world, within our valley. I call Kobo Pulo and Kodin Yombi of Ziro, and Dulyang Miti of Nenchang; I call Harsii Taji and Koke Sugan, Diku Papu and Gugu Lyagi; I call their names to make them happy; From Pabur I call Pyuli Huji, Si Human and Onyi Mirun; From Dango I call Talyang Tatan, Lampiir Yaki, Siikre Hiba, Hage Tatan and Rido Pyali;

the subu heniin in translation From Biirii I call Turbo Miti, Keran Tada, Byachi Murpin, and Byasan Yabyan; From Gano I call Ga Hale; From Duku I call Duru Mitu, Aro Soki and Aro Soli, Kotur Malyi and Laru Maku. I call together and guide this group of jilo lyayu spirits. From Pyechi I call Hiya Pilya, Tiina Rinyo, Harchi Tatan and Hartu Tamang; From Pengu I call Rido Tari, Khando Bakhang, Pyachi Hapun, Pyutu Hale, Siilan Yahi, Siikre Yami and Diko Tatan; From Dip and Rambo I call Kobu Tamang, Siikre Maji, Hadu Popi and Lanta Maku; I invite them to this Murung to make them content. 15. Now I call the ancestors in the neha realm, of lapang, house and village. First I name the ancestors from Dilan Pengu, the sacred grove of Mudan Tage. I call Tatin Targu of the Ako Mudan clan, Mudo Kago of the Tage clan, Tatan Tamang of the Leegang clan and Doji Lampu of the Tako clan;19 Listen to me, Roto Hape of the Roto clan, Kabu Pali of the Ayo Mudan clan, Kenchi Kume of the Tage clan, Delyang Miiju of the Tadu clan, Pyudu Miige of the Liagi clan, Tiipya Lima of the Dohii clan, Turu Patu of the Tadu clan, and Delyang Pilya of the Tage Nami clan.

19

The Tako clan is now extinct.

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chapter six All you ancestors, who came to Murungs long ago, You must come again to this feast and make it a success.

16. I call the ancestors of Jalyang Siire, the sacred grove of Michi Bamin. I call Diibo Tajer of the Racho clan, Michi Tabyo of the Hano clan, Tai Hasi of Bamin clan, Tado Rade of the Dule clan, Dolo Take and Talyang Taker of the Tamo clan, and Koji Popi of the Dule clan; I invite To Hana of the Michi clan, Sa Siinya of the Tiliing clan, and Koji Hiran of the Tanyang clan; Come all of you, come to this feast today. 17. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, calling the ancestors as a group; Come all of you, and taste the rice beer; Come all of you, and join us in this Murung. I call the ancestors of Siilan Siikre, the sacred grove of Dutta village. I call Kosan Koyang of the Koji Ako clan, Talyang Taker of the Koji Ayo clan, and Mubi Lali of the Koj clan; Hear my words, and come to this feast; Come Lali Hale of the Mobya clan, Kamii Hacho of the Hinyo clan, and Tamang Taka of the Chigin clan. 18. I summon the ancestors from Hija village. I call Tacho Silo of the Tai Eka and Kime clans, Diibo Kacho of the Nada clan,

the subu heniin in translation Lalyang Silo of the Nada clan, and Diibo Haku of the Taru clan; Come Tiiba Taku of the Taro Taku clan, Mando Kago of the Kago clan, and Lihan Tadu of the Puna clan; I name Tusan Rade of the Haja clan, Nana Sambyo of the Haju clan, Danyi Nyipa of the Danyi clan, and Lalyang Piibia of the Pura clan. Come, all of you, and share our happiness; Come and drink from our deep pool; Come, jilo lyayu spirits, come and taste our rice beer. 19. Now I invite ancestors from Ditii Latii, the sacred grove of Tajang village. I call Diyu Solo of the Tabyu clan, Nembu Nenda of the Tage clan, and Doni Hiki of the Tage clan; I name Nembu Nenda of the Tage clan, Miso Halyi of the Miso clan, and Sha Habung of the Rade clan; I summon Kani Tari of the Ngilyang clan, Pai Che of the Millo clan, Taker Bumer of the Mihin clan, and Rubu Chigin of the Rubu clan; All you ancestors, come and taste our rice beer; Come, all of you, and make the jilo lyayu spirits happy. 20. Listen, ancestors from Taku Siidi, the sacred grove of Reru village. I call Nenker Kago of the Nenker clan, Aba Padi of the Padi clan and Shaha Habung of the Habung clan; I name Tupe Duyu of the Duyu clan, Miido Khoda of the Khoda clan and Diibo Nyime of the Nani clan;

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chapter six Come as one group and make the jilo lyayu spirits content.

21. I call the ancestors of Ranchi Rantii, the sacred grove of Kalung village. I summon Tailyang Yahi of the Subu clan, Kacho Riku of the Tailyang clan and Lali Pali of the Subu clan; I name Mom Sanka of the Mom clan, Dolo Rabi of the Rabi clan and Lod Nyime of the Lod clan; Come, all of you, come and taste our rice beer. 22. Listen, ancestors of Rantii Pige, the sacred grove of Hari village. I call Tamang Taran and Tame Buke, Koji Pilya, Marpu Eka and Taru Kago of the Hage clan; I call Tamen Milo of the Landi clan and Mitan Libya of the Dusu Narang clan. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, calling these ancestors; I summon them as one group to come and make us prosper; I call Chiging Mipya of the Tasso clan, Mudo Hiro of the Mudo clan, Ngudu Tiibo of the Gyati clan, and Doging Loda of the Doging clan. Come, all of you, and enjoy our rice beer. 23. I call the ancestors of Lampiir Siikre, the sacred grove of Hong village. Come to this Murung, where I am the Aba Nibo nyibu; Come Talyang Takar of the Hibu clan, Punyo Kardo of the Punyo clan and Tayen Tacho of the Laru clan;

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I summon Dotii Mude of the Tapi clan, Turu Saji of the Kago clan, Hasang Pulo of the Kago clan, Tamin Rade of the Tilling clan and Hipu Habung of the Talo clan; Come Nitin Tibyo of the Budi clan, Pada Siilo of the Mudang clan, Nanu Take of the Nami clan and Dolyang Lampung of the Biilo clan; I summon Dalyang Danyi of the Take clan, Neha Tiibo of the Neha clan Bimbo Tinyo of the Tabin and Tinyo clans, Lochi Kerre of the Taw clan and Tupe Rade of the Piirii clan. I am the Aba Nibo shaman, calling all of you; Come to this Murung, and drink our rice beer. 24. I call also the Dolo ancestors, the forefathers of the misan people.20 From the land of Tupan Tile, I call Bungu Bumi and Ahi Ako, Chanter Chamar and Nyilyi Rake; I call Tado Tapyo, Pyali Hao and Lido Linya. I summon Lyicha Nire, Lali Taba and Lubo Gembo;21 I call Nyitu Nyilum and Talo Tadu, Jothan Joram and Nabum Tabia, Laji Bido and Kupe Mai, Pai Poru and Lali Taba. Come, all of you, and bring your jilo lyayu spirits. 20 Misan refers primarily to the Apatanis’ closest neighbours, the Nyishis and Hill Miris. 21 Lubo Gembo is an ancestor of the Sulung tribe.

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25. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, calling these clan ancestors and their jilo lyayu spirits. I do not call any spiteful or dangerous spirits; I do not invite Ako Tahu, the animal who cheats animals; I do not summon Ralo Pabu, who deceives fellow animals; I do not call wild animals, such as the elephant or boar; I call only spirits of good will, like the tiger, And spirits with beautiful voices, like the goose and the eagle.22 26. I call our ancestors and jilo lyayu spirits; I invite only those with kindness and knowledge; I call only those who will bring prosperity to this Murung feast. I call on those ancestors who will please us, Like huntings dogs who point out deer to their owners; We invite you, as our ancestors Kiilyi and Kiilo did long ago; Come, spirits and ancestors, come and taste our rice beer; Come to our feast so that we may flourish, As broad as the earth, as wide as the sky.

22

See note 17 above.

the subu heniin in translation 8. Origin of Water 1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, conducting this Murung feast; I chant in the early morning for both husband and wife; Now I describe the origin of water and the birth of the rivers; In the ancestral place of Iipyo Supung, lived a woman named Duttu Tamang; In the spirit world of Wi Supung, lived a woman named Hayu Yato; In the soft springtime, in the land of Mudo, She looked lovely, and dressed beautifully; She wore a scarf of green grass, and earrings of gentle creepers; In the warm spring, she wore a dress of soft moss; In the ancient place of Mudo, she wore wild fruits as a breastcloth; She was young and beautiful, and ready for mating. 2. In the time of the ancestors, in the land of Mudo, Hayu Yato mated with Aju Yame of Lyanko Tenda; She moved with the wind, blowing east and west; She joined with Doju Milo of Lyandi Tenda; She moved with the wind blowing north and south. In the warmth of springtime, she became pregnant; On a quiet spring morning, she gave birth to water. That was the origin of Duttu Hayu, the waters of Rutii Hatii.

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3. When Duttu Hayu was born, rain and fog appeared; In the beginning, drizzle and mist formed; Water began to flow in the Siilan and Siike streams; But they were not proper rivers and did not become Duttu Hayu; Then fish appeared at Rutii Hatii, where the Kuru and Kime rivers meet; But the fish were eaten by the otter and jungle cat and did not survive; But the water was born, at Rutii Hatii, the confluence of rivers. 4. Where small streams converge and form large rivers, Where the brothers join together, where Anu Niisan and Aba Niide unite, Where the Kuru and Kime rivers meet and flow together, There fish appeared in the waters, and swam in the rivers; They moved in the waters flowing between the banks; But the otter and jungle cat came, and the fish did not live. 5. Fish were put in the waters of the Niigin and Pusa hills, Where the two brothers came together as one; But the otter and jungle cat came and ate them; They swam in the water flowing between the banks; But the otter and jungle cat came and ate them; Fish were put in the Tanan, Siya and Balyi Ngiira rivers,

the subu heniin in translation Where Anu Nusan and Aban Niide join together as one; Fish appeared in the Yachi river and the Yatii river; But the otter and jungle cat came and ate them; Fish appeared in many places, but nowhere could they survive. Where small streams join together and flow as one river, Where the river banks are the walls of a house, Where the sandy bottom is the floor of a house, Where the brothers, Anu Niisan and Aba Niide, join together as one, There the fish appeared, and there they were eaten. 6. Fish appeared in the Landur and Chulyu rivers; They swam where the brothers join together and flow as one; But the otter and jungle cat came and ate them; The fish then appeared in the Supyu and Gyayu rivers; They swam in the waters of the Karin and Parin rivers; But they were eaten by the otter and jungle cat. Fish swam in the Kandu and Pange rivers, in the Tayo and Milo rivers, Where two brothers form a pair, and two streams become one river; Where the river banks are the walls of a house, Where the sandy bottom is the floor,

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There the fish appeared and swam in the waters; But the otter and cat came, and the fish did not survive. 7. Where two streams combine and flow as one river, Where the Susan joins the Lampiir river, Where two brothers come together, where Anu Niisan and Aban Niide unite, Where the Gume and the Lentii rivers flow as one, There the fish appeared, but they were eaten; The otter and jungle cat came, and they did not survive. Fish appeared in the Babo river and the Pari river, Where the river banks are walls and the sandy bottom the floor, Where the brothers join together, and streams become one river; But the animals ate them, and the fish did not survive; The fish were placed in the waters where the Nyenchi and Penji rivers join; They apppeared in the waters where the Liiri and Liilyang rivers flow;23 But they were eaten and could not survive. 8. Where two streams converge and flow as a rapid river, In this and other verses, the Susan and Lampiir, Liiri and Liilyang, Diibo and Muntii, Panyu and Pare rivers are near Hong village. The Babo and Pari, Myochi and Saro rivers are near Mudan Tage village. The Gorbii and Loder rivers are near Hapoli. 23

the subu heniin in translation Where the brothers come together, where Anu Niisan and Aban Niide unite, Where the river banks are walls, and the sandy bottom is the floor, Where the Diibo and Muntii streams join, where the Pakang and Toke streams converge, and the Pabang meets the Para river, There our ancestors placed many fish, but the otter and jungle cat came, and the fish did not live. Where the waters of the Hagin join the waters of the Pado river, Where the river banks are walls, and the sandy bottom is a floor, There the fish appeared and were eaten by the otter and jungle cat; Where the Piiri river flows together with the Puyo river, Where the waters of the Panyu join the waters of the Parre, Where the river banks are walls and the sandy bottom is a floor, There the fish appeared, but they did not survive. 9. Then fish appeared in the plains, in the Panii river, and the Kimin and Kiire streams, Where the river banks are walls and the sandy bottom is the floor; Fish appeared in these waters, but men caught them with baskets, and they did not survive; Long ago people put fish where the Kulu and Yabyo converge; They placed them in the waters where the Soka and Petii join, Where the river banks are walls and the sandy bottom is the floor;

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chapter six Fish appeared in the waters, where the Yachu and Yaja flow; But men caught them with baskets. and they did not increase.

10. Fish appeared in the waters, where the Hadu and Payen join, where the Siilyo and Palyu converge, Where the river banks are walls and the sandy bottom is the floor; But men came with baskets and the fish did not survive. Fish appeared in the waters, where the Danchi and Dantii join, where the Gayi and Armin converge, Where the river banks are walls and the sandy bottom is the floor; But men came with baskets and the fish did not survive. Fish appeared in the water, where the Gorbii and Loder join, where the Pyulyang and Palyu converge, Where the river banks are walls and the sandy bottom is the floor; But men came with baskets and the fish did not survive. 11. Fish appeared in the waters, where the Pai and Amun join, where the Siigia and Gyoha converge, Where the river banks are walls and the sandy bottom is the floor; But men came with baskets and the fish did not survive. Fish appeared in the waters, where the Nibyo and Lare join, where the Siibe and Yambi converge,

the subu heniin in translation Where the river banks are walls and the sandy bottom is the floor; But men came with baskets and the fish did not survive. Fish appeared in the waters, where the Dolo and Mando join, where the Padin and Tapin converge, Where the river banks are walls and the sandy bottom is the floor; But men came with baskets and the fish did not survive. 12. Fish were put in the waters, where the Myochi and Saro join, where the Pampa and Palyo converge, Where the river banks are walls and the sandy bottom is the floor; But men came with baskets and the fish did not survive. Fish appeared in the waters where the Mari and Piiko join, where the Tadin and Tai converge, Where the river banks are walls and the sandy bottom is the floor; But men came with baskets and the fish did not survive. Fish appeared in the waters, where the Menko and Tamu join, where the Pachur and Paru converge, where the Kuyi and Darbo combine, Where the river banks are walls and the sandy bottom is the floor; But men came with baskets and the fish did not survive. Fish appeared in the waters, where the Karto and Paku join,

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chapter six where the Kelyang and Pai converge, where the Didu and Lake combine, Where the river banks are walls and the sandy bottom is the floor; But men came with baskets and the fish did not survive.

13. Fish appeared in the waters, where the Chatu and Dillii join; They swam in the waters, where the Larin and Ako converge, where the Pepu and Sala combine, Where the river banks are walls and the sandy bottom is the floor; But men came with baskets and the fish did not survive. Fish were placed in the waters, where the Kiiyang and Pai join; They swam in the waters, where the Simya and Pange combine, where the Hiichi meets the Nyoryang; But men brought cane baskets and the fish did not live. 14. Fish appeared in the waters of the Rutii Hatii confluence, Where the river banks are walls and the sandy bottom is the floor; Here, where rivers flow into each other, men did not catch fish in baskets, and animals did not eat them; Here, where the waters were born, the fish finally survived. 15. The ancestor nyibu, Nyampo Tanyo, sponsored a great Murung, So that the fish would flourish forever, So that the rivers and streams would flow ever after;

the subu heniin in translation He sacrificed mithuns, and distributed their meat; He sacrificed Sito and Sibo, and the waters increased; He sacrificed Pero and Hango, and the fish multiplied. 16. Likewise, in this Murung, following our ancestors in the past, We sacrifice these mithuns for the benefit of husband and wife, So that their family and fields will grow and thrive, Like the waters flowing in our rivers. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, calling the jilo lyayu spirits, So that their mithuns increase and their granaries are full; So that husband and wife enjoy a prosperity, As as broad as the earth, as wide as the sky. 9. Origin of Spirits and the Natural World 1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, standing on this lapang; I am the Ato Doni shaman, chanting in the early morning; I will describe the origin of the spirits in this Murung feast; I will describe the birth of the pyoyu spirits. Long ago, in the time of the ancestors, when Pyoyu Anii fell down, Her head became the spirits of miji migung knowledge;

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Long ago, in the land of the spirits, when Kanku Anii fell down, Her buttocks became Popi Sarmin, the spirit of wisdom; Her hands became the posts of the pyoyu spirits’ house; Her legs became the pillars of the pyoyu spirits’ house; Her back became the roof and her breastbone the cross-beam; Her liver became the spirits’ lapang and her heart the power of divination; Her throat turned into the nyibu’s voice and her nose the steep mountains; The mucous of Kanku Anii became the swift streams; Her right thigh rose up as Buda hill, and the left became Lali hill. 2. One of Kanku Anii’s legs became the steep Kuka hill; Her other leg rose up as Kura mountain; Her right arm turned into Achan hill, where Achan Piigan lives; Her left arm became Ando hill, where Ando Siike resides; Her knees turned into the Tugi hills; Her eyes became the sun and the moon of the spirits; Part of her body pointed to the spirit world; But the larger part touched the world of men. 3. I describe the origin of Kolyung Kolo, the beginning of everything.

the subu heniin in translation I see Kiiri in the land of taci,24 and Pyotii in the land of garlan; I see Neli in kempu, Rontu in murta, Ronsan in buyu and Kirun in rupu; I see Kilo in ayen, Siikki in bindu, Riji in bulu, Danyi in suju and Su in ruji. This is the origin of the spirit world, the beginning of Kolyung Kolo, the time of formlessness. 4. At the beginning of the spirit world, I see the birth of other spirits. Pyonii Pyoki gave birth to Arki, and Pyonii Pyolo gave birth to Aro; Pyonii Pyodu gave birth to to Mindu, and Pyogi gave birth to Hiigin; Pyoma gave birth to Pilya, and Pyobu gave birth to Hubu. This is the origin of the pyonii spirits, in the time of the ancestors. 5. I have described the origin of the spirits; Now I see the birth of the elements in the time of formlessness; Lyunchi gave birth to the earth, and Lyundo gave birth to the sky; Lyunsi give birth to water, and Lyumii gave birth to fire; Lyinder gave birth to the stars, and Dai gave birth to the yai bamboo; Hiiger Tajer gave birth to the tajer bamboo. 6. This is the formation of the Kolyung Kolo world;

24

Taci is Kiiri’s lapang. The rest of this verse names spirits and their lapangs.

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Tata gave birth to the sun, Lala give birth to water, and Tutu give birth to the forests; Kirun gave birth to gold, and Kilo gave birth to silver; This is the emergence of the elements at the beginning of time. 7. I have described the origin of the Kolyung Kolo world. Now I name the ancestors of the pyonii spirits. The ancestor of Wi is Wi Tadu; The ancestor of Urun is Urun Tagian; The ancestor of Gyalang is Kasu Rigo; The ancestor of Punu is Tatar Gibo; The ancestor of Siro is Taru Kabo; The ancestor of Harnya is Gyanku Tagiang; The ancestor of Piika is Solo Rigo; The ancestor of Lyapin is Diitii Pada; The ancestor of Lyu is Turi Tukun. 8. The ancestor of plants is Armin Kargio; The ancestor of grains is Permo Talo; The ancestor of firewood is Sandu Keban; The ancestor of stones is Landu Keban; The ancestor of grass is Nisin Tachi;

the subu heniin in translation The ancestor of the leaf is Niji Tado. 9. The ancestor of wild animals is Achu Karpu; The ancestor of the snake is Bulyang Ka; The ancestor of the panther is Pumbo Taker; The ancestor of the eagle is Koji Riber; The ancestor of the rat is Kiisan Kiibo; The ancestor of fish is Kiib Rilo; The ancestor of birds is Tap Dimbu; The ancestor of the owl is Ngiila Dingia; The ancestor of the leopard is Sarmo Kido; The ancestor of the bee is Tayu Kopu; The ancestor of the tiger is Pabo Talo. 10. I have described the birth of the pyonii spirits; I have seen the beginning of Kolyung and the origin of Kolo; I have named the forefathers of plants and the ancestors of animals. 11. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, chanting for husband and wife, and for the Tiike Rade clan; I call the jilo lyayu spirits to bring them good harvests; I summon the spirits to give them many mithuns;

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chapter six Let their prosperity spread and their wealth grow, As broad as the earth, as wide as the sky. 10. Origin of Spirit-Man

1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, chanting in the early morning; I am the Ato Doni shaman, standing on this lapang; I am protected by the spirits from everywhere; I am supported by the pyomin and pyotii spirits; I am not opposed by Myolyi or Myobya; I am not in conflict with Tabi or Tarsi; I call spirits from east and west, from north and south. I am the Dotii Penji nyibu, who joins two worlds; I bring together spirits and men in this Murung feast; I call the pyomin and pyotii spirits, Popi Sarmin and Arre Amyo; I summon Danyi Tugo and Chantu Myole; I call the pinii spirits of the haker lapang; I summon the siyo spirits of the hare lapang; I bear ill will to no one, either human or spirit. 2. The Murung ceremony this year, this feast of husband and wife,

the subu heniin in translation Should bring great success to the Tiike Rade clan; May their mithuns grow and fill their forests; We wish them full granaries and large families; I call on the spirits to bring them good fortune. 3. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, standing on the lapang; I am the Ato Doni shaman, chanting for husband and wife; I describe the genealogy of the earliest ancestors; I tell the story of the first nyibus; I name their origins in the world of the ancestors; I will chant fluently to please the pyoha and yulo spirits. 4. In the time of Kolyung Kolo, the time of ancestors and spirits, Ditu gave birth to Popi, who married Arre; Diika give birth to Sarmin, who married Amyo; Amyo gave birth to Siyo, and Arre gave birth to Pinii; Pinii married Dinyi, and Siyo married Marmo; From them many spirits were born in the family of pinii siyo; The elder child, Iipyo, gave birth to Katu; The younger child, Wi, gave birth to Karu; Katu married Kami Yaku, and Karu married Kamo Yaru.

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5. Long ago, in the spirit world, Kami and Kamo held a Murung; They sacrificed two mithuns, named Jiji Sibo and Kanka Hango; Today we, too, sacrifice mithuns and cows, So that we will enjoy good fortune and prosperity. 6. Then Dokii gave birth to Donii, and Likii gave birth to Libo; Donii married Iipyo Yatu, and Libo married Wi Yaru; Donii and Libo sponsored a Murung and sacrificed two mithuns, named Popar Sibo and Momar Hango; They celebrated a Murung and their families flourished; Today we also perform a feast and sacrifice mithuns and cows, So that husband and wife, and their families will prosper. 7. In the next generation, the ancestors thrived; Donii gave birth to Kami and to Kamo; Kami married Iipyo Yakii, and Kamo married Wi Yahii; Kami and Kamo sponsored a feast to bring them prosperity; They sacrificed two mithuns, named Tendin Sibo and Paba Hango; That feast brought them good fortune, which we wish for husband and wife today; Following our ancestors, we sacrifice mithuns and cows; Let us grow and flourish, like our ancestors, Kami and Kamo.

the subu heniin in translation 8. After the time of Kami and Kamo, the ancestors continued to multiply; Kami and Kamo gave birth to Doni and Jaji. Doni married Talin Koda Jaji Diinii, and Jaji married Tai Koda Jamer Diinii; Doni and Jaji sponsored a feast and sacrificed two mithuns, named Yanyi Sibo and Yako Hango; Doni placed the mithun’s heart in a basket above the hearth;25 When the heart was cooked and clucking chickens were heard, Everyone knew that success would come. 9. Doni’s son was Nibo, and Jaji’s son was Jarbo; Nibo married Karbe Chibyo of Karmi, and Jarbo married Nyambo of Nani; Nibo and Jarbo held a Murung and sacrificed mithuns, named Kedo Sotii and Buko Siiro; The families of Nibo and Jarbo increased and prospered; Like Nibo and Jarbo, today, we hold a feast; Like our ancestors, we, too, sacrifice mithuns and cows; We celebrate this Murung for husband and wife, for their families and animals; Let them all have wealth and good fortune in days to come. 10. In the generation after Nibo, Tiichi Kojin was born;

25

This ritual is performed in a Murung today (see Appendix A, day 9).

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chapter six In the generation after Jarbo, Tiran Piigang was born; Tiichi Kojing married Iipyo Yachi, and their son was Tiichi Tiita; Tiran Piigang married Siigan Toto Siigo Roro, and their son was Tiichi Tillyung; But these families had no descendants; They did not perform Murung, and they did not spread.

11. The next generation of ancestors began with Ato Nyime and Ato Nyipa;26 For all the tanii people, for all future generations, They performed a Murung feast and sacrificed mithuns, named Siibun Sibo and Siike Hango; Both husband and wife, and both their families, flourished and increased; Ato Nyime and Ato Nyipa brought us prosperity. 12. After the generation of Nyime and Nyipa, came the time of Panii and Manii;27 Leading men were Asun Dole, Jungi Julo, Sunda Randa and Bapu Balyu;28 They performed many murungs, and sacrificed two mithuns, named Repu Sibo and Reke Hango; The generation of Panii and Manii enjoyed great affluence; Following their example, we hold this feast today, ‘Nyime’ refers to Tibet. ‘Nyipa’ has not been identified. ‘Tanii’ is the Apatani autonym. 27 See note 1. 28 These are names of halyang (non-tribal/Assamese/Indian) ancestors. 26

the subu heniin in translation For the benefit of husband and wife, and their success in life. 13. After the generation of Panii and Manii, two ancestors were born; Tiidin Pobii was the first ancestor of the Doding or tanii people; Tiilo Pobii was the first ancestor of the Dolo or misan people; They conducted a Murung and sacrificed mithuns, named Dindo Taso and Sibo Gyalo; The Doding people prospered, and the Dolo people flourished. Today we sacrifice cows and mithuns for husband and wife; We celebrate this Murung for the Tiike Rade clan. 14. In the next generation of Doding and Dolo, Kusin and Kubyo were born; Kusin gave birth to Hiising, and Kubyo gave birth to Hibyo;29 Hiising and Hibyo held a Murung and sacrificed mithuns, named Sanyi Sibo and Sako Hango; Their families increased and grew plentiful; We wish the same for husband and wife and the Tiike Rade clan. 15. Since the time of Hiising and Hibyo their descendants have thrived; We, too, ask that husband and wife enjoy good fortune; We want their families to increase and their children to flourish;

29

Hiising and Hibyo are said to have invented wet-rice agriculture.

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chapter six We want to see their houses surrounded by chickens and pigs; We want to see their granaries full of grain; We want to see their fields rich with paddy, Their forests thick with cane, their jungles filled with mithuns.

16. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, calling on the spirits; I summon the jilo lyayu spirits and the pyoha spirits; Let them all come to this feast and bring us prosperity, As broad as the earth, as wide as the sky. 11. Genealogy of Abo Tani 1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, chanting on this early morning; I am the Ato Doni shaman, standing on this lapang; I now describe the genealogy Tani Toro. Long ago, Dinii Ditu gave birth to Chanii Chantu; Chanii Chantu married Pyotii Diiru of Pyonii and gave birth to Nimi Tani; Nimi Tani married Doji Lojo, the child of the Doji spirits; Doji Lojo then gave birth to Abo Lomiir and Siiyo Lomiir; But both of them were born with deformities and disease. 2. These children of Doji Lojo were not fit to become Tani;

the subu heniin in translation Then Chanii Chantu married Chanka Riman and gave birth to Yama Tani, also known as Abo Tani; Abo Tani married Diilyang Diibu, who had many children: Tarin and Tati, Katii and Kotii, and Nichi and Nicha. 3. Abo Tani went to the Chalo Rigan forest, and met Tini Rungia; She was a deceitful woman, and a dangerous spirit; She was jealous of Abo Tani’s wife and played a trick on him: ‘I can work better and faster than that wife of yours,’ she said; ‘The work she does in ten days, I can do in five. ‘What she does in five days, I can complete in a morning; ‘What she does in a morning I can finish in an hour; ‘Give me ten weeding sticks, and I will show you; ‘Give me five weeding sticks, and you will see.’ 4. Abo Tani believed her and thought, ‘This Tini Rungia is a good worker; ‘She can work in rocky fields as well as paddy fields.’ Abo Tani was persuaded and divorced Diilyang Diibu, Who got angry and left, taking all her paddy with her. 5. Abo Tani prepared five weeding sticks; He gave Tini Rungia ten weeding sticks;

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But Tini Rungia worked only in the rocky fields; She was stupid and damanged the weeding sticks; Then Tini Rungia gave birth to four children; Two of the sons were named Tarin and Tati. 6. Abo Tani’s sons, Tarin and Tati, suffered at home; They ran away to Piiyu Sugio and did not return; Abo Tani’s had other sons: Tinii and Tinsa, Nilyo and Nibo, Ranii and Rasang, Ralyo and Rambo; But they were born from wild boars, And they were not fit to be our human ancestors. 7. Poor Abo Tani married many times and suffered many failures; He married Donyi Lidu, who gave birth to a pigeon; He married Polo Byalyung, whose son was a crow; He married Donyi Ligiu, who gave birth to a crab; He married Donyi Liida, whose sons were Chada and Chama. He married Donyi Lino, who gave birth to Kano Naka; He married Suru Patu, whose son was a lice; He married Yako Yalo, who gave birth to a leech; He married again and again, but none of his children was human.

the subu heniin in translation 8. Abo Tani married Piilan Yamyang, but she destroyed his house; He fled to the Chalo Rigan forest, but the mithuns drove him away; He ran to the land of the dogs, and they barked at him; Abo Tani went to the land of the cocks, but they crowed at him; He fled to the land of charcoal and ashes, where his body was burnt; He sought shelter among women, but they beat him with pestles. 9. Abo Tani’s sister, Dolyang Chanya, saw him suffering in the forest; She took him to Danyi Hartii, where a woman was weaving on her porch; High above, a bird carried semen in a bamboo piece resting on its wing; The bird flew low and the semen fell; It dropped into the woman’s lap, and she conceived. 10. Abo Tani’s sister led him to the land of Danyi Hartii; She led him to the weaver woman, whose name was Gartii Tamang; Abo Tani saw her shining face, and a child was conceived. 11. When Gartii Tamang was pregnant and the day of birth grew near, People gathered together to discuss the father of the child; They sat with Popi Sarmin and Arre Amyo, the wise ancestors; ‘Whose child is she carrying?’ they all asked aloud; ‘Is Abo Tani the father, or is it someone else?’

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12. Many ancestors came forward to claim Gartii Tamang’s child; That child was the first human, the first ancestor of the Doding and Dolo people; Tubo Lyabo said, ‘It’s mine,’ but Myotii Pilya said the same; Dingia Si said, ‘The child is mine,’ and Abo Tani claimed it, too; Many men wanted the child, but they did not listen to each other; Claim and counter-claim were made, and no one believed anyone; Finally, they agreed to compete to decide who the father was. Whoever threw a piece of charcoal the farthest would be accepted as the father; Dingia Si threw his charcoal only as far as a low hill; Abo Tani tricked them and threw a beetle instead of charcoal, And the beetle flew far away, beyond the highest mountain. 13. Then Gartii Tamang said, ‘Abo Tani is the father.’ But Popi Sarmin replied, ‘We must wait and see; ‘If the child belongs to Dingia, it will be born within a month; ‘If it is the son of Si, it will be born within two months; ‘But if the child is Abo Tani’s, it will be born after nine months.’ 14. The ancestors spoke again, and Popi Sarmin said, ‘If the child is born from her leg; it belongs to Dingia;

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‘If it emerges from her arm, it is the child of Si; ‘If the child is born from her hand, it belongs to Pilya; ‘If it emerges from her forehead, it is the child of Alo; ‘If it is born from the mother’s hip, it belongs to Siibo; ‘If it comes out of her thigh, it is the son of Giinii; ‘If it is born from her stomach, it belongs to Myotii. ‘But if the child is Abo Tani’s, it will be born from her vagina.’ 15. After the ancestors spoke, the child was born; It came from the vagina and was born after nine months; So they declared that the son, was the child of Abo Tani. 16. This child born to Abo Tani was named Ato Neha; He was the first human, the first descendant of Abo Tani; Ato Neha married Lorii Biinyi of Tangu, who gave birth to the eagle, the tiger and the jungle cat;30 Then Ato Neha married Lorii Binyi of Cha, whose son was the crocodile;31 But none of these children was truly human.

30 The tiger, eagle and jungle cat are considered close ancestors of humans; their souls (like that of a human) are placated when they are killed. 31 ‘Crocodile’ translates buru.

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17. Ato Neha married Lorii Binyi of Charung, who gave birth to the snake; He married Lolyang Tamang of Rupu, whose son was Hirin Chatung; He was a human son, the first human child of Ato Neha. 18. Ato Neha married Pyodii Yasin of Pyonii, who gave birth to Harin and Hale; But Harin lacked intelligence, and Hale had no judgement; Neither was fit for human existence, and both died without children; Two other sons, Hapung and Harung, survived and became our ancestors. 19. Ato Neha also married Parin Yasin of Doding; She gave birth to Ato Pombo, who began the line of the tanii people; This is how our people came from Abo Tani and Ato Neha, 12. Genealogy of the Dolo and Doding People 1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, standing on this lapang; I am the ancestral shaman, chanting in the early morning; I now describe the genealogy of the Dolo or misan people and the Doding or tanii people. 2. The ancestor Ato Pombo was the son of Ato Neha and the grandson of Abo Tani; He married Donyi Lota, whose daughter was Lota Lobya; But she was not suitable to become a Doding ancestor;

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Then Ato Pombo married Anii Kentu, who gave birth to Niitu; Ato Pombo married Anii Kempu, who gave birth to Niipo; Ato Pombo married Anii Yalang, who gave birth to Ayen Tachang; But none of these children became ancestors of the Doding people; All these sons of Ato Pombo failed as ancestors of the Dolo people. 3. Ato Pombo married Donyi Nyire, who gave birth to Nyita Dumbi; Ato Pombo married Donyi Lino, whose son was Ami Geno; Ato Pombo married Donyi Lina, who gave birth to Mima Sorka; But none of these offspring was fit to become our ancestors. 4. Ato Pombo married Donyi Didan, whose sons were Yama Chada and Kano Naka; Ato Pombo married Donyi Lika, who gave birth to the hawk and crow; But none of these children became Dolo or Doding ancestors. 5. Ato Pombo desired descendants, and he married again; He married Anii Joyi Siinyi Joyi, who gave birth to Asun Dole, Sunder Randa and Jugi Julo; Ato Pombo married Lyanko Sai, who gave birth to Laji; Ato Pombo married Kiiri Yasun, whose son was Kupe.32

In this verse, Sunder Randa and Asun Dole are halyang ancestors; Laji and Kupe are misan ancestors (and clans). 32

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6. Ato Pombo married Yarii Yayung, who gave birth to Maye; Ato Pombo married Diimi Yache, whose child was Bido; Ato Pombo married Ami Pi, who gave birth to Buhun and Bumi; Ato Pombo married Donyi Yaker, who gave birth to Chanker; Ato Pombo married Donyi Yamer, who gave birth to Chamer.33 7. Ato Pombo married Donyi Kepi, who gave birth to Rading, Rake and Pali Hao; Ato Pombo married Donyi Tachi, whose son was Lali Tara; Ato Pombo married Buda Tara Yanya, who gave birth to Tachang Tara; Ato Pombo married Ruyin Pu, who gave birth to Talo Taran and Jotan Joram; Ato Pombo married Donyi Ruba Mate, who gave birth to Tali and Tabia; This is the genealogy of the Dolo or misan people.34 8. These Dolo ancestors lived on the banks of the Kuru and Kime rivers; The Dolo people ate bad food near the Panyu and Parre rivers; They became ill and suffered, but they survived. 9. In this ancestral time, before the Doding and Dolo people separated, Some clans were lost, and some became extinct; 33 In this verse, Maye is a Nyishi ancestor (and clan), and Chamer is a Hill Miri ancestor (and clan). 34 Joram, Buda, Rake, Lali, Tara, Tali and Tabia are Nyishi ancestors (and clans).

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At that time, Nana Hinda was leader of the Dolo people; And Parin Yasin was head of the Doding people. 10. These early Dolo and Doding ancestors planted seeds on the river banks; Flowers and tress grew and spread along the flowing water; When Nana Hinda and Parin Yasin performed a curing ritual, The Doding and people increased, and the Dolo people prospered. 11. This is the history of the Doding and Dolo people; They moved like the long grass growing along the river banks; Then two Doding ancestors were born, who were the first Apatanis; Ato Kojing was born from Hinku Hiimbii, the daughter of silver; Ato Pusang was born from Murku Mobii, the daughter of gold; Our ancestors Kojing and Pusang travelled along the morli morla path.35 12. Soon our Doding ancestors took separate routes to reach this valley; The ancestors of Hari village took the patii yorbii route; The ancestors of Bula took the pata siiko route; The ancestors of Dusu took the gulii yorbii route; The ancestors of Tanyang took the nyinyang siiko route;

35 Kojing and Pusang are the ancestors of gyuci and gyutii, the two Apatani clan groups.

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chapter six The ancestors of Hong took the rebii route; The ancestors of Diibo took the regan route.36

13. The ancestors of the Halyang took the papi siiko route; The ancestors of the Sulung people, followed the pepo yargo route; The Tabyu people took the mimi kori route;37 the Ziro people took the muma koko route. 14. This is the story of the tanii people, the genealogy of our Doding people; In the name of Ayo Danyi, the sun, and Ato Pulo, the moon, I ask that husband and wife know only good fortune. 15. Let this family, the sponsors of the Murung feast, Possess abundant paddy and millet grains, and many mithuns; I ask that the Doding and Dolo people have wealth and success. Even if I, the Aba Nibo nyibu, do not hear their wishes, I ask the jilo lyayu spirits to listen to their requests; Open your ears, spirits, and protect the Doding and Dolo people.

36 The Dusu are said to have been one of three original tribes in the valley defeated by the Apatanis (Takhe Kani 1993: 39). They are now a major clan in Hari village and a minor clan in Hija and Bamin Michi. The Tanyang are a clan in Bamin Michi on the verge of extinction. 37 The Tabyu and Ziro are said to have been two of three original tribes in the valley; the former assimilated but the latter were defeated (Takhe Kani 1993: 39).

the subu heniin in translation 16. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, standing on this lapang; I am the Ato Doni shaman, conducting this feast; I perform this Murung to make the spirits content, So that the jilo lyayu spirits bring happiness to husband and wife; I have described the history of the Doding and Dolo people as much as I am able; Now I ask the spirits to bring success to husband and wife; Together let them enjoy a large family and children; Give them many mithuns in the forest, and granaries full of grain; Give husband and wife a good life; give them a prosperity, As broad as the earth, as wide as the sky. 13. Separation of Man and Mithun 1. On this early morning, I chant for both husband and wife, and for the Tiike Rade clan; I perform this Murung for the benefit of our tanii people, and to please our ancestors; Now I tell the story of Niikun and Sukun, The two sisters who competed and became man and mithun. The elephant was born in the arii group of animals; The elephant was born in the amyo group of animals; But neither was fit to become Niikun.

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The deer was born in the arii group, And the antelope was born in the amyo group; But neither could become Sukun. The tasa insect was born in the arii group, And the monkey was born in the amyo group; But neither was suited to become Sukun or Niikun. 2. The mithun ancestors were born and named Jume Etu and Jila Pale, Koji Bindi and Ziro Dolo; But they were unsuitable to become Niikun and Sukun; Then came mithuns of the spirit world, named Penji Parii and Neha Rugu, Tabin Panam and Talyang Kentii and Jalyang Liigu; But these wild animals could not become Niikun and Sukun. 3. The mithuns Dachan Halan and Halan Lungi were born in the ancestral world; They gave birth to Dachan and Gyoyu, but they could not become Niikun and Sukun; Then a mithun named Niikun Halan gave birth to Kodii and Yano; But they had oversized heads, abnormal colouring and malformed backs; These animals were not right for Niikun and Sukun. 4. When Niikun Anii fell down, Jigi Pu tried to mate with her; He tried to make her into a mithun, but he could not; Sukun Jima Pu also tried, but again this failed;

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When Niikun Anii fell again, Rupu Soso Karbo mated with her and Niikun was conceived; When Niikun Anii fell once more, Ayen Bobo Karbo mated with her and Sukun was conceived. 5. Even inside their mother’s womb, Niikun and Sukun began to quarrel;38 They argued and argued, each claiming that the womb was hers; Then Popi Sarmin and Arre Amyo came and settled their dispute: Niikun was to become the older sister, and Sukun the younger one. 6. Still Niikun and Sukun struggled inside the womb; They fought with each other to see who would emerge first; They struggled and fought but were unable to come out; Sukun’s birth was assisted by a stone, which created her eyes and tail; Niikun’s birth was helped by firewood, which created her eyes and tail; Finally, Lungi Anii gave birth to Niikun and Sukun. Niikun was born in the house, and Sukun was born in the forest; Niikun’s placenta was cut and tied with thread, and Sukun’s with river reeds; Niikun began to eat rice, but Sukun chose wild grass.

38 After this, Niikun is called Biinyi, and Sukun is called Siinyi, but I have retained the original names.

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7. Sukun was known as the younger, and Niikun as the elder; Once a snake bit Sukun’s leg, and Niikun killed it; When a leech sucked Niikun’s neck, Sukun removed it; They conducted a purification ritual and protected each other. Then Niikun, the elder, said to Sukun, the younger, ‘Let us compete and see who is best ‘In clearing the forest and in tending the fields; ‘The winner will become a man and eat rice and millet; ‘The loser will become a mithun and eat only wild grass.’ The sisters competed but Sukun did no work; She was lazy and had no desire to eat rice; Niikun was intelligent and worked hard in the fields. Sukun asked that the square yopo basket become her wide mouth, And that the yapyo winnowing basket become the flat front of her skull; Sukun asked that the pestle become her short horns, And that the spindle become her large eyes; She asked that the flat hurta board39 become her long tongue, And that high mounds of rice become her big stomach. 39

A wooden board used for straining cooked rice.

the subu heniin in translation 8. Then Popi Sarmin, the wise elder, spoke: ‘You, Sukun, the younger, and you, Niikun, the elder, ‘You must compete again, in another contest; ‘This time we will see who can make the best beer; ‘Whoever makes it taste good will drink it in feasts; ‘The one who does not will be killed in feasts.’ Popi Sarmin set this challenge, and both accepted; Each began to prepare rice beer, to make it taste good; Niikun used paddy and millet, but Sukun used wild grass; ‘Niikun,’ said Popi Sarmin, ‘your beer tastes good.’ ‘Sukun, yours did not ferment, ‘and it tastes bad.’ 9. A male mithun went into the jungle, where a female mithun lived; The wind carried their scents, and they mated; A white mithun was born with wide horns; And a black mithun appeared with narrow horns; Sukun became the mithun, and Niikun became man. 10. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, and I made a mistake; I thought Niikun and Sukun were taken to Hintii Hartii, but it was to Danyi Hartii;

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chapter six In Danyi Hartii the spirits brought forth our animals; All at once, the cow and the goat, the dog and the pig appeared; All the animals were created and lived in Danyi Hartii, Where each animal was claimed by a different spirit. The pig was claimed by Kiiri Pinsan and the mithun by Dadu Pyotii; The goat was claimed by Sonyi Soro and the cow by Lubii Mepin; The dog was claimed by Doko Gyamu and the cock by Doko Pilya; The dark hen was claimed by Chantu and the white hen by Myorii; The spotted hen was claimed by Rinji Rintii and its eggs by Hiiyi Hiigi.

11. After each spirit claimed an animal in Danyi Hartii, All the animals were given a place to feed; The land of Sukun, the mithun, was soft grassland; The cow was given dry land, and the goat lived on wild grass; The chicken was given rice grains, the pig received roots, and the dog drank rice water; The hens and cocks increased, cows and mithuns flourished; Man and mithun were united, like chicken and grain. 12. Man and mithun, Niikun and Sukun! In Danyi Hartii, you promised to look after one another;

the subu heniin in translation You made a pledge to give each other gifts; Man and mithun, you are joined together like necklaces and bracelets.40 Stay here in Danyi Hartii, as I take the animals to Chantii Lemba. 13. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, of this Murung feast; I lead the animals from Danyi Hartii to Mortu Lempii and Hintii Neso; I guide the mithuns and cows to Muda Nayo and Hintii Lenso; I bring a herd of mithuns to the grazing field; For husband and wife I take many mithuns to the forest; I put flocks of chickens in their coops and many pigs in their stys. 14. From Danyi Hartii to Chantii Lemba, I lead the cows and mithuns; I guide them to Dotii Lemba, where I tie them to posts, so that they may rest. Mithuns and cows, do not look back! This journey is dangerous, like the swift waters of the Kuru river; The paths are hazardous, like the deep ravines of the Kime river; Be brave, and do not turn around! 15. I have brought the animals safely to this place;

40

That is, ‘You are complementary.’

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They are all securely tied to their special posts. Let husband and wife remain safe inside their house, With many hens and cocks in the yard, and many mithuns in the forest; Let the jilo lyayu spirits look after them during this Murung feast. I have told the story of Niikun and Sukun, So that husband and wife flourish and know prosperity, As broad as the earth, as wide as the sky. 14. Travelling the Dangerous Paths 1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, standing on the lapang; I am the Aba Nibo shaman, chanting in the early morning; I drive these mithuns and cows down to the land of the dead; I guide their souls along this long route to Neli; I will not lose my soul along the treacherous paths; Nor will I take the souls of husband and wife, or their family or animals; While I travel to the land of the dead, those souls will be safe, Placed in a small basket, in the back right hand corner of the house, Protected by Lyapin Chantu. 2. My journey to the land of the dead includes the hombi honto paths, the five and ten dangerous routes;

the subu heniin in translation I travel along these hazardous paths, but I am not afraid; I place the souls of husband and wife in the hands of Lyapin Chantu, who will safeguard them; I ask her to protect me, too, so that I do not take the wrong path; I ask the tapin tajer spirits to prevent me from making a mistake en route to Neli. 3. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, asking for help; Do not let the souls of husband and wife travel with me on this journey; Stop the souls of their family, their cocks, hens and cows, dogs, pigs and goats; I ask that all these souls be kept safe and secure, Placed carefully in the house, protected by Lyapin Chantu; Do not let the souls of husband and wife wander about or follow me; I ask the tapin tajer spirits to stop them, and the jilo lyayu spirits to protect them; On this journey downward, I ask for protection, As broad as the earth, as wide as the sky. 4. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, standing on this lapang; I am the Ato Doni shaman, chanting in the early morning; I call on my jilo lyayu spirits to accompany me to Neli; I ask these spirits to guide me to the land of the dead; I call on Miiti Kochun and Miihi Rilun, Sartii Kochun and Miilyo Rija;

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I ask my jilo lyayu spirits, to guide me along the dangerous paths. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, calling Nyirii Lyichi and Nyirii Lyilii; I ask these spirits to keep me from harm; I ask them to alert my jilo lyayu spirits and ask for their protection, To give me the mental strength to enter the ten hombi paths, To grant me the physical strength to travel the five honto paths; You, Jilo Taho, show me the right path; I am not afraid; I go ahead without fear. 5. Dangers may appear on this journey, on the ten hombi paths and the five honto paths; But I will safely guide these mithuns and cows to Neli; They will not make a false step or take the wrong path; I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, leading them to the land of the dead; Let us not be afraid on this dangerous journey, Although we climb steep mountains and cross swift rivers. 6. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, chanting during this Murung; I guide the souls down to Neli, along the ten hombi and five honto paths; Beware of the dangerous spirits on these treacherous paths. Avoid Talii in tiitii hombi and Lyiyo in lolii hombi; Avoid Yachi in pisu hombi and Yalo in piju hombi, Potiir in golan hombi, Metii in doji hombi,

the subu heniin in translation Lyadii in tari hombi, Sotu in cici hombi, Botii in santi hombi, Nyibo in sari hombi, Karun in tasan hombi, Kare in kulyu hombi and Gyo in gyolan hombi; Do not meet these spirits on the hombi and honto paths. 7. Listen, cows and mithuns, listen to these names, The names of protective spirits and their paths on the way to Neli: Popi resides in cantu hombi, Sarmin in lyika hombi, Pinii resides in haker hombi, Sijo in hare hombi, Lyapin resides in piilan hombi, Pinsan in lanje hombi, Kiiri resides in tace hombi, Neli in kempu hombi, Rontii resides in murta hombi and Kirun in rupu hombi. Kilo resides in ayen hombi, Ronsan resides in buyun hombi, Siikki in bindu hombi, Rintii resides in tatan hombi, Partii in talan hombi, Riiji resides in biilii hombi, Chi in cangin hombi, Nipu resides in dulan hombi, Nyime in pinku hombi, Gyame resides in jorku hombi and Pyotii in garlan hombi. Dadu resides in hilan hombi, Liitii in landu hombi, Chudu resides in myodu hombi, Ketun in piirii hombi, Liyke resides in aju hombi, Danyi in suju hombi, Su lives in ruji hombi and Lubii in piimer hombi. Mepin resides in canya hombi, Pungio in kordu hombi, Hiiri resides in tatu hombi, Myorii in murta hombi, Myole resides in tahan hombi, Korlan in halan hombi, Chidu resides in marti hombi, Siicu in lalyi hombi, Yarii resides in tahii hombi, Talya in siitor hombi, and Myome lives in moryang hombi. 8. Listen to me, mithuns and cows! Beware of wrong turns, and false steps; Do not wander or move, until I tell you;

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Here in Chantii Lemba, I tie you to your post; Mithuns and cows, here you are safe, Tied securely to the posts of my jilo lyayu spirits; Here you will remain safe and sound, Although the mountains are steep and the rivers are swift. 15. Descent to the World of the Dead descent to the Chayen River 1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, chanting in the early morning; I am the Aba Nibo shaman, leading the mithuns and cows to Neli, The land of the ancestors, the land of the dead; Let us start our long journey along the paths of the spirits; Some places will be dry and bare, so we will be hungry and thirsty; I call my jilo lyayu spirits to prepare rice beer for us; I ask Jorku Yapa of Iijan Rigan and Tapyu Nyimon of Haso Yalo, To make rice beer for us, to give us food and drink; But we should not touch rice beer in the world of the dead. 2. Be ready and alert; let us begin the journey; Jilo lyayu spirits, show us the correct paths;

the subu heniin in translation Jilo Tago and Lyayu Tacho, clear away the obstacles; Jilo Tachan, keep us safe from fire; Jilo Tayun, help us cross rivers; Jilo Tapii, do not let us fall into the water; Jilo Tacho, keep the paths dry; Jilo Talin, drive away dangerous animals. All of you, show us the way to Neli. 3. Pyonii Arii, you powerful spirits, who made the deer and antelope; Let my jilo lyayu spirits pass; do not block their path; They are not the deer or the antelope that you made; Let us proceed along the path, down to Neli; Do not obstruct our movement; we do not belong to you. 4. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, leading mithuns and cows to Neli; I ask my jilo lyayu spirits to guide us to the land of the dead; Let Jilo Talin and Jilo Tacho lead us along these dangerous paths; Here is where we begin our descent to Neli; Here we leave behind the house of husband and wife, of the Tiike Rade clan; Now I drive these mithuns and cows, along the lutii giira path and enter the lubii path;

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I take nothing from the spirits there,41 and I do not disturb them; I lead the mithuns and cows along the lutii path and enter the pantii jobii path;42 We travel these paths leading from the sponsor’s house to Neli; We leave the human world, and take nothing from there. 5. I drive the animals along these paths toward Neli; I lead them from the pantii jobii path to the botii siili path, From the lapang to the village edge, but I carry nothing with me; As the jilo lyayu spirits guide us to the land of the dead, I drive the animals along the myoro su path and enter the gyantii lyaso path, Leading them to the other villages, through fields and groves; We leave these paths, taking nothing from there; We enter the pulun hiiro path and now the iijan hai path, Through forests and over rivers within our valley; We travel these routes, taking nothing from them. 6. We leave the world of the living, our house, lapang and village, As we enter the paths leading to the land of the dead;

41 The nyibu ‘takes nothing from’ (has no relation with) the spirits, lest they retaliate against him or the sponsors. 42 These are also paths in the ‘human’ realm of the horizontal cosmology.

the subu heniin in translation We travel on the watery path which crosses the Chayen river, Where a large creature lies in the middle of the water; This is Chango Gotii Tapu, born from Anii Changii Ngiitii; The beast lies across the river near the entrance to Neli, Its long limbs stretching between the human and spirit worlds; Mithuns and cows, beware of this creature; You may meet grievous harm, but be not be afraid; Follow me closely and cross the water safely. 7. Do not look at this creature; do not meet it face to face; Do not cross by walking along its broad back; You must step on its wide forehead and down its long nose. Its horns are filled with water, where birds and rats nest; Its loins are thick with hair, where frogs and worms live; Its urine flows as the Sa river, swirling around its body; Here at this river crossing, here in these deep waters, Many people have lost their skill in miji migung. I ask my jilo lyayu spirits to guide us across these waters.

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1. Here in Neli I tie the animals to their posts with ropes; I will take these ropes of husband and wife back to the upper world; I will return them to the world of the living; Let others who come after me use other ropes to tie animals in Neli. 2. I tie the mithuns and cows to their posts in Neli, Where the spirits will take their share of the sacrifice; I tie a mithun to that post, but it is too weak; I tie that mithun to another post and it is strong; When Mitu Lonii fell down and died, her forearm became this gyadi post;43 Neli, this is your post,44 where you will take your share of meat. 3. The spirit sponsors of this Murung are Gyutii Gyaro and Arki Aro; Come, mithuns and cows, come to the post of Kiiri; When Muryang Anii fell down, her forearm became this gyadi post; Kiiri, here you will receive the first mithun of the sacrifice, As decided by our divinations.

43 This line alludes to the sacrificial shares for Neli and Kiiri (or Pyotii), which are decided by divination prior to a Murung (see Appendix C). 44 ‘Neli’ is the name of a spirit as well as the land of the dead.

the subu heniin in translation 4. This is where Kiiri will take his share of the sacrifice, And where women will come to give gifts of rice and millet; Her hind legs are assigned to Kiiri, and her eyes are his eyes. Cows and mithuns, drink here and rest; Then come with me to another post; When Muryang Anii fell down, her liver became tace pukun; Kilo, you have been favoured by this year’s divinations; Kilo, husband of Murpin Murko Jiri, come and take your share at tace kondu pukun; Kiiri, you must come to the taba kondu pukun. 5. We celebrate Murung this year because the omens were favourable; We conduct this feast, as our ancestors did long ago; Neli, we offer meat to you at kempu kondu pukun; Come there and take a mithun liver and chest; Come there and take a mithun lower back and tail; These are the gifts we offer to you. 6. That was for Neli, and this is for Rontu; Neli and Rontu are the spirits who live near the Chayen river; Come, Rontu, and take a mithun intestine;

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chapter six Come to the murta kondu pukun and accept our gift.

7. Ronsan, come to our feast and take your share of the sacrifice at the buyun kondu pukun. 8. I ask all you Murung spirits, to bring prosperity to husband and wife; Kirun, you were born from Lochi Longi of Aha and Doker Gambo of Ayen Rupu; Kirun, you married Yarsi Yaryang of Aha Kotiir; Come to this feast and take your share; Come to rupu kondu and take a mithun hind leg. 9. That was for Kirun, and this is for Kilo; Kilo, you were born from Aha Anii and Doker Hatii of Ayen Rupu; Kilo, you married Ane Pase and Mimi Pase; Come to this feast and take your share at ayen kondu pukun. 10. Siikki, your parents were Aha Anii Bindu Tangu, and Gambo Yonii Dokiir Yonii; Siikki, you married Papun Gyosi; Come to this Murung feast of husband and wife; Come and bring success to their family and their animals; Come and claim a mithun tail at bindu kondu pukun.

the subu heniin in translation 11. When Garlan Lonii fell down, her forearm became the gyadi post, and her eyes became the garlan post; Pyotii, I tie a mithun to the garlan garku post, where you will take a mithun foreleg; Come and accept your gift at the garlan kondu pukun; Now come with me and the other spirits. All you cows, drink water here and rest. 12. Pyotii, you are the giver of life, the sign of health; Pyotii, you were born from Garlan Lonii and Garku Lonii; When Garlan Lonii fell down, her forearm became your gyadi post, and her liver became your lapang; When Garlan Lonii fell down, her eyes became your sacrificial post. 13. Pyotii, you married Lyain Laker; Come to the feast, and take your share; Come to garlan garku kondu and take a mithun foreleg; Pyotii, come to this Murung and accept our gift; Come to your lapang and make us all happy. 14. That was for Pyotii, and this is for Dadu; Dadu, you were born from Hilan Tangu of Hido Tumbo and Tado Tumbo of Tayo Tumbo; Dadu, you married Tapo Lyayo of Asan Kotiir;

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chapter six Your many children are the Dadu spirits that we summon; Come to your hilan kondu pukun and claim a mithun foreleg.

15. That was for Dadu, and this is for Liitii; Liitii, your parents were Landu Tangu and Landu Halan; Liitii, you married Yardu Yarle Biinyi; Come, to this feast and take your share; Come to the halan kondu pukun and claim a mithun tail. 16. That was for Liitii, and this is for Chudu; Chudu, your parents were Yoka Tangu and Yoka Nyodu; Chudu, you married Ji Dinii of Asan Kotiir; Chudu, you made fine Tibetan swords for us; Come to this feast, see our jewellery and beautiful clothes; Come to the yoka kondu pukun and claim a mithun rib. 17. Ketun, you were born from Piirii Tangu and Yaye Hiini of Dii; Ketun, you married Charun Yatun and Dii Yatun; Come, Ketun, come and claim your share; Come and accept a mithun tail at the piirii yaye kondu pukun. 18. Lyikii Piirii, your mother was Anii Boje, and you married Rupu Lalu Biinyi;

the subu heniin in translation Come to this feast and take your share; Come to the aju kondu pukun and take a mithun neck. 19. Danyi, you were born from Murta Garyang; Pulo, you came from Iiji Garyang; Danyi, come to this feast, come to the suju kondu pukun; Come to this Murung and take a mithun backbone and eyes; Come to our feast, come give us long life and fill our granaries. 20. That was for Danyi, and this is for Su; Su, your mother was Cha Kanku Anii, the daughter of Kolyung Kanku Anii; Your father was Ruji Rukun, and you married Cha Ragun Biinyi; Come to this feast and take your share; Come to the rukun kondu pukun and take a mithun ear. 21. Lubii, your parents were Kolyung Luhin and Kolo Lunge; Lubii, you married Tapan Siijo Biinyi; Come to this feast and take your share; Come to the piimer kondu pukun and take a mithun backbone. 22. Mepin, you are the son of Cha, the earth, and Doha, the sky; Mepin, you provide food and wealth;

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chapter six Mepin, you married Tiipan Diinii and Siijo Diinii; Come to the canya kondu pukun and accept your share; Come to the feast and take a mithun kidney.

23. Hiirii Hipin, your parents were Achan Koping Anii and Kolo Koping; You married Iijan Chago Mihi Niipin; Come and accept your share and the tatu kondu pukun; Come to this Murung and take a mithun womb. 24. Hiirii Hitar, you were born from Dachan Korii Kotiir Anii and Achan Ado Kotiir; You married Iijan Chago Mihi Niiter; Come to this feast and take your share; Come to the tatu kondu and take a mithun womb; Take it and return the gift to husband and wife; Give them a large family and dense forests. 25. Liitii, you were born from Kolo Nyire Anii and Bura Siitii Urii; and you married Iirii Yame; Karii, your parents were Kolo Niiri and Buru Siitii Urii; and your wife was Dachan Yangu; Come, both of you, come and accept your share; Come, Liitii to the taku kondu; come, Karii, to the kulyu kondu pukun;

the subu heniin in translation Come, each of you, and take a mithun rib. 26. That was for Liitii, and this is for Gyo; Gyo, you were born from Kolo Rupu Anii and Pungu Piiye Gyoyi, and you married Hiilan Riipi Ha Riiri Biinyi; Come to this feast, and accept your share; Come to the byolan kondu pukun and take a mithun rib. 27. Pungio, your parents were Kolo Nyiri Anii Nyiri and Tahii Tako Kedo Hada Dunii; Your wife is Siinyi Siito Biinyi; Come to the kordu kondu pukun and take a mithun rib. 28. Korlan, you were born from Kolo Nyiri Anii and Tahii Tako Halan, and you married Siinyi Diini; Come to the halan kondu pukun and take a mithun rib. Myopin, your parents were Myopin Siipin Korlan Siilo, and your wife is Tagium Siitor Biinyi; Come to the kordu kondu pukun and take a mithun rib. 29. Myorii, you were born from Kolo Nyiri Anii and Tahii Tako, and you married Rupu Nyanu Ahin Nyata; Come to the murta kondu pukun and take a mithun rib. 30. Myole, you were born from Kolo Nyiri Anii and Tahii Tako Lenii, and you married Lenii Chantu;

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chapter six Come to the tahan kondu pukun and take a mithun tail.

31. Myome, you were born from Kolo Nyiri Anii and Tahii Tako Harnya; Come to this feast and take your share; Come to the muryang kondu pukun and take a mithun tail. 32. Chidu, you were born from Kolo Nyiri Anii and Tahii Tako Chi, and you married Chantu Junii Biinyi; Come to the marti kondu pukun and take a mithun lower leg.45 33. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, summoning these spirits to this feast; I invite them to take their share from husband and wife; I ask them to come and bring a prosperity, As broad as the earth, as wide as the sky. 16. Naming the lapangs 1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, chanting for husband and wife; Now I name the spirits and their separate lapangs; First I name Kiiri in tace lapang and then Neli in kempu lapang.

45 Following this verse, I have omitted many lines that list the same spirits but with variant names and parentage.

the subu heniin in translation 2. I do not fail to mention Rontu in murta lapang, Ronsan in buyun lapang, Siikki in bindu lapang, Kirun in rupu lapang and Kilo in ayen lapang. 3. I name Pyotii in garlan lapang, Dadu in hilan lapang and Liitii in landu lapang; I position all the pyoha spirits in their respective lapangs. 4. I do not forget to mention Chudu in yoka lapang and Ketun in piirii yaye lapang; I name Nike in piirii aju lapang, Danyi in suju lapang and Pulo in siimer lapang. 5. I name Su in ruji lapang, Myoro in rukan lapang, Lubii in piimer lapang and Mepin in canya lapang; I name all the lapangs for all the pyoha spirits. 6. I name Hiiri in tatu lapang, Koku in tata lapang, Karii in kolyu lapang, and Liitii in tako lapang; I do not forget any lapang of these Murung spirits. 7. I name Gyo in gyolan lapang, Pungio in kordu lapang, Korlan in halan lapang, Myorii in murta lapang, Myole in tahan lapang, Chidu in marti lapang and Myome in muryang lapang. 8. I have named the lapangs, one after the other; I have spoken the names of all the pyoha spirits, So that they are pleased and bring us prosperity.

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chapter six 17. Asking the Spirits for Favours placing the spirits at their lapangs

1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, and I have named the lapangs; I have named the spirits and invited them to this Murung; Now I ask those spirits to grant us miji migung wisdom; Give us healthy seeds from which knowledge grows; Do not give us bad seeds, which bring only bad luck. 2. For both husband and wife, who sacrifice animals today, For the welfare of them both, we conduct this Murung; I ask favours from the spirits; I ask for your help; Give them fertile seeds and healthy animals; Give them success in this life and happiness in the future; Do not bring them illness or misfortune; Keep their animals and family free from disease and sickness; Do not let their pigs die or their mithuns become ill; Protect them all, and give them long life. 3. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, chanting at this Murung; I am speaking to the spirits, asking them for gifts; Let my hands be full and my legs be strong;

the subu heniin in translation Give me the power of miji migung, and the skill of words; Give both husband and wife a prosperous and abundant life; Give them good seeds, which grow and reproduce; Give them fertile animals and healthy descendants. 4. You powerful pyoha spirits, listen as I call your names; I ask you to grant favours to the sponsors of this Murung; Give them gifts from your lapang, the source of your strength; I call Kiiri of tace lapang, Kirun of rupu lapang and Neli of kempu iitan lapang; I call Rontu of murta bike lapang and Ronsan of buyun biirii lapang. 5. All you spirits in Neli, be generous to both husband and wife; Select something from your lapang and grant them special favours; I call on Kilo of ayen lapang, Siikki of bindu lapang, Pyotii of gulan lapang and Dadu of hilan lapang. 6. I ask Liitii of halan lapang and Chudu of yoka lapang; I call Piirii of yaye lapang and Lyike of aju lapang; I ask you spirits in Neli to give a gift to the sponsors; Select something from the bounty you hold in your lapang. 7. I call Danyi of suju lapang and Pulo of siimer lapang; I ask Lubii of piimer lapang and Mepin of canya lapang.

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8. I call Hiiri of tatu lapang and Karii of kulyu lapang; I ask Gyo of gyolang lapang and Pungio of kordu lapang; Be generous to husband and wife; give them a gift from your lapang. 9. I summon Myorii of murta lapang, Myole of tahan lapang, Chidu of marti lapang and Myome of muryang murku lapang. 10. I ask all these spirits to be generous to husband and wife; I ask each spirit to make a special gift from its lapang; I collect these favours for the sponsors of this feast; I place them safely inside my tajer bamboo; I keep them protected inside my little bag.46 asking the spirits for favours 11. I call on all the spirits gathered together at haci hatii, on the paths leading from Neli; I ask all of them to be watchful and protect us. 12. We need your protection as we leave Neli; We ask for help at haci hatii, where the spirit paths converge; I ask Myorii at his murta bike lapang and Siikki at his bindu lapang. 46 This is ciru, an animal-skin bag for carrying tobacco, matches and other personal items when travelling.

the subu heniin in translation 13. I ask for protection along the taypu jorku paths; I ask the spirits there to lead us back to the human world. 14. I ask Chantii Rade of lyayu laker and Dolo Hale of siibi siibyo; I ask these Murung spirits to assist us on our journey. 15. I call on all the spirits in Neli, all the pyoha spirits; Give us strength and support on this difficult journey; Give gifts to husband and wife as numerous as mithun hairs; Grant them a rich life and full granaries, fertile animals and many children. 16. Show favour also to me, the nyibu on this lapang; Protect and strengthen me during this Murung feast; Give me something special from your abundant gifts; Support us all, as we prepare to leave Neli. 17. Now, we begin the journey back to the human world; Be alert and do not wander here and there; I place all our souls in the tajer bamboo and my gourd ladle, which I hold in my hand; With the souls safe and sound, we start our journey.

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18. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, guiding the souls back from Neli;47 I protect these souls, like a mother pig her piglets and a hen its chicks; We travel along these dark paths, which go in many directions; But no one will get lost on these criss-crossing paths; I will not lose my chanting skill or my miji migung knowledge; Everything is safe and secure inside my tajer bamboo and my gourd ladle. 19. I warn all of you, all you souls, To keep alert on the path, and pass the word to others; Do not eat food in the spirits’ world; do not taste their rice beer; Their food and drink are unfit for us; Follow me closely, follow my steps and my words, As we return to the land of the living. 18. Asking at the Gate 1. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, leading these souls from Neli; I lead these souls back to the human world,

47 Mudan Pai explained that although the souls of animals are left in Neli, and although the souls of the sponsor’s family were kept on earth, some might stray and accompany the nyibu on his return journey.

the subu heniin in translation Like a mother hen shielding her chicks, and a mother pig guiding her piglets; Be alert, and let us begin. I lead this group of souls along the haci hatii paths, The maze of routes leading from Neli, where many spirits live; We travel first on the dulu korlan path around the Halan Hatii mountain; We enter the path of Siikki and leave through the bindu gate; I guide the souls on the path of Dolo Hale, along the siibi siibyo path; We enter the path of Myorii Sii and leave through the murta bike door. 2. I lead the group of souls along the haci hatii paths; I guide them onto the path of Chantu and out through the lyaku laker gate; We enter the kordu path of Pungio and exit through the siinyi siito door. 3. We pass along the haci hatii paths, moving closer to the land of living men; I lead the souls down the path of Korlan and out through the murta bike gate. 4. Move along, all of you, move quickly along the paths; I lead these souls along the tahan path of Myole; I guide them out the sanga gate and along the taro path. 5. We enter the muryang path of Myome and pass through the gandu marlan gate; We enter the marti path of Chidu along the lalyi layo path.

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6. I lead the souls down the duri landing path of Tagiung Tupe; We enter the dancan path and leave through the tagiung gate. 7. I lead the souls along the dancan path of Tagiung Yube; I guide the asan pungio spirits along the kordu path, crossing the country of Duri Landing; I take them on the tahan tadu path of Myole and the murta bike path of Myorii Sii. 8. We travel from Duri Landing along the halan path of Korlan; We pass through the kordu gate of Myopin and enter the tahan path of Myole; I lead them down the dolan byobii path of Gyo and along the kulyu path of Karii; I take them on the tako path of Liitii and the tatu path of Hiiri. 9. We cross mountains, along the suju path of Danyi and the siimer path of Pulo; I lead them on lyike piirii path to Sa mountain. Hurry along, down the aju path of Nike Piirii; We move along the yoka path of Chudu and piirii yaye path of Ketun; We enter the alan aci path of Liitii and cross to the hilan path of Dadu. 10. We enter the garlan route of Pyotii and exit through the garku gate; Follow me carefully as we cross these mountain paths; We climb the bindu peak of Siikki and the ayen peak of Kilo; We leave these high mountains behind, go through gates and move ahead.

the subu heniin in translation 11. Stay alert, all of you! We enter the rupu path of Kirun and the biirii path of Biiyu; We travel down the murta path of Rontu and the buyu route of Ronsan. 12. Follow me closely as we leave these routes; We enter the kempu path of Neli and the iitan path of Mudo; We travel the tace path of Kiiri and the taba path of Lyarii; We move along the paths and out through the gates. 13. We come close to Kiiri’s lapang, where we stop for some time; All you souls of pigs and chickens, children and mithuns, Rest here while I speak to the spirits. 14. I stand on Kiiri’s lapang and call to the spirits: Bring good fortune to husband and wife, to their animals and children; Show the sponsors good harvests and the seeds of success; Shield them from misfortune and protect them from illness; Bring prosperity and wealth as plentiful as mithun hairs. 15. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, calling on the spirits for help; Be generous to both husband and wife, and to their families; In return for their gifts to you, give favours to them; Grant them mithuns and grains, pigs and chickens.

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chapter six Listen to me, Kiiri! Keep the mithuns, which we gave to you; Keep them in Neli and share the meat with others; But do not attempt to rear mithuns in Neli; We will rear them on earth and bring them to you; We are leaving Neli, and I take my ropes with me; I coil them on my shoulder and leave the land of the dead.

16. I gather this group of souls on Kiiri’s mountain path and on Lyarii’s high hills; I lead them along the tace and taba paths, and leave the world of Neli behind; We travel on the tabyu jorku path and see the broad horizon ahead; We enter the tutii pugio path, leading to the iijan hai path, The world of Sun and Water, which brings us close to home. 17. We leave the iijan hai path and enter the regan rebii path, The route taken by our ancestors to reach the world of the living. 18. We travel the regan rebii path which leads to our valley; We pass through nearby forests, familiar rivers and fields, Through supyu gyayu and punu hiiro, lesin lebya and pulun ngiiro; We travel our ancestors’ route and return to the human world.

the subu heniin in translation 19. We come closer and closer, along the kenco pyali path; We travel through fields of biirii kensa, gantii lyaso and piike gange, Until we reach the path of Dilan Pengu, the sacred grove of our village. 20. We enter the village by the myoro su path, which may cause illness and misfortune; Be careful, all you souls; do not make a false step; We leave the Dilan Pengu grove, where we build our ritual altars; We enter the botii siili path, which leads into the village. 21. I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, leading these souls to safety; I guide the souls of this family and their animals; I take them along the pantii jobii path, which leads to our lapang. I take this group of souls to the shelter of our lapang; I am the Aba Nibo nyibu, protecting this family and their animals; I guide them all to the back of the house, Where they are safe and secure. 22. I place the souls in the basket of Lyapin Chantung. Lyapin Chantung, gather together these souls and keep them close to you; Keep them safe and sound, protected like thick moss.

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23. Let all these souls enter the house of husband and wife; Let them all live securely in the Tiike Rade clan; I lead the souls through the porch and past the hearth; To the back of the house, to the right hand corner at the back, Where they will safely rest in the care of Lyapin Chantung. 24. I place my tajer bamboo and gourd ladle in the care of Lyapin Chantung, Who spreads her protection like an expanding web, As broad as the earth, as wide as the sky. 25. Listen, mithuns and cows! We alone did not decide that you would go down to Neli; That was decided by divinations, done by a group of men, By our maternal uncles, and by the tajer bamboo. Do not be afraid; do not be anxious; The axe will fall swiftly, like the rays of the sun; The chicken liver divinations took you down to Neli, Where your sacrifice will bring us prosperity; Mithuns and cows, do not worry; We are bound together in friendship.

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Your head is given to the pinyang,48 who will display it, Like the tall Lali and Buda peaks, like the swift Kuru and Kime rivers. 26. The sacrifice will soon begin and bring success to this family; You will die, but do not be afraid; Our ancestors sacrificed mithuns, named Murta Tapa and Hintii Tade, Paba Hango and Tendin Sibo; Like them, you will be sacrificed to Arki and Aro, The spirit sponsors of this Murung. 27. Spirits, we gave you gifts, and you must reciprocate; To husband and wife give forests and fields; Help their family grow and their animals increase; Fill their granaries with rice and their coops with chickens; Make their forests rich with mithuns and their jungles thick with cane. 28. In this Murung feast husband and wife offer rice beer; Likewise, you spirits must look after us and give us long life; Do not show us bad omens or disease in the nursery beds; Give us meat and rice beer, and keep us united.

48

The pinyang is usually the oldest man in the sponsor’s clan (see Appendix C).

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29. I ask the spirits living near our sacred grove To make us successful, and give us long life; Make us be strong like the sun and moon, like our Doding and Dolo ancestors, and Palo Malo of the Halyang. 30. Spirits of this Murung, we ask for your help; We wish to see our forests thick with cane, and our jungles full of animals; We want our granaries to overflow with rice; Give us many pigs in the sty, and chickens in the coop. 31. Do not disappoint us; do not fail this family; Bring wealth and prosperity, to both husband and wife; As broad as the earth, as wide as the sky. 19. As Numerous as Mithun Hairs49 1. Kolyung Hatii gave birth to Pantii, and Kolo Haro gave birth to Jobii; Pantii Jobii prevents accidents, misfortune and wrongdoing; Pantii Jobii guards our homes, like a dog’s claws and a cock’s spurs;

49 As this final section is chanted on the lapang, the animals are led to sponsor’s house for the sacrifice. The pace of the chanting is faster than the rest of the Subu Heniin and similar to that of a healing chant.

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I call the spirits, Atin and Ala, who look after our mithuns. 2. I summon Sukun, who protects their watering places; I call Timbo and Labo, who watch the hills where mithuns roam; I call Yorbii and Siigan, who guard the streams where they drink; I summon Kiiri Lyarii, Neli Mudo, Myorii Sii, Myome Heme and Lutii Griiha; I call all the spirits who protect our animals. 3. Spirits of water, who watch over rivers and streams, You may wonder why mithuns no longer come to drink; They are gone, killed in this Murung, But they give gifts, as numerous as mithun hairs.50

50 Many more spirits are named in identical verses, which I have omitted. Finally, during the actual sacrifice outside the sponsor’s house, the nyibu rapidly chants the names of the twenty-five spirits who will receive a share.

CHAPTER SEVEN

CONCLUSIONS AND THE FUTURE When a nyibu stands on the lapang and chants the Subu Heniin during a Murung festival, the unspectacular and calm ambience belies the complexity and importance of what is happening. Taking that scene as a focal point, this book has tried to unravel its several strands—chant, feast, ritual specialist, his performance and his speech—and to understand their significance. In this final chapter, I first draw together the observations made about these individual topics in order to highlight the conclusions of the book as a whole. Then I summarise the changes taking place in the Murung and reflect on its possible future. Conclusions At the outset, we saw that the physical setting of the Apatani valley has influenced more than one aspect of local life. Adapting to the limitations of a landscape eight kilometres long and four across, 30,000 Apatanis devote nearly every piece of level land to paddy fields and gardens, build narrow houses in crowded villages and live in nuclear families. At an elevation of 1,500 metres, the valley has also played a role in the relative isolation of Apatanis, limiting contact with Assam and slowing the process of colonialism. In addition, we found that Apatani ethnic categories and cosmology are mapped onto local topography: the valley and its surrounding mountains define insiders and outsiders, as well as the realms in which ancestors reside. These initial observations contain indications of the social cohesion that emerges as the main conclusion of the book as a whole. The enclosed landscape fosters a strong sense of identity among Apatanis; indeed, they are the only tribe in the region whose autonym is also their ethnonym. The densely populated valley also makes possible the social interaction required for the exchange practices and ceremonial friendships in a Murung, some of which involve the entire Apatani population. This close relationship between Apatanis and their valley, their intensive and constant nurturing of the land, often the same

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fields, gardens and groves throughout their lives, contributes to the stability that underlies much of what this book describes. Fertility, another striking feature of the Apatani valley, is also a recurring theme of this book. In an early chapter, for instance, we saw that the colonial narrative of the valley as a prosperous land matches local perceptions and expectations. More than that, a Murung itself requires a fertile landscape in order to supply the large amounts of rice, meat and beer consumed or exchanged during the festival, especially the rice donations and meat distribution that involve the whole valley. That same prosperity is displayed in the women’s tableau on the first day and the pouring of rice beer into nursery beds on two occasions. Finally, as the nyibu repeatedly declares in his chant, the goal of a Murung is to increase the prosperity of the sponsor and his clan. Fertility, and its manifestations of birth, growth and maturation, suffuse the Subu Heniin chant, too. It appears in a variety of images, including the rising sun, dividing female body, converging rivers and the expanding bamboo that leads the nyibu through the horizontal cosmology. That irrepressible bamboo also reaches out beyond the text. The nyibu holds several pieces in his hand when addressing the animals tied to the lapang, and he wears a small piece in his headdress. Later he takes that small piece home and places it on a wall, next to a row of similar pieces, each representing a past Subu Heniin performance. Another conclusion of the book as a whole is the close link between a Murung and the land of the dead. This point was made in a comparative study of feasts of merit in the 1970s and has been confirmed by recent studies of these rituals in upland Southeast Asia. In most of these feasts, a double-layered cosmology facilitates reciprocity between the living and the dead. In a Murung, this parallel world is explicit since exchange with spirits on earth is mirrored by exchange in the land of the dead. In addition, a considerable part of the Subu Heniin chant, almost the final third, is chanted at a funeral. The words that lead the soul of a dead man to the underworld are also the words that guide the souls of the sacrificial animals there. During his performance on the lapang, the nyibu frequently gestures toward the animals, warning them not to lose their way on the dangerous journey and not to blame him for their death. A Murung is, in part, a mithun funeral. A related conclusion is that separation of the living from the dead is a core idea in Apatani culture. During a funeral, for instance, Apatanis build a small fence above the grave to keep the dead from returning,

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and the same fence is described in the funeral chant. Throughout the Subu Heniin, too, the nyibu attempts to maintain a distance from the dead. He warns the animals not to touch the local food and drink; he is careful not to ‘take anything’ from the paths leading to the land of the dead; and he leaves the animals’ ropes behind. Several other Apatani rituals attempt to prevent the return of the dead, which is hindered also by a set of ‘gates’ (lyego) linking paths in the maze that leads to and from Neli. Ghosts, the wandering half-dead, are also a source of anxiety. Finally, this Apatani desire to separate the dead from the living correlates with a key contrast between cosmologies in the Apatani valley and upland Southeast Asia. In the latter region, ancestors are the principal recipients of the sacrifice, whereas in a Murung they are not. Apatanis reciprocate with spirits, not the human dead. Apatanis also exchange with each other in a Murung, and these practices support the central conclusion of this book regarding social cohesion. While the Murung is a ‘feast of merit,’ it differs from the general profile of those feasts in several respects. It has no graded series and confers no formal privileges on the sponsor. This, in turn, is consistent with the weak rank and lack of ancestor worship and founder cults in Apatani society. I also found that a Murung fosters more cooperation than competition, especially among clansmen, who give extensive assistance to the sponsor. In addition, wider social and spatial patterns of cooperation are enacted in the donations of rice to the sponsor by women from throughout the valley, in the distribution of meat to every Apatani house by the sponsor and in the food and drink given by each neighbourhood to the sponsor’s clansmen in procession. A Murung also raises clan rather than individual status and is known by the clan name rather than the sponsor’s name. Another kind of cohesion, or perhaps uniformity, is found in the institution of the nyibu. Although the Apatani ritual specialist resembles his counterparts in the extended eastern Himalayas, and elsewhere, the nyibu is unusual in that he is the sole ritual specialist in his society. Two other observations—that the Subu Heniin is a recitation (as opposed to a dialogue) and has a limited human audience—also suggest that Apatani ritual authority speaks with one voice. In addition, the Subu Heniin text has a substantial amount of repetition, including hundreds of noun-pairs, which reduces semantic range. Finally, we saw that the nyibu’s performance of that text on the lapang is not a story. It is, instead, a public display of authority that communicates through sound and visual image.

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I also found a considerable degree of conceptual coherence in Apatani culture. There is variation, too, not least in Murung practices and Subu Heniin performances. What struck me, however, was the uniformity in ritual events, lists of spirits, cosmology, key ideas (soul, underworld, ghosts) and the content of many oral stories and histories. Another, revealing example is Apatani genealogical knowledge. Most individuals can name their own ancestors only to a depth of five or six generations (necessary in order to determine marriage partners), while the list of nearly ninety ancestors of all clans is commonly known. If Apatani genealogical knowledge is not historically deep, it is socially broad. Cohesion, cooperation, coherence—all this may sound idealised and misleading. No society is without fissures, and Apatani society is no exception. It is riven by a rivalry between high and low status clan groups, wealth is not evenly distributed and new religious identities are a source of conflict. It is also true, however, that Apatanis have developed a dense texture of cooperation. I briefly mentioned the informal groups who work each other’s paddy fields on a rotating basis (though less so today) as well as the host-guest nature of the Myoko festival when one village (or group of villages) entertains everyone else in the valley. Reciprocal cooperation is even more evident in a Murung, with ten different ceremonial friendships and exchange practices, some of which cross the divide between the two competing clan groups. Several other findings in this book—weak social ranking, lack of graded series of feasts and privileges for the sponsor, single ritual specialist—also underscore the cohesion in Apatani society. That argument aside, I hope this book has made two broader points. One is the advantage of integrating the analysis of text and oral performance into an interpretation of complex events like a Murung. Only an understanding of the Subu Heniin chant led me to grasp the full importance of the fertility theme, especially since the journey of the expanding bamboo is found only in that chant. Despite the value of this method, I have been struck by the virtual absence of oral performance in studies of feasts of merit. Only one published study places these chants anywhere near the centre of analysis, and none combines oral text and ritual enactment in an interpretation of the total event.1 1 The exception is Beatty 1992. The detailed descriptions of Naga feasts by Mills include only a few lines of oral texts (Mills 1926: 379–96). A study of a feast in south-

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Edmund Leach, who never saw a feast of merit but wrote about them nevertheless, claimed that ‘myth . . . says the same thing as ritual.’2 In a perceptive review of Leach’s thinking on exchange, Stéphane Gros disagrees and comments that ritual ‘is the expression of things that cannot be expressed in any other way.’3 A third position is that of Michael Oppitz, who argued that myth is more creative than ritual.4 Although I am inclined to agree with Oppitz, overall this book follows Leach in demonstrating that speech and ritual action are complementary expressions of a larger whole. By celebrating fertility and describing reciprocity between humans, animals and spirits, on earth and in the land of the dead, the Subu Heniin text verbalises much that is enacted in a Murung festival. The second general point made by this book is the value of the often admired but less frequently practiced method of comparative analysis. I have tried to show how such a study of the Subu Heniin chant, the Murung festival and the nyibu specialist has increased my understanding of all three, identifying them as a ritual recitation, a feast of merit and a shaman who is a sole specialist and speaks in noun-pairs. In addition, the literature on feasts of merit pointed me toward the double-layered cosmology, the relationship between the living and dead, and the distinctive features of exchange in the Apatani festival. At the same time, however, it would be misleading to think of the ‘feast of merit’ as an ideal-type detachable from its surroundings. Each feast is a specific composite of cosmology (with its conceptions of ancestors, spirits, animals, the soul, the underworld), the social role and performance of ritual specialists, kinship and rank, exchange practices and food production, as well as attitudes toward wealth and death. While these ideas and practices are brought into sharp focus during a Murung, they exist outside it, too. A Murung, like other feasts of merit, is a complex event inseparable from its social, cultural and historical contexts.

west China includes two texts but does not draw on them for interpretation (Holm 2003). 2 Leach 1954: 264. 3 Gros 2007: 279. 4 Oppitz 1997.

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That relationship to wider contexts also explains why the Murung, the nyibu and the Subu Heniin are in decline. Even as recently as 2001, there were few indications of any major changes. The events I saw that year differed little from those documented in the 1940s by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf and Ursula Betts. Although neither described the animal sacrifice or the nyibu’s performance on the first day, both left valuable records of other events that demonstrate historical continuity. Betts, for example, wrote a vivid description of the procession that could have been written today: The crowd in the street gave way, scrambling up on to the balconies and the lapang, and around the corner came the priest, in full robes, waving his ritual feather fan and singing an incantation. Behind him came a long and sinuous line of small boys in their best white cloaks . . . behind them came a long file of youths, also in white cloaks with gold borders; they carried unsheathed swords, which they shook so that they flashed in the sun, and they shouted rhythmically as they walked.5

Fürer-Haimendorf ’s photographs and written descriptions similarly show us that the nyibu’s chanting differs little from what we see today: The priest began a long incantation, accentuating every phrase with a forward lunging movement of a long sword of Tibetan kind. He addressed the mithan and asked him not to grieve over his death; he would die for a good cause . . . The mithan should not complain about being sacrificed, for the gods had given the Apa Tanis mithan for slaughter. In such a vein, Nime [the nyibu] went on for a long time, always addressing the mithan.6

Not only the gesturing, mentioned here, but also the attempt to exonerate oneself for the mithun’s death are still prominent in performances of the Subu Heniin. Another aspect of the nyibu’s chant impressed a journalist in the 1940s. Although the context was the visit of the Viceroy of India to Assam, the performance was similar to that in a Murung: The Apa Tani priest, a savage-like and awe-inspiring creature, barked out his ritual with a fervency both frenzied and interminable. Oblivious to time, he seemed to be never-ending. Some spectators grew impatient.

5 6

Graham Bower 1953: 94. Fürer-Haimendorf 1945: 14.

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Someone removed the bison, which was subsequently slain and feasted upon. But the ecstatic chanting of the ritual continued.7

This colonial correspondent may have over-egged the shamanic pudding when describing the frenzy of the nyibu, but he did not exaggerate the length of the chant. While the Subu Heniin is still chanted for many hours, the Murung has begun to change. The procession had playful and erotic elements sixty years ago (including the phallic poles), but entertainment now dominates the event. The unsheathed machetes, traditional shawls and circular dancing have given way to a variety of costumes and papermasks worn by groups of boys and girls who parade around. Some of these acts are innovative, even creative, but the procession today has little of the quiet drama I saw only a few years ago. Likewise, restrictions on movement and food are now followed only by the sponsor rather than the entire clan, and cash is often substituted for gifts of meat and rice. The wooden planks of most lapangs have been replaced by slabs of concrete, and many are covered with a roof of corrugated iron sheeting. The nyibu standing on the platform still wears his special shawl, though its commercially dyed and spun fibres make it far warmer than traditional ones, and his rubber boots would have been the envy of his grandfather. Beneath these material surfaces, deeper forces of cultural change have been at work in the Apatani valley for a century or more. Language shift to Hindi and English and conversion to Christianity are perhaps the most prominent—about 15–20% of Apatanis are Christians and that figure may rise—but these developments are only part of a long-term process of assimilation into mainstream India. Absorption into new political and economic systems, aided by new media and increasing contact with India, has transformed the society that created the Subu Heniin, the Murung, the nyibu and his ritual speech. The most obvious sign of ill health is that fewer and fewer elaborate Murungs are held. For many Apatanis, they are simply too expensive and time-consuming. The number of nyibus is also falling; marginalised by modernity, he is beginning to look out of place amid the cars, computers and new literacy in the valley. However, if I am right about the social cohesion embedded within and expressed through these institutions, they will not disappear soon. Looking back at the 7

Sunday Statesman (Calcutta) 20 January 1946.

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documentation from the 1940s, and then at the forces changing Apatani life today, it is difficult to see what form the Murung will assume in another sixty years. A slow but steady decline seems unstoppable, and a reduced Subu Heniin performance by less than competent men may be the best one can foresee. On the other hand, the social role of the chant, ritual and shaman may actually be enhanced by current transformations. In the midst of disorientating change, the search for images of cultural identity in the Apatani valley need look no further than the lapang, where the nyibu stands chanting the Subu Heniin during a Murung. Representing cohesion and coherence, their symbolic status may increase even as their outward forms diminish.

APPENDIX A

OUTLINE OF MURUNG EVENTS This outline lists only important events during an elaborate Murung (rontii ); many minor rituals and chants are not included. Note also that the most public events (sacrifice; pukun rice donation; dulu distribution and procession) are described in detail in chapter 4. While most Murungs begin in the first week of January, preparations get underway in November or before. Preparations 1. Padu (tado/tadu): Usually conducted in November, this ritual determines the eligibility of a would-be Murung sponsor. Some people consider it the true beginning of a Murung, which is normally held in the coming January but may be held years later. This ritual involves a restricted performance of the Subu Heniin and the sacrifice of only one mithun or cow calf; shares are given to the sponsor’s father-in-law and brothers-in-law (diran, lace, ari mecu) as in more elaborate Murungs. During a series of divinations ( papu piniin, ‘egg cutting’) inside the intended sponsor’s house, boiled eggs are cut open and examined for a particular spirit’s reply to the question: ‘Should we give you a cow or a mithun?’ While the padu is not mandatory, if it is held and the divinations are positive, someone in the family (even grandsons) must sponsor a Murung sometime. 2. Murung pahin koniin (‘cutting the liver for Murung’): If the egg divinations are favourable, a series of chicken and pig liver divinations are held in December to determine which spirits will receive which animals in the Murung to be held in January (or later). 3. Papu piniin (‘egg divination’): If all is favourable, a second round of egg divinations determines the date for the Murung. If the answer is January, a third series of divinations is done to confirm this.

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4. Nyibu papu (‘nyibu egg’): The same nyibu who has conducted the other divinations now examines eggs to determine who should be the main nyibu for the Murung in January. A second nyibu is named by the sponsor. 5. Still in December, the main nyibu conducts more chicken liver and egg divinations, and these are repeated by the second nyibu. The results of these two sets of divinations must match. If they do not, they are repeated again and again, for as many as ten days. Failure to get a match cancels many Murungs. If the results do match, they determine if a Murung is to held and on what date; the number and ritual names of the animals to be sacrificed; and which animal will be accepted by which spirit. A question might be: ‘Kiiri [spirit], will you accept tata taka [a white] mithun?’ If Kiiri rejects this animal, he will be offered another, and the first animal will be offered to another spirit. Mithuns and cows are usually offered to Kiiri, Neli, Danyi, Su, Gyo and Lubii. Their claim to that animal is indicated in the Subu Heniin chant by a particular line: ‘Nguntii Anii [ancestress] fell down and her forearm became a post.’ 6. Firewood collection: In late December, a few of the sponsor’s clansmen provide the necessary firewood, which amounts to three or four truckloads of bamboo and hardwood (10 –15,000 rupees). They must bring at least one pine tree, at which the main nyibu conducts a ritual asking the forest spirits for protection. Trees are cut from these men’s plantations. If a clansman cannot supply his quota of wood, he must purchase it. When all the firewood has been delivered, the workers are given a special meal and rice beer. The main nyibu then conducts a ritual to protect the sponsor and his family from disease, accident or loss of mithuns during the weeks of a Murung. 7. A few days later, the sponsor and his wife host a special meal for their maternal uncles and their families. A chicken liver is hung over hearth for three days. If it is not eaten by rats or discoloured, this is considered a favourable omen and put back over hearth for the spirits to eat. 8. About the same time, the sponsor’s wife selects a group of women, mostly her (and her husband’s) sisters and maternal aunts as ‘mes-

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sengers’ (koda). Chosen because they have a good knowledge of genealogy, their task is to inform people in other villages of the date of a Murung. They, too, are given a special meal. 9. The sponsor chooses two men from each village, often his buniin (non-kin ceremonial friends), who will distribute meat to each house in their village (during the dulu) and host the procession when it comes to their village. Now, in late December, they gather and make plans. 10. A clansman is chosen by divination to be pukun honii, who provides the meat for the pukun donations on the second day. Often another clansman is chosen or volunteers to be eko honii, who supplies the meat and drink given to participants in the procession. 11. A few days later, the sponsor gives small gifts of meat to his affines (diran, lace, ari mecu) as an invitation to the feast. 12. The sacrificial animals, whose number, type (mithun or cow) and ritual names, were determined earlier by divination, are gathered by the sponsor. Most men have a few mithuns, but they, and especially cows, are often purchased. 13. Young clansmen go into the forest to collect the leaves (niji, used on the platform), cane (taser, for ropes) and bamboo (tajer) needed for a Murung. Other men collect the hardwood (kiira) used for constructing sacrificial altars in front and behind the sponsor’s house. 14. Repairs are carried out to the sponsor’s house, especially porches, and his clan lapang. Large amounts of rice beer are prepared in the sponsor’s house. 15. The day before a Murung, young clansmen gather on the lapang and twist cane into ropes for leading the animals to the platform and tying them to it. 16. The main nyibu conducts a brief ritual on the village outskirts to inform the spirits of the forest (principally Hiiro) about the Murung and ask that they not harm anyone for killing the animals.

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Day 1: Chant and Sacrifice 1. About midnight, the main nyibu, in full costume, goes to the sponsor’s house and decides where to place the low wooden altars, at which the animals will be killed: mithuns in back of the house and cows in front. A row of tall bamboo saplings is also erected in back and decorated with bamboo shavings, and a separate sapling is put up for Danyi (the sun). Each altar is sprinkled with chicks’ blood and rice beer as the main nyibu chants. 2. The main nyibu climbs on lapang at about 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning and, assisted by the second nyibu, begins to chant the Subu Heniin. 3. Sogian iniin (‘going [with] pork skin’): Early that morning, the sponsor’s ceremonial friends or their children come to his house bringing pieces of pork as gifts. 4. About the same time (or the previous day), a clansman, (usually the sponsor’s son or nephew) is chosen by divination as siilan, who kills the animals. 5. Later that morning, the animals are brought and tied to the lapang. 6. About midday, the women married into the sponsor’s clan (nyahii) line up in ceremonial dress opposite the lapang, each with a basket of rice power and a gourd of rice beer. Their necklaces are later displayed on a wall in the sponsor’s house where they remain until the end of a Murung. Led by the sponsor’s wife, they decorate the animals with the powder and beer, followed by the sponsor, senior clansmen and guests. This event (called supung), much photographed and filmed, takes place just as the chanting nyibu leads the animals down to the land of the dead. 7. About 4 or 5 pm, the animals are led from the lapang to the sponsor’s house and tied to the altars bearing their names. After a brief chant, rice powder is thrust into their mouths and they are stunned by an axe. They are finally killed by a machete or sharp pole plunged into

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the body, cows first and mithuns second. Some organs and limbs are claimed immediately by ceremonial friends, others on the following day. 8. Back on the lapang, the nyibu conducts a series of chicken liver divinations to determine if the spirits have accepted the sacrifice. Day 2: Rice Donations 1. Hundreds and sometimes thousands of women bring baskets of rice to the sponsor’s wife; the size of her basket size is determined by her relation to the sponsor. Each gift is recorded in a notebook to ensure reciprocity. 2. Inside the sponsor’s house, the two nyibus chant the Yorda Ayu; outside, clansmen chop, separate and store the sacrificial meat. Senior clansmen and non-kin ceremonial friends (buniin) are given a special meal. Days 3–6: Making Rice Beer 1. Rice beer is prepared and left to ferment. 2. Cash donations are brought to the sponsor’s house and recorded carefully in a notebook (these donations are made throughout a Murung but mostly during these early days). 3. Two nyibus conduct rituals with altars in the sponsor’s house to specific spirits (primarily Karii, Danyi, Rintii, Myorii, Su) associated with prosperity and protection. Day 7: Pig Sacrifice When the rice beer has fermented, a large pig (doko alyi ) is sacrificed in the sponsor’s house to please the piinsan spirits. The main nyibu chants for two hours, the pig is slaughtered and its meat divided among various kin (see Appendix C). Some meat and blood is kept for a ritual on day 9 and a meal on day 10.

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Day 8 (9 or 10): Meat Distribution and Procession 1. A group of the sponsor’s non-kin ceremonial friends, his close clansmen and two men from each village (see above, Preparations, 9) gather in the sponsor’s house. They prepare baskets of meat to be distributed, one piece to each house in each village, before sunrise. 2. After the distribution, the sponsor’s clansmen form groups and walk in procession, visiting every lapang in every village, where they perform a brief dance (or other entertainment) and receive food and drink. The official procession is led by the main nyibu, while the second nyibu is in the middle. Day 9 (or following the procession): House Rituals 1. The main nyibu conducts a series of rituals (ude tiniin) in the sponsor’s house to several spirits, each with a separate altar, requiring dozens of chicks and more than a hundred eggs. The nyibu asks the spirits to ensure the prosperity of the sponsor’s family (and sometimes to alleviate specific conditions). The spirits are then asked to leave the house and keep away. 2. Measuring a mithun heart (aha goka, see photograph 19): A sacrificed mithun’s heart is measured, boiled, cut in two and measured again. Shrinkage or expansion is viewed as a bad omen. No change is considered auspicious, and the heart is eaten. 3. ‘Taking the skull’ (adin lakin): The aim of this major ritual is to keep souls of the sacrificed animals in the land of the dead. The skulls of sacrificed cows and mithuns, given to senior clansmen and later returned (after boiling off the meat), are tied to the altar where that animal was killed. A gourd, with tajer bamboo sticks, ginger pieces and animal’s name tag, is placed on the altar. The sacrificial axe, with a chicken tied to it, is lined up on the ground opposite the first altar. One of the nyibus chants for a few minutes, and then he and/or the sponsor’s wife pours rice beer on the skull and altar. The nyibu kills the chicken, sprinkles blood on the skull and axe,

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removes the skull and puts it in a winnowing basket. When this is completed for one skull, the axe is moved to the next one. When all the skulls are in the basket, the nyibu does a chicken liver divination. 4. At night on the same day, the taba neniin is performed in order to remove any remaining dangerous influences from the sponsor’s house. A tube of bamboo (4–5 inches long) is filled with pieces of dried rat and squirrel meat (often given by a buniin friend), plus meat and blood from the pig sacrifice (see day 7). Wrapped in a niji leaf tied with tajer bamboo, the tube is slowly pushed along the floor, while the nyibu chants, until it falls through a newly-created hole. This signals the removal of diseases, anxieties and other problems. Then the nyibus are paid in cash and meat. Day 10: Fertility and Fields ( konci aji, ‘early morning in the fields’) Early the next morning, the sponsor’s wife leads a small group of family members and her husband’s clansmen to the family’s nursery beds; assisted by a nyibu, she pours a mixture of rice, rice beer and blood (from the pig killed on day 7) into the beds. Days 11–19: Restrictions With most of the main events completed, the sponsor’s family begins a period of restricted movement and diet. One should not go into the forest, take long journeys or eat certain vegetables. Although not widely practiced today, some families observe these taboos until seedlings appear in nursery beds. During these days, the sponsor’s house is filled with guests, especially older men who sit around the hearth and discuss details of this Murung. Day 20: A Day in the Fields (alo aji) All those who assisted in the Murung, both kin and non-kin, are feasted at the sponsor’s house, after which they work in the family’s nursery and paddy fields. Again, the sponsor’s wife, along with a nyibu, pours rice beer into the fields.

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Day 21: A Picnic in the Forest (more eha) The sponsor’s family, close clansmen and friends celebrate with a picnic in the forest, after which they work in the nursery and paddy fields and catch fish.

APPENDIX B

NUMBER OF MURUNGS, 1944/1945–2009 Note: Fürer-Haimendorf used a different set of terms, and most sources before 2001 did not report minor forms of Murung (such as subu taniin). Year and Source

Type and Number

Total

1944–1945 Fürer-Haimendorf 1945: 88; 1980: 154–55

2 un pedo (= rontii ) in Hija village

one or two in each village (est.)

up to 1956–1957 Fürer-Haimendorf 1980: 154

yapu yalung (elaborate form last performed in 1972)

‘quite a number’ each year

1978 Fürer-Haimendorf 1980: 154–55

6 rontii, 1 ronser; 1 subu taniin

8 (‘fewer’ than in 1944–45)

1987 Hulupani (local magazine), p. 11

20 rontii, 3 ronser

23

1999 Hage Naku 2006: 306

9 rontii, 4 ronser

13

2001 fieldwork

2 rontii, 3 ronser; 7 subu taniin

12

2002 fieldwork

1 rontii, 2 ronser; 3 subu taniin

6

2003 fieldwork

2 rontii, 1 ronser; 4 subu taniin

7

2004 fieldwork

2 rontii, 3 ronser; 5 subu taniin

10

2005 research assistant

4 rontii, 3 ronser; 11 subu taniin

18

2006 fieldwork

3 rontii, 2 ronser; 4 subu taniin

9

2007 research assistant

2 rontii, 1 ronser; 5 subu taniin

8

2008 research assistant

0 rontii, 7 ronser; 10 subu taniin

17

2009 research assistant

1 rontii, 1 ronser; 12 subu taniin

14

APPENDIX C

SACRIFICIAL SHARES FOR SPIRITS AND HUMANS Listed below are the shares of sacrificial meat typically given to spirits and humans in an elaborate Murung (rontii ). While details of these gifts vary between clans and villages, these lists represent standard practice during the period of my research. Spirit shares Apatanis recognise approximately 150 spirits, of which about sixty are named in the Subu Heniin chant and twenty-five receive a sacrificial share in a Murung. This last number does not include the ‘spirit sponsors’ of a Murung (Gyutii Gyaro and Arki Aro), who do not eat meat and are given cane, niji leaves and ginger instead. Seven spirits also have an additional share allocated to them in the land of the dead. Two of these, Neli and Kiiri, usually receive one or two mithuns each; they get both the adult mithun and mithun calf in a minor Murung (subu taniin). In an elaborate Murung, Pyotii usually gets one or two mithuns, while Danyi, Su, Gyo and Lubii typically receive one cow each. In the case of these seven important spirits, the animals are ‘dedicated’ to them. This means that they receive only a portion of that animal in the land of the dead and the rest is given to other spirits (and humans). Name of spirit aha (‘lower’) spirits Neli Kiiri

Share of sacrificial mithuns and cows on day 1 1 or 2 mithuns per divinations; in Neli, head (adin) of all animals, plus liver and chest (pahin and gimyo), tail (ami ) and lower back ( gyasi ) of one mithun 1 or 2 mithuns per divinations; in Neli, head (adin) of all animals and hind leg (harbii ligo) of one mithun

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Appendix C (cont.) Name of spirit Rontu Ronsan Kirun Kilo Siikki asan (‘higher’) spirits Pyotii Dadu Liitii Chudu Ketun Nike Piirii spirits ‘closest to humans’ Danyi Su Lubii Mepin Hiiri Karii Gyo Pungio Korlan Myorii Myome Chidu

Share of sacrificial mithuns and cows on day 1 mithun mithun mithun mithun mithun

small intestine (khiijang) tail (ami ) and blood (ayi ) hind leg (harbii ligo) hind leg (harbii ligo) tail (ami )

head (adin) of 1 or 2 mithuns per divinations; in Neli, one mithun foreleg (alii ) mithun foreleg (alii ) mithun rib (khemii tatii ) mithun rib (khemii tatii ) mithun tail (ami ) mithun lower back ( gyasi ) and/or neck (lyili )

1 cow per divinations; in Neli, mithun eyes (taro) and backbone (mander) 1 cow per divinations; in Neli, mithun ears (rubu) 1 cow per divinations; in Neli, cow backbone (mander) mithun or cow kidney (ahin) mithun or cow womb (bombii ) mithun or cow rib (khemii tatii ) 1 cow per divinations; in Neli, tail (ami ) or rib (khemii tatii ) mithun or cow tail (ami ) or rib (khemii tatii ) mithun or cow tail (ami ) or rib (khemii tatii ) mithun or cow tail (ami ) or rib (khemii tatii ) mithun or cow tail (ami ) or rib (khemii tatii ) mithun or cow tail (ami ) or rib (khemii tatii )

Human shares This list summarises the human recipients and their sacrificial shares during an elaborate Murung (rontii ). Mithun and cow meat from the sacrifice on the first day are the paramount gifts, but shares of the pig killed on the seventh day (see Appendix A) are also significant.

sacrificial shares for spirits and humans Human recipient (ceremonial friend and/or kinship term)

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Sacrificial shares of mithuns and cows on day 1 and special pig (doko alyi) on day 7

oldest man in sponsor’s clan ( pinyang) head (adin) of best mithun; after meat is boiled off for eating, skull is returned to sponsor senior clansmen (anu aban) heads (adin) of other mithuns and cows; after meat is boiled off for eating, skulls are returned to sponsor sponsor’s father-in-law (ato bo, diran) chest and liver ( gimyo and pahin) of or sponsor’s brother-in-law (lace) best mithun; liver (pahin) of special pig sponsor’s brother-in-law (lace) chest and liver ( gimyo and pahin) of a mithun; fatty tissue of special pig (lyiyo panyi ) sponsor’s brother-in-law (lace) or mithun tail (ami ) brothers-in-law (ari mecu) (in Hari village) gravedigger (from mithun tail (ami ) Assam) several senior clansmen (anu aban) each receives a mithun buttocks (kotii ) 2 of the sponsor’s maternal uncles each receives a mithun foreleg (alii ) and 2 of his wife’s maternal uncles (aku, alii ) 2 maternal uncles of sponsor’s each receives a mithun lower back parents and 2 maternal uncles of (gyasi ); wife’s maternal uncles get his wife’s parents (aku, gyasi ) left side of back of special pig, and husband’s maternal uncles get the right side 4 maternal uncles of sponsor’s each receives a fatty tissue of special grandparents and 4 of his wife’s pig (lyiyo panyi ) (aku, lyiyo panyi ) descendants of above maternal each of 16 recieves small piece of uncles (kutin) meat or cash gift (approx. 200 rupees) sponsor’s eldest sister (and/or his mithun hind thigh (soli ) and thick wife’s eldest sister) or his paternal piece of special pig aunt (soli ) clansman chosen to kill animals (siilan) mithun small intestine (khiijang) main nyibu unspecified pieces of mithun or cow meat (often lower hind leg, harbi ligo) and pig meat (not special pig) sponsor’s eldest paternal uncle head (adin) of special pig

APPENDIX D

TRANSCRIPTION OF THE SUBU HENIIN Below is a transcription of the Subu Heniin text recited by Mudan Pai in his house during four days in 2004 and translated in chapter 6. He chanted these words in a steady, measured pace, broken only by a pause between phrases, which are separated by commas in the transcription. An extended pause after two or three phrases marks the end of one ‘line’ and the beginning of another. A new line (or group of phrases) is also marked by the elongation of a syllable, usually the fourth, in the first phrase. Occasionally, Mudan Pai chanted only one phrase before pausing and moving to a new line. Mudan Pai, like most nyibus, chanted a line of two or three phrases approximately every ten seconds and about five or six lines every minute. Such uninterrupted chanting did not continue for long, however, and the normal breaks, plus unexpected problems, meant that he chanted 250–300 lines an hour. His eleven-hour recitation contains approximately 3,000 lines. 1. Iijan Canii 1. Siiro dodu la, ngo dodu jaka aro so, aba nibo nyibu ngo, ngo ato doni jaka nyibu ngo, mudo jilo ngo, wi jaka doni ngo, lyarii tabii ngo, lyantii podo ngo. 2. Benyi anyi mi, ngo tiike jaka rade mi, taker dumi mi, ngo myodi jaka likan so, rici binii ngo, ngo myoso likan so, kemyo binii ngo, ngo mirii jaka likan so, kiipu binii ngo, paker jaka likan so, tunii binii ngo, ngo gondu jaka likan so, ngo yui jaka binii ngo, suci naran so, ngo endin mi binii ngo, suro nako, ngo lyakun jami binii ngo, ngo lutii likan so, dolo binii ngo, ngo giira jaka linyi so, ngo sibo binii ngo gantii aku, kedo binii ngo, ngo lyaso lada so, hada binii ngo.

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3. Ngo biipin jaka nyibu ngo, biiger bo nyibu ngo, ngo iipyo hulu ka, ngo jami hulu ka, ngo diiko manii bo, wi hulu ka, poko manii ngo. 4. Ngo myolyi jaka nyili ka, tabyu arre ka, ngo myobyo jaka arre ka, tarsi arre ka, ngo tiikon jaka janii ngo, hii lyili dalyang, ngo niipu ka pulyang ngo, pinku solyang ngo, ngo jorku jaka songo ngo. 5. Ngo aba nibo nyibu ngo, ngo silo jaka lolyang so, ngo tiike bo rade mi, taker dumi mi, ngo aba lapang pulyang so, pyakun tiicin so, ngo perre hecin so, ngo benyi jaka anyi ka. 6. No siiro aro so, no kolyung anii ja, ngo nutii nuri si, no iijan jaka nuri pa, canca calyi so, ho kolo jaka anii ka, hatii hanyo di, hai hanyo ka, no jantii hanyo pa, tara bo calyi so, no byoci byonii di. 7. No byoci byonii, ngo anii jaka neli ka, kempu diiri mi, aba mudo ka, ngo iitan jaka kogan ka, byako diiri mi, no dingia si ka, myotii pilya ka, no acung jaka abyo ka, tubyo lyabo ka, no diiri lolyang mi, no byoci diiri di, no diiri jaka teku la. no byoter jaka teku la. 8. Byobi bo byonii, panii ali gambii mi, manii aro ganko mi, no dilan jaka digo mi, diike digo mi, ditin jaka kiilyi mi, no regan bo rebii mi. 9. No tamin jaka talo mi, lali bo popi mi, buda ka yaso mi, no panyu jaka pare mi, siro sango mi, luli tajer mi, no pai jaka catu mi, landing bo paying, no kuru jaka kime mi, supyu gyayu mi, liiri piisa mi, no tanan jaka siya jaka, balyi bo ngiira mi, ngo landing ka paying mi.

transcription of the subu heniin 10. Nyomping hacang mi, no dalyang jaka calyi so, no biirii kensa mi, siike lampiir mi, ngo jalyang jaka siire mi, dilan pengu mi, pume jaka putii mi, taku siidi mi, ngo neyun jaka saran mi, rantii piige mi, no dalyang jaka calyi so, hai tako pa, mudo tako pa, no boso calyi so, hambi danyi pa, byoma lyiyo mi. 11. Ngo aba nibo nyibu ka, jilo danyi pa, lyayu pulo pa, no byoman jaka calyi so, benyi anyi mi, tiike rade mi, ngo taker jaka dumi mi, no arki bopin danyi pa, aro bobiir jaka pulo pa, pyakun perre danyi pa, no pyabu pyali danyi pa, no goman jaka calyi so. 12. Benyi anyi mi, sinyang anyang ka, no arki diiri pa, bulin dabyo mi, myodii likan so, no rici jaka diiri ka, bulin bo danii mi, myoso linyi so, no kemyo hulu ka, no gorin jaka danii si, mirii likan, kiipu ka diiri ka, no bulin jaka danii si, paker pari so, tunii diiri pa, no bulin jaka tadu la, gondu likan so, no yui jaka diiri si, no bulin jaka tadu la, suci naran so, endin diiri pa, no bulin jaka kendu mi, suro nako, lyakun ka hulu ka, no burin jaka tanii mi, lutii likan so, dolo diiri ja, no bulin jaka kendu la, giiha linyi so, no sibo diiri si, no bulin jaka tanii mi, no pulan aku so, tapyu ka diiri ka, no bulin jaka danii si, gantii aku, kedo diiri si, no bulin jaka kendu mi, hambii diiri pa, no bulin jaka mabyo mi, no arki diiri pa, bulin dabyo mi, aro hula pa, no bulin jaka danii mi. 13. Benyi anyi mi, ngo aba lapang jaka pulyang so, pyoha dulu mi, ngo selyang ka talyi ku, ngo arki dulu pa, ngo selyang jaka talyi la, yulo dulu mi, ngo aro ka dulu pa, ngo selyang jaka talyi la, aba lapang pulyang so, ngo silo jaka lolyang so, ngo pyakun ka tiicin so, perre hecin so, no cangi piimi randa yadii la, no dogi piimi randa yadii la, no siilyi jaka karu si, siido kaco ja, no kapa ja lyayo ka, hapin pakii ja, no rika yadii la, hambo pakii ja, no rika yadii la.

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14. Ngo aba nibo nyibu si, ngo nitin jaka nyibu si, ngo tasu putu doran la, horming kebo si, tama gare lyibyo ka, aba nibo nyibu lu, pyakun tiicin samii lo, benyi anyi mi, perre hecin jaka samii lo, no canya bo perre, tater ka lato ku, no danya perre bede lato ku, ngo benyi anyi mi, ngo pyakun tiibu samii lo, perre heger samii lo, no siilyi jaka karu si, riila lyato, no siido ka kaco si, tabyang panii si, siilyi karu si, no kakin jaka dato byo, siiro karu, kakin dato ka. 15. Ngo dohii ka tadin si, ngo jilo bo tadin si, dimbi lyibyo ke, ngo lyayu ka tajo si, no jodi lyibyo ke, ngo benyi jaka anyi mi, ngo tiike rade mi, taker dumi mi, ngo silo jaka lolyang so, aba nibo nyibu ka, no lapang jaka pulyang so, no pyakun jaka tiicin so. 2. Diima Hama 1. Silo lolyang so, ngo aba nibo nyibu ka, pyakun bo tiicin so, ngo perre hecin so, pyabii tiiko so, ngo pyali ka heko so, gantii gamii ka, no anu jaka diima ka, pudun dunsi bo, lyaso lyamin la, no aban ka hama ka, hugin lyiyo, siro kalo la, no barmii jaka diima ka, bigo palya, patan kago la. 2. Ngo oho jaka hama ka, lanko pabe, tagian cidii mi, ngo tapi jaka yame ka, pyosu buru mi, yaku ranyo mi, gulan giici mi, no lyili jaka kiibe mi, ngo tagian ciidi mi, ngo tape jaka yame mi, pinku pinsii mi, jorku jaka joser mi, tapyu tudii mi, tabyo tupo mi, gulan giici mi, lyili kiibe mi, no pinku jaka siigi mi, lolun pama mi, yako ralyo mi, gulan ka kiici mi, no lyili kiibe mi, tagian jaka ciidu mi, tapi yame mi, no siro ja kalo ka,

transcription of the subu heniin barmii diima ka, biigo paja mi, no patan ja kago la, oho hama ka, lanko pabe mi, tagian ciidu mi, tapi yame ka lanko pabe mi, diima yalang mi. 3. Aba nibo nyibu ka, ngo silo jaka lolyang so, aba lapang pulyang so, ngo pyakun jaka tiiko so, ngo tilyo jaka sanii mi, pyali heko so, helyo so sanii mi, ngo diima jaka yalang mi, ane lantii ka, ngo casang ja laru ka, kiidi pubur so, aba kartii ka, ngo ronsan jaka larii ka, mudo bo amyo so. 4. Ngo aba nibo nyibu di, ngo iigian peji ja, pai ka lyirun da, ngo iipyo jaka taken si, pyalin lyibyo ke. 5. Jilo cindu di, ngo piici ciiri lyibyo ke, lyayu pobo si, rayi jaka lyibyo ke, iigian nitun mi, yalin ka lyibyo ke, ngo iipyo jaka nipa mi, yalin lyibyo ke, ngo aba nibo nyibu ngo. 3. Niido Pamum 1. Siiro dodu lo, dodu jaka aro so, aba nibo nyibu ngo, ngo ato doni jaka nyibu ngo, ngo aba nibo nyibu ka, ngo silo jaka lolyang ka, jilo harko pa, pyakun perre tejin pa, no pyahu pyali hegin pa, ngo iijan lentii mi, no pi aru neku do, hai limbo mi, noko aru jaka neku do, ngo kami limbo mi, ngo pamum mu neku do, kamo limbo mi, hete tehu jaka neku do. 2. Ngo iipyo ami pa, ami niido lu, no salin ka lyimi co, wi aban pa, ami niikun no, no salin jaka kiile di, diidii pulo so, no lyamo jaka pulo so, iipyo ami pa, paji miire lyimi co, wi aban pa, no palan niisan jaka lyimi co,

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mudo tiida ka, no popi popa mi, diima kiinyo, siilyi co, diimpa kiinyo hebyo ke, no mudo tiida ka, no pando tiipan mi, biitii binyo giilyi byo, mudo tiida ka. 3. No jodo siijo mi, biro bike giilyiku, mudo tiida ka, no peji jaka pepu mi, rutin bii hiin giilyi ku, mudo tiida ka, no pelo pelan mi, rubo bimbo giilyi ku, mudo tiida ka, no byundo tagiung mi, lyindin pinyo giilyi byo, mudo tiida ka, no rado tara mi, marpo bihin nebyo ke, no diidii pulo so, lyamo pulo so. 4. No iipyo ami pa, paji niire lyimi co, wi aban pa, no palan niisan giilyi co, kami nembu so, pamum munka la, no kami jaka nyimii ka, pintii bosi mi, pamum munka kiile di, no linii pita si, ala giido mi, mundo ma, no kamo nembu so, kamo mio ka, taro bosi mi, no pamum munka kiile di, linii pita, ada giido mi, no sado talo yoma do. 5. Ami niido di, piiri piiyo so, piigia nyimon mi, pamum munka la, no lyori jaka lyomo so, pamum mu giilyi mi, no ngudu jaka yapa mi, gyapo hame mi, pamum munka la, ngo pale jaka sampiir so, pamum mu jaka giilyi ku, no tarko nyimon mi, lyaso yapa mi, pamum munka la, turo yame mi, pamum munka la, no tango jaka sanke so, pamum muhii giido mi. 6. No bipo yame mi, kero yapa mi, pamum munka la, no perhu jaka yoyu so, pamum mu giilyi mi, mundo kumpe ma, no sado talo yoma do, kutu yame mi, kada yapa mi, pamum munka la, no nalyi mudo, lalyo mu doku, ngo taku yame mi, kiira yapa mi pamum munka la, ngo diman ka, dimpa so, pamum mu giido mi, ngo piidi pari mi, pamum munka kiile di, no sedi ja sembo so, pamum mu giido mi. 7. No paku yame mi, puha yapa mi pamum munka la, no sulun jaka padin so, pamum mu giido mi, no kartu jaka dulyu mi,

transcription of the subu heniin

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pamum munka kiile di, no sama ka sampo so, piyan yapa mi, pamum ka kiile di, no kusu jaka kulyo so, pamum munka kiile di, turli hano mi, pamum munka kiile, puko puro mi, pamum muhii giilyi byo, ngo dorho jaka geno mi, pamum munka kiile di, garpii mu jaka giilyi ku, garta mu giilyi ku, hiipu duyu mi. 8. Ngo hiike lyange mi, ngo coco dolo mi, ngo pamum munka kiile di, lenda mu giilyi ku, cora piigia mi, ngo pamum munka kiile di, narun mu giilyi ku, lyanka nyimon mi, no kiira ka yapa mi, tangier nyimon mi, ngiipe yapa mi, no pamum munka kiile di, hai hagio, pamum mu jaka giilyi di, ngo lyayi ka nimon mi, lyaki yapa mi, pamum munke le, hiiji hiipe so, pamum mu jaka giilyi mi, mundo kumpe yama do, sado talo yoma do. 9. Ami Niido lu, mudo tiida ka, ngo jindo jaka miti mi, pamum munka kiile di, mundo kumpii do, ngo sado talo domi co. 10. Benyi anyi di, ngo ami jaka niido lu, ami niikun lu, ngo didii jaka pulo so, lyamo pulo so, mu kepii si, ngo rulyu ka kiile di, ami niido lu, ngo dimbo lipya mi, siiran hiinyo giilyi co, biipi tade agin ginyo mi, ngo bihan dalyang mi, ngo malo senyo kiile di, jaja ale mi, pamam manyo gebyo ke. 11. Turo nyago mi, cancu dinyo bo, ngo talu jaka myopii mi, selyang hebyo ke, talo myoka mi, no kemyo biido la. 12. Ami Niido di, ngo rici jaka saber mi, barlo, kemyo saber mi, no barlo jaka kiile di, popi sarmin du, arre amyo du, no pinii jaka siyo du, dukun biido la, no kahu jaka kaniin si. 13. Tahu tinda ka, hudo koji pa, no tase jaka tinda ka, sedo milo pa, armyang ja lyimi bo, pyagang tinda ka, gyodo pulo pa, armyang ka lyimi co,

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appendix d pyagang tinda ka, gyado pulo pa, no armyang ka lyimi co, supyu tinda ka, supyu munii pa, no gyayu tinda ka, gayu dimbo pa, no armyang ka giilyi di.

14. Myoha myanii si, no iijan ka hoda ka, ngo liinyi liyan ka, hai hoda ka, koli koyang ka, armyang kiile di. 15. Iijan lentii mi, ngo pi aru giilyi ku, hai lembo mi, ngo koa aru giilyi ku, ngo iijan jaka diiri ka, bulin taniin mi, iijan ka murta tapu mi, ngo lalin bo biido la, hai jaka diiri ka, bulin taniin mi, hintii tade mi, ngo lalin ka biido la. 16. Iijan biirii tabi di, no arki lolyang jaka piirii pa, diinyo kiile di, aro longo jaka piirii pa, diinyo kiile ja, no iijan ka nyimii si, pintii hebyo ke, hai milo si, no taro jaka hebyo ke, iijan hiiro ka, ngo piirii diibun mi, ngo arki lolyang jaka piirii pa, ngo dinyo bo lyibyo ke, aro longo jaka piirii pa, ngo dinyo lyibyo ke, hiido hiilyang pa. 17. Tiike rade ka, ngo taker jaka dumi ka, ngo rici nyimii ka, pintii neko pa, no kemyo jaka milo pa, taro neko pa, ngo arki lolyang piiri dinyo lyibyo ke, hiido hiilyang pa, jilo nyimii pa, no didin ka neku pe. lyayu nyimii, no cantii kane pa, no jilo ka botii si, dimin diiri neku pe, lyayu katii si, no sira jimer neku pe. 4. Siican Mudo 1. Aba nibo nyibu, silo lolyang so, ngo pyakun jaka tiicin so, perre hecin so, ngo aba nibo nyibu ka, ngo jilo harko pa, ngo pyakun ka tiigi pa, lyayu harko so, ngo perre tiigi pa, ngo myodi jaka tiiran mi, kabyun bo neku do. 2. Ngo niikun ka anii mi, wi ranku niikun bulyi co, ngo wi jaka rampa mi, niipa bukele, ngo niikun jaka anii si,

transcription of the subu heniin aha lyanko, no kedu jaka panyi pa, padu ngargu calyi mi, no piisa ka lyindo pa, lyilo lyimer calyi mi, no siinyi jaka panii si, mudo pako do, siiro panii si. 3. Harsi pale do, ngo niikun ka anii di, mudo dinko do, ngo harsi lyime do, niikun anii mi, ngo siican jaka kiinan si, mibya canii lyibyo mi, myorii kembya si, no lipi myanii lyibyo mi. 4. Niikun tari si, no ri jaka lyikele, niipa tapyo, no poyi lyibyo mi, no niikun jaka anii mi, lopu huni pa, mudo lemba so, nyibu harkele, mudo dohii mi, no nyibu jaka harkele, sahu dobyo mi, mudo dobi mi, no nyibu jaka harkele, lebi bigii do, mudo doca mi, no nyibu jaka harkele, liica cagii, domi co, no mudo ka nyibu si. 5. Dima adin do, ngo aha jaka lyanko co, pai bo nyibu mi, gora nyibu mi, ngo pako jaka nyibu mi, sopya nyibu ka, lane bosi mi, ngo pai jaka sori mi, nyibu harkele, pai nyibu mi. 6. Myodi lipa so, tatu pimpu mi, jilo pimpu mi, ngo pudu jaka lato so, yasi diije mi, hiilii lato so, no hiika jaka kiile di, pai nyibu di, no myodi lipa so, no tapyu jaka pimpu si, done diibyo ke, yasi lipa so, no tabyo jaka diigia si, done diibyo ke, hiido pako lo. 7. No pai jaka nyibu si, myodi lipa so, no tapyu ka tilling si, lero bito la, no kano jaka mima ja, miiro bo jalyi lo, no diidii jaka tayen mi, diipu giito la, gango myodi so, no gango jaka surun si, pai sori si, rumpa hado ta, no yasi jaka lipa so, tabyo tiiling si, lero ka bito la, no hager jaka miima ka, miiro jalyi lo, no tandii jaka yasi mi, tampu giito la, nalyo iisi so, no nalyo jaka darpun si, pumpa hado ta.

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8. No pai jaka nyibu mi, pako nyibu mi, no aha lemba so, dii lemba so, holo lemba so, no byutii budin kiile di, byuro byuke kiile di, no pai jaka budin so, ekun aro so, ngo lili jaka lilan pa, gangia benca lyimi co, enyi aro so, no pako ka lyimi co, borbe jaka yaya pa, yaya benca hando ta. 9. No Niikun jaka anii mi, lopu punii ja, no kama jaka duke le, popi sarmin du, arre amyo di, ngo dukun jaka biido la, niikun anii ka, hasang ka gyandi ma, ha saye ma, no siican jaka kiinan co, mibya canii giido nii, myodi kembya co, no lipi myandi giido nii, siican tiiran pa, no daryang ka lyato co, myorii tiiran pa, no daryang ka lyato ku, no pyokun jaka anii ka, dartii dabyu mi, pyopa riman ka, daro dargiu mi, no asan ja dargio yo, aha dargia yo, siican jaka tiiran mi, daryang lyato ku, myodi tiiran mi, no daryang jaka lyato ku. 10. Popi sarmin lu, migung gomping co, ngo niikun jaka anii si, pyokun anii ka, dartii darbyu mi, no daryang jaka nenii byo, pyopa riman ka, daro dargiu mi, darya jaka kiile di, nyomping landing so, no dale jaka kiile di. 11. Duntii dulo si, no miici jaka miilo ka, pimbu bagii haco du, doka talii ka, no sopyu jaka kubyo ke, kotii kolo si hacang lanko so, no kode jaka kiile di, lyintii lyinbu si, suru parbu ka, no hai jaka bigii co, giiri sopyu co, siiko ngartii co, no guha gulin si, iijan ka cagii co. 12. Murta batin co, nutii nuri si, no kar jaka simi co, ami kaci co, hatii hatu si, duri yalang co, harta dubyang co, no liban jaka tuli si, siican tuli co, no la paga si, myodi paga co, no huhan jaka yalyang si, siican malo co, gyasi gargo si, no myodi jaka nyalye co.

transcription of the subu heniin 13. Diiman tulyang si, no siican ka popi co, myodi popa co, no hotii horin si, no harku ka pyalyu co, hahu laru si, no lyi jaka laru co, ruti rubu si, lyaki langu co, sintii simbyan si, siican pyakun co, myodi perre co. alyi tapii si, no sangi jaka giilyo co, haru tetu si, niji jaka jiilyo co, partii parma si, riko rino co, lapyo kulyo mi, no piilyo denyo lyibyo ke. 14. Lanii perre mi, ciper panyo haco du, laci hiibi mi, sinyi ka jaka nyibyo ke, layin myugi mi, no hetu tamang du, sanga aran so, tarmii tala di, no miijer jaka biijer byo, taru tato la, midu sesu byo, hembii henii si, miijer biijer byo, no hesu jaka henii si, miru sesu byo, ngo siican yalyang kubyo ke. 15. Myodi siican kubyo ke, ngo panyu ka pare mi, hepo giilyi byo, kiyan jaka pai mi, didu lake mi, ngo rutii hatii mi, kuru kime mi, ngo landing pai mi, no siican ka giilyi ku, myodi hepo giilyi ku, ngo tanang ka siya mi. 16. Balyi ngiira mi, nigiira ka piisa mi, ngo padu jaka tiike mi, sipyu gyayu mi, karin parin mi, ngo hambo jaka halo mi, nyenci peji mi, liri lilya mi, no patu jaka page mi, panyu pare mi, yacu ka yaja mi, soka petii mi, ngo siiro ka sango mi, luli tajer mi, no paye jaka catu mi, ngo siican ka kubyo ke, myodi hejo hebyo ke, siican nyimii ka, no pintii neko byo. 17. Myodi milo taro neko byo, no sito jaka liko ke, pero jorko co, tahii manko co, tako manko ke, no kendi jaka linko co, hiini linko co, ngo siican nyimii pintii nebyo ke, myodi milo si, taro neko byo. 18. Ngo aba nibo nyibu ka, ngo jilo jaka harko pa, lyayu myodi pa, tiike rade ka, ngo taker jaka dumi mi, pyakun tiigin pa, perre hegin pa, ngo pyabii jaka tiigin pa, pyali hegin pa, ngo jilo ka harko pa, lyayu bo myodi pa, ngo siican jaka tiiran mi, kadun giilyi byo, myodi tiiran mi, ngo kadun jaka giilyi ku.

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19. Siican nyimii ka, ngo cikin ka danii mi, no myodi milo ka, mekin danii mi, siican tendin sibo mi, ngo lalin jaka biido la, myodi paba hango mi, lalin ka biido la, ngo ato siican di, arki lolyang piirii dinyo kiile di, ngo siican pintii kubyo ke, myodi milo si, taro kubyo ke, no siican ka nyimii ka. 20. Pintii kane pa, benyi anyi ka, no rici jaka nyimii ka, pintii neko pa, kemyo milo ka, ngo taro jaka neko pa. aba nibo nyibu ka, jilo ka nyimii ka, pintii neko pa, lyayu milo ka, ngo taro jaka neko pe, hiido hiilyang pa, jilo botii bo, no dimin diidi neku pe, lyayu katii bo, sira jimer jaka neku pe. 5. Dobi Layu 1. Siiro dodu lo, ngo aba nibo nyibu do, ngo siiro jaka lolyang so, aba lapang pulyang so, ngo pyakun jaka tiicin so, perre hecin so, ngo siican jaka tiiran mi, kadun hebyo ke, ngo myodi tiiran mi, kadun bo hebyo ke, no siican jaka aju mi, jupa mako da, siican pimbi do, myodi jaka amer mi, marpo mako da, myodi kaja do, ngo siican ka aju mi, jupo neku do, myodi amer mi, ngo marpo jaka neku do, ngo siican aju mi, jupo neku do, loli amer mi, ngo morpo jaka neku do. 2. Siican aju pa, ngo iipyo ka ami di, ami dobi di, ngo myodi ami pa, layu yato di, salin kiile di, ngo siican jaka ami pa, dobi tamang lu, layu yato lu, ngo salin jaka kiile di, didii pulo so, no iipyo ami pa, no palyi niire hebyo ke, wi aban pa, palan niisan ka hebyo ke, no mudo jaka tiida ka, popi popa mi, no diman ka dimpa pa, kenyo giilyi byo, no mudo jaka tiida ka, pando tiipan mi, tiibi jaka giilyi ku, jodo siijo mi, no biido biike jaka giilyi ku. 3. Mudo tiida ka, no pelyi pepu mi, rutin bihin giilyi ku, no mudo tiida ka, pelo pelan mi, rumbo biihi jaka giilyi byo, mudo tiida ka, byundo tagyung mi, lyindin bigii jaka giilyi ku, no mudo tiida ka,

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rado tara mi, marpo bii hii jaka giilyi ku, ngo diidii jaka pulo so, lyamo pulo so, iipyo ami pa, no panji jaka miire byo, wi aban pa, palan niisan byo, no diidii jaka pulo so, kuyi kuci mi, yanci bebyo do, no kuyi kumer mi, yamer bebyo do, kuyi kuji mi, hiipe bebyo do, no kuyi jaka kupe mi, hiiji jaka bebyo. 4. Befo bebyo do, ngo myodi yasi so, ngo sanga saro mi, befo giilyi ku, ngo kendi jaka hini mi, befo giilyi ku, no tahii ka tako mi, ngo befo jaka giilyi byo, piire piiyo so, no lyodi jaka lyomo mi, pale sampiir mi, befo giilyi ku, ngo hiido jaka hiilyang pa, harku bo pyalyu mi, no befo giilyii ku, no hiiji jaka hiipe mi, pale sampiir so, no ngudu jaka gyapo mi. 5. Befo giilyi ku, no hiiji jaka hiipe so, lyayi lyaki mi, befo liilyi byo, ngo lalyi lalyo so, lyayi bo nyimon mi, lyaki yapa mi, no befo jaka giilyi ku, ngo kutu kara mi, dima jaka dimpa so, befo giilyi ku, pabyu piise mi, tako lyaso mi, harku pyalyu so, no befo jaka giilyi ku, turo hirun mi, tango sanke mi, no befo jaka giilyi byo. 6. Piidi pari mi, no lyorii jaka lyomo so, sadi sapa so, no befo jaka giilyi ku, no paku puha mi, no sulu jaka padin so, befo giilyi ku, no kartu jaka karpo mi, no sama jaka sampo so, befo giilyi ku, hiido hiilyang pa, ngo aba nibo nyibu ngo, silo lolyang so, taku jaka tarii mi, lalyi lalyo so, biine paci mi, befo jaka giilyi ku, tuli hano mi, puko puro so, no befo jaka giilyi ku. 7. Kartu karpo mi, sama ka sampo so, befo giilyi ku, ngo coco ka dolo mi, lenda befo giilyi ku, cora piigia mi, ngo narun befo bilyi byo, hipu dulu mi, ngo garpii ka garta so, hiike lyange mi, ngo lenda ka tata so, lyanka kiira mi, no hai jaka hagio so, befo giilyi ku, ngo dobyu ka tamang mi, siican aju pa, bepo lyibyo ke, ngo layu jaka yato di, myodi amer pa, ngo popi popa mi, ngo siican jaka mudo so, befo lilyi byo, tasin taci mi, no kusu jaka kulyo so.

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8. Befo nebyo ke, siican nyimii pintii neko ke, myodi milo ka, no taro jaka heko byo, no siican jaka aju mi, jupo kubyo ke, myodi amer mi, no marko jaka kubyo ke, dogu nyimii ka, no cikin ka danii mi, no layu jaka milo ka, mekin danii mi, no dogu ka tamang di, ngo siican tendin sibo mi, myodi paba hango mi, ngo lalin jaka biido la, arki lalyang jaka piirii pa, dinyo kiile di, siican nyibu pintii kubyo ke. 9. Dogu nyimii si, niisin ka nyimii si, niilyi milo si, no pintii kubyo ke, myodi nyimii si, yasi milo si, no taro jaka kubyo ke, siican nyimii si, myodi milo taro neku byo, siican tendin neku byo, myodi paba neku byo, siican nyimii ka, pintii kane pa, no jilo jaka nyimii si, pintii neku pe, myodi milo ka, no taro kane pa, lyayu milo si, taro neku pe. 10. No benyi anyi ka, ngo taker dumi ka, ngo rici jaka nyimii si, pintii neku pe, kemyo milo si, no taro jaka neku pe, aba nibo di, ngo jilo jaka nyimii si, siican nyimii kane pa, pintii neku pe, no myodi jaka milo si, lyayu milo si, myodi milo ka, taro kane pa, lyayu milo taro neku pe, cantii kane pa, no jilo ka botii si, limin diidii lyato ku, lyayu jaka milo si, dotii kane pa, siira jimer jaka lyato ku. 6. Tapin Tajer 1. Siiro dodu lo, ngo dodu jaka aro so, aba nibo nyibu ngo, ngo ato doni jaka nyibu ngo, tiike rade mi, ngo taker jaka dumi mi, ngo pyabii bo tiicin so, pyali hecin so, ngo benyi anyi ka, ngo arki tajer mi, ngo aro jaka tapin mi, ngo jilo gulan mi, ngo rehu jaka nanii pa, lyayu bo lyili mi, ngo rehu jaka nanii pa, ngo pinku loder mi, ngo jorku loder mi.

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2. Ngo dader bo neku do, no niikun jaka anii di, siiro tiiran ja, dari jaka kiile di, niikun anii ka, no liitii jaka limi si, no tajer bo limi pa, no pyopi jaka cake le, niikun tajer si, no siitan jaka tajer do, niipa tapin si, siima ka tapin do, no tajer bo loder ja, no darma jaka dola mi, hintii anii ka, no siiro jaka tiiran ja, dari kiile di, no hintii anii ka, liitii limi si, no tajer ka limi pa, no popi bo kiile di, no hintii tajer si, binyi bo tajer do, no buha jaka tapin do, hintii baki si, hiilyo baki do, hiirii bami si, yai bami do, no tajer loder darma dolo mi. 3. Neha tarin ja, no siiro jaka tiiran si, dari kiile di, no neha jaka tarin ka, liitii liibi si, no popi jaka cake le, neha tarin si, tumbii tajer do, rabo tapin do, no tajer jaka, darma dola co, no tapin jaka loder si, darma dobyo ke, no arii jaka anii si, no siiro tiiran ja, no dari jaka kiile di, no arii anii ka, no liitii liibi si, no tajer jaka limi pa, popo kiile di, no anii jaka tajer si, nuro tajer do, tanyo tapin si, rago tapin do, dapo jaka tajer do, sampii tapin do. 4. Ngo aba nibo nyibu ka, ngo dotii bo gulan mi, ngo rehu jaka lakin ma, benyi anyi ka, no anii jaka mikin mi, dilyang siilo tonii di, no aba jaka mikin mi, bo supo jaka toku nii, benyi anyi ka, ngo balyi jaka mipin so, byutii budin jaka toku nii, no balu ka mapii so, byuro guke jaka toku nii, no ekun aro so, anii mikin ka, byutii budin so, no tabu jaka ai pa, hiiye popi jaka calyi nii, enyi aro so, no aba jaka mikin ka. 5. Byutii budin so, no sojan ka ala pa, no tayang calyi mi, pindo malya si, no balyi jaka mipin so, no ekun jaka alo so, ridde cadu mi, no balu jaka mapii so, tajer bo malya si, ripyang calyi mi,

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balyi bo tiipan mi, riko malyi co, no balu jaka siijo mi, ngo riber malyi co, no balyi jaka balu pa. 6. Ridde calyi mi, no benyi anyi ka, no siran jaka pako pa, byatu byago pa, tiipan calyi mi, no byago jaka tiipan mi, byago sillyo mi, ngo siran jaka pako mi, riber tiipan malyi bo, riber jaka calyi bo, benyi anyi ka, ngo tiike jaka rade ka, taker dumi ka, ngo arki tajer bo, no aro ka tapin pa, aba nibo nyibu ka, ngo jilo jaka gulan mi, ngo rehu nanii pa, ngo lyayu jaka lyili mi. 7. Aba nibo ka, ngo rehu jaka nanii pa, no tapin bo nasii si, popi calyi mi, tajer nabe hiire calyi mi, pindo pinko do, no jodo jaka joko do, tajer bo loder mi, ngo dadon jaka giilyi ku, no tapin loder do, ngo dadon jaka giilyi ku, no myodi jaka myoso si, no siipii siida pa, no ridde jaka calyi ku, no siipii tiipan mi, riko malyi ke, no siida jaka siijo mi, ngo riber mabyo ke, no siipii jaka siida ka, pobu reke pa, no ripyang jaka calyi mi, pobu tiipan mi, no riko jaka mabyo ke, reke siijo mi, no riber ka malyi bo. 8. Benyi anyi ka, ngo mantu jaka male pa, ridde calyi bo, no mantu jaka tiipan mi, no riko malyi bo, male siijo mi, no riber jaka malyi ke, mantu male ku, no riibii jaka riiho pa, ridde lilyi bo, no rebii jaka tiipan mi, riko bo malyi co, ngo riiho jaka siijo mi, riber malyi bo, ngo riber jaka tiipan pa, benyi anyi ka, no lubii jaka mepin pa, ridde lilyi bo, no lubii jaka tiipan mi, riko malyi ke, no luto jaka siijo mi. 9. No riber malyi ke, no luv jaka mepin ku, no botii bo siili pa, no ridde diilyi ku, no botii tiipan mi, riko di mabyo ke, no siili jaka siijo mi, no riber jaka mabyo ke, botii siili ka, no benyi jaka anyi ka, pantii jobii pa, no ridde jaka lilyi ku, pantii tiipan mi, no riko jaka malyi co, jobii siijo mi, no riber jaka malyi bo.

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10. Pantii jobii ku, no su jaka gorban so, no ridde bo nalyi bo, ngo su jaka tiipan si, riko malyi ke, no myoro gorban so, ridde lyibyo ke, no su jaka sampi mi, riber di mabyo ke, no su jaka gorban ku, pengu tenda ka, ngo kando jaka bakang ka, kalo bo gorban so, ngo pindo jaka malyang si, ridde lyibyo ke, no su jaka sampi mi, no ridde bo malyi co, ngo myoro jaka sampyo mi, riber malyi ke, ngo dilan jaka tenda ka, rido tari ka, no su jaka gorban so, no ridde lilyi bo, no su bo sandu mi, no ridde malyi ke. 11. Myoro hii su ja, riber ka malyi bo, su gorban ku, no pyuci jaka hapun ka, pyutii hale ka, sulan jaka yali ka, sukar yamu ka, no su jaka gorban so, pindo malyang si, no ridde jaka lilyi ku, ngo benyi anyi ka, arki bo tajer pa, aro jaka tapin pa, jilo bo gulan mi, no ridde jaka talyi ku, no kera jaka tenda ka, kera tada ka, kalo gorban so, no biirii tenda ka, torbo miti ka, no kalo jaka gorban so, pindo malyang si, ripyang jaka giilyi ku, no pyeci jaka tenda ka, rido tari ko, no hage jaka tatang ko, lampiir hiiki ka, ngo siike jaka hiba ka, kalo bo gorban so, ngo ridde rilyi ku. 12. Siya pyuli ka, ngo pyali jaka human ka, kalo gorban so, pabiir jaka tenda ka, onyi mirun ka, no kalo jaka gorban so, ridde lilyi bo, dango tatan ka, lehan tamang ka, no kalo jaka gorban ko, no arki bo tajer pa, no ridde jaka lilyi ku, aro bo tapin pa, ridde lilyi bo, yacii tatan ka, no yatii jaka tamang ka, no kalo jaka gorban so, landiir bakang ka, no piingo lalyang ka, no kalo jaka gorban so, no ridde lilyi bo, no kando jaka bakang ka.

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13. Pange lalyang ka, no lesin jaka talyi ka, lebya pilya ka, no supyu jaka mukur ka, gyayu bo mube ka, no kalo jaka gorban so, pindo malya ja, no ripyang jaka calyi mi, regan tatan ka, rebii tamang ka, no kalo jaka gorban so, tajer magyang ridde calyi mi, no ngiiko jaka bakang ka, ngiira bo lalyang ka, no hagin jaka yapin ka, pado lako ka, no piri jaka bobi ka, piingo lalyang ka, kalo jaka gorban so, pindo malyang di, no repyang jaka talyi ku, hulo tatan ka, yabyo jaka tamang ka, kalo bo gorban so, no tajer mugang ridde calyi mi. 14. No panyu bo tenda ka, norpi maji ka, pare tenda ka, nolya jaka maku ka, no kalo bo gorban so, no kiile jaka muye ka, kalo gorban so, no tajer jaka magyang si, ripe calyi bo, no yacu tenda ka, no cumi jaka cupo ka, dancii bakang ka, no dantii jaka lalyang ka, no kalo jaka gorban so, no tahu bo tenda ka, hudo koji ka, no kalo ka gorban so, tase tenda ka, no seda jaka milo ka, no kalo jaka gorban so, pindo balyang ka, ripyu calyi mi, no dancii bakang ka, dantii lalyang ka, no hadu jaka papi ka, kalo bo gorban so, tajer lalyang di, no ripyang jaka calyi mi. 15. No arki bo tajer pa, aro jaka tapin pa, no kalo jaka gulan mi, no ribo talyi co, no puyu jaka mendii ka, pulyang bo yamang ka, kalo jaka gorban so, pai tenda ka, pamum pinii ka, no pamum ka tenda ka, pai konii ka, kalo jaka konii so, no ridde calyi mi, tandin koji ka, kure lako ka, kalo jaka gorban so, lyapu jarjo ka, puko tamang ka, no kalo jaka gorban so. 16. Menko tapang ka, no kuyi jaka tamang ka, kalo ka gorban so, no kuyang jaka tatan ka, no pai bo taman ka, kalo gorban so, no tajer malyang ridde calyi bo, tapin balyang ja, no ridde jaka calyi mi, no tadin bo koji ko, no kure jaka lako ko,

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no catu bo tapu ka, dile tade ka, no kalo jaka gorban so, diipu tade ka, rambo hale ka, no kalo jaka gorban so, dolo yalyo ka, mando jaka yabo ka, no kalo jaka gorban so, tajer bo malyang si, ridde calyi bo, no jilo jaka gulan mi, no ribo jalyi bo, lyayu lyili mi, no yui jaka jalyi bo. 17. Larin taci ka, lambia jaka taha ka, no kalo gorban so, pepu empu ka, sala mado ka, no kalo gorban so, niigin bo yami ka, pusa budan ka, no kalo jaka gorban so, no rutii tenda ka, ru tagur ka, hatii tenda ka, ha tenda ka, no kalo jaka gorban so, landing bakang ka, paying lalyang ka, no palyu jaka gorban so, tendo malyang si, no ripyang jaka calyi mi, tajer malyang ja, no ripyang jaka dobyo mi, ngo nenker ka tenda ka, no pakur bo tudar ka, sa tenda ka, no doji dorii ka, kalo bo gorban so, no jilyu jaka kugu ka. 18. Mide kaga ka, no hasi ka taji ka, koke maku ka, ngo dinku jaka papu ka, sigan bo yalyo ka, kalo jaka gorban so, no ziro tenda ka, kobo pulo ka, kolin ka yombin ko, ngo nencan jaka tenda ka, dulyang bo miti ka tenda ka, kalo jaka gorban mi, no pindo balyang di, ripyang bo kubyo ke, jordo malyang mi, ngo rilyang jaka kubyo ke, gano tenda ka, ga hale mi, no burin yapin ka, dabo ho tamang ka, kalo gorban so, no tajer jaka balyang si, ripyang bo lyalyi bo, no jilo jaka gulan mi, no yui jaka calyi mi. 19. Ako soki ka, no aro jaka soli ka, gano tenda ka, ga hale ka, no duku jaka tenda ka, no dubo mutu ka, kalo gorban so, byaci murpin ka, byasan jaka yabyang ka, kalo bo gorban so, no cotar jaka malyi ka, laru bo maku ka, no kalo jaka gorban so, pindo malyang si, no ripyang jaka calyi mi, ragung rinyo ko, no tenda jaka tenda ka, no rinyo miti ka, no kalo jaka gorban so, ridde calyi mi, no arki tajer bo, aro jaka tapin bo. siike bo tenda ka, malyi ka, no lanta jaka maku ka,

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appendix d kalo gorban so, no tenda jaka malyang si, no ripyang jaka calyi bo, diiko jaka tatan ka, kombu tamang ka, kalo jaka gorban so, no tajer bo malyang si, no ripyang jaka calyi mi, benyi anyi ka, no arki tajer pa, no aro bo tapin pa, no malyi kubyo ke.

20. Aba nibo ka, ngo dotii jaka tajer pa, ato doni ka, penji tapin pa, no rehu jaka hebyo ke, benyi anyi ka, no pyakun jaka tiigin pa, perre hegin pa, ngo aba nibo nyibu pa, ngo pyakun bo tiigin pa, perre hegin pa, ngo tajer jaka loder mi, dadur bo hebyo ke, ngo tapin jaka loder mi, ngo dadur jaka kubyo ke, pengu tenda ka, ngo kando jaka bakang ka, no kalo jaka gorban so, kalo bo nyimii ja, pintii toko so, ngo tajer jaka sirre mi, rupyo bo lyiku byo, benyi anyi ka, no arki tajer pa, aro bo tapin pa, ngo tajer jaka malyang si, ridde halyi ku. 21. Ngo tajer bo hii siirii mi, ngo ricur jaka jalyi so, benyi anyi ka, ngo rici jaka yaji mi, kemyo yalo mi, ngo endin lyakun yaji mi, dalo sibo yalo mi, ngo yui yaji mi, aba nibo ka, ngo ruhi jaka yaji mi, kemyo yalo mi, no endin lyakun yaji mi, ngo jilo bo yaji mi, ngo lyayu jaka yalo mi, ngo tajer ka siirii si, rupu malyi la, ngo tapin jaka siirii si, ngo rupu jaka malyi bo, aba nibo ka, ngo jilo jaka jaka nyimii si, tajer bo kane pa, no nyimii jaka kane pa, no jilo jaka nyimii si, pintii lalya to, no lyayu jaka jilo bo si, no tapin jaka jilo bo si, taro kane pa, no lyayu milo taro dato ku. 22. Benyi anyi ka, ngo tiike jaka rade ka, taker dumi ka, no rici jaka nyimii si, kemyo milo si, no dalo sibo nyimii si, endin lyakun milo si, no tajer ka kane pa, no nyimii jaka kane pa, pintii lalya to, no tapin jaka kane pa, no milo jaka kane pa, taro lalya to, ngo aba nibo nyibu di, jilo bo botii ja, no cantii kane pa,

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jilo dimi tini bo, hiilya to dotii kane pa, ngo lyayu jaka katu si, siira jimer lalya to, ngo tajer jaka lanke mi, tapin bo lama mi, cantii kane pa, hiiyin lanke jaka lyiku bo, dotii kane pa, ngo menge lama jaka giilyi ku. 7. Jilo Gyoniin 1. Siiro dodu lo, ngo dodu jaka aro so, aba nibo nyibu ngo, ngo ato doni jaka nyibu ngo, bulyo kiilo ka, ngo aba jaka kiilyi mi, aba nibo nyibu ngo, ngo ato doni jaka nyibu ngo, ngo siilo lolyang so, ngo aba lapang jaka pulyang so, benyi anyi mi, ngo tiike rade mi, taker dumi mi, ngo pyabii jaka tiigin pa, pyali hegin pa, ngo sulin jaka gilyin pa, kibo pelin pa, no pyakun jaka tiigin pa, perre hegin pa, no biilyo jaka kolo di, aba kiilyi mi, pyakun jaka tiigin mi, aba kiilo mi, perre hegin bo, ngo arki ditu mi, tupyo bo giinii bo, aro jaka ditu mi, no tupyo jaka giinii bo. 2. Tentii ditu mi, no paging jaka ditu mi, diyu ditu ka, no tugi jaka giinii ka, no yarnii bo gyonii ka, no jilo jaka patan mi, nondu talyi la, ngo aba nyibu ka, pyakun ja tiigin pa, perre hegin pa, ngo yarnii jaka gyonii ka, jilo patan mi, lyayu jaka pabin mi, ngo nondu bo talyi la, ngo jilo jaka piigia mi, ngo piigia jaka talyi la, jilo yaru ka, ngo ruma jaka danii mi, ngo ru miigii talyi la, lyayu bo yapin ka, pima jaka danii mi. 3. Piyu miigii bo talyi la, no jilo jaka patan bo, dolo talan ka, hango lotii ka, ngo pikun jaka yako so, jilo lyingo di, ngo pa yamang co, ngo hambo tadu ka, sibo lotu ka, no pikun yako so, no lyayu jaka lyigo si, ngopa yama co, ngo jilo ka yaru si, no rutii jaka yato ku, lyayu yapin ja, pintu lalya to, ngo aba jaka kiilyi ka, pinku rila ka, ngo rido ja koye mi, ngo aba kiilo ka, jorku rile ka, rido jaka koye mi, jilo kino ja, nondu jaka talyi ku, ngo jilo jaka kino si, nondu lalya to.

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4. Ngo jilo jaka ruma mi, lyayu bo pima mi, ngo jilo jaka mimi mi, lyayu mama mi, ngo gulan ka giici mi, lyilyi kiibe mi, pinku piinsii mi, no jorku jaka jorsu mi, tapyu tudii mi, no tabyo jaka tupo mi, jilo goman mi, lyayu ka lyima mi, ngo aba nibo nyibu ngo, jilo kino ja, ngo nonpu tama la, ngo lyayu jaka kino si. 5. Nonpu malyi ke, ngo anii lantii ka, ngo casan jaka laru so, jilo nitun mi, yalin libyo ke, ngo diima jaka ditun pa, hama nitun ja, yalin lyibyo ke, aba nibo nyibu ngo, ngo jilo jaka kino mi, nondu jalyi so, ngo jilo jaka hani mi, lyayu hake mi, ngo jilo ka kimi mi, lyayu layin mi, ngo jilo gonda mi, ngo lyayu jaka lyida mi, jilo soso mi, lyayu yoyo mi, ngo jilo jaka kino si, nondu talyi ku, lyayu kino si, nondu jaka talyi la. 6. Kaju minte lo, ngo anii relyang ka, ngo bisi bilin ka, bilin yalyi so, ngo tapyu jaka bisi mi, bipo liti nii, ngo aba rebo ka, husi hulyi so, ngo tabyo husi mi, hupo toku nii, ngo ane relyang ka, bombii likan so, pintu jaka hiilyi so, ngo tapyu jaka pintu si, hipo teku nii, ngo aba rebo ka, no relyang ka sanco so, julun myalyi so, ngo tabyo julun di, ngo myapo tiiku nii, pintu nyanyi ka, nyempo nyanyi so, no tapyu jaka nyanyi si, nyembo tiiku nii, ngo poju ka ulun ka, no usi jaka nyalyi so, jorku ulun si, umpo tiiku nii, pinii haker jilo bo, kaju minte lo, ngo siyo hara jaka lyayu bo, kaju minte lo, ngo haker lapang so, no gyokar ja budu la, myolyi tapa la, tabi arre ka, no nyanyi jaka jilo bo, hare lapang so, gyore budu la, no myobya ka tapa la, tarsi arre ka, yarnii jilo bo, no kaju jaka minte lo. 7. Asan tapa la, dotii yarnii bo, no aha jaka tapa do, penji yarnii kaju minte lo, ngo yarnii jaka jilo ka, mitu kocin ka, muyi rilun bo sarti kocin, mulyo rija bo, apu alu ka, no ada ka ama bo, junsi papi ka, suto jarbo lo, no sulyi jaka padan ka, jilo tago lo, no ruji dabo lo, no kaju minte lo, pyabii tiicin ka, pyali helin bo, ngo jilo patan ka,

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kaju minte lo, ngo gyonii ka yarnii ka, jilo patan mi, nondu lyibyo ke, yarnii gyonii ka, ngo nondu jaka lyibyo ke, hakar lyili ka, pinii yarnii bo, ngo hare ka lyili ka, siyo yarnii ka. 8. Kaju minte lo, karii lyili ka, ngo kolyung ka yarnii bo, tako lyili ka, liitu yarnii bo, ngo gulan jaka lyili ka, poter yarnii ka, doji lyili ka, no metii yarnii bo, santi lyili ka, ngo botii jaka yarnii ka, sari lyili ka, ngo yarnii bo, tali lyili ka, ngo lyadii jaka yarnii ka, dacan lyili ka, gyolan ka yarnii bo, ngo aru jaka koho ka, yarnii gyonii ka, jilo patan mi, ngo pyakun jaka tiigin pa, perre hegin pa, nondu lyibyo ke. ngo cantu ka lyili ka, popi yarnii bo, diika lyili ka, ngo sarmin jaka yarnii ka, piilan lyili ka, no lyapin jaka yarnii bo lanje lyili ka, pinsan yarnii ka, no tace lyili ka, kiiri yarnii bo, kempu lyili ka, neli jaka yarnii ka, murta lyili ka, rontii ka yarnii bo, biyu jaka lyili ka, ronsan yarnii ka, no rupu lyili ka, kirun jaka yarnii bo, ayen lyili ka, kilo yarnii bo, bindu lyili ka, siikki yarnii bo, tatu lyili ka, no carun ka yarni bo, tata lyili ka, rintii yarnii ka, no biilii lyili ka, riiji yarnii bo, dilan lyili ka, no nipu jaka yarnii ka, pinku lyili ka, nyime yarnii bo, ngo jorku lyili ka, gyame bo yarnii bo, no garlan ka lyili ka, pyotii yarnii bo, hilan lyili ka, no dadu jaka yarnii ka, landu lyili ka, liitii yarnii ka, piiri jaka lyili jaka, ketun jaka yarnii bo, nyodu lyili ka, no cudu yarnii bo, aju lyili ka, ngo lyike jaka yarnii ka, siiju lyili ka, danyi yarnii bo, no piimar lyili ka, no lubii jaka yarnii bo, canya lyili ka, mepin yarnii ka, no tatu jaka lyili ka, heri bo yarnii ka,

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appendix d kordu lyili ka, no pungio jaka yarnii bo, halan lyili ka, korlan jaka yarnii ka no murta lyili ka, myorii yarnii ka taha lyili ka, myole jaka yarnii bo.

9. Yarnii gyonii ka, jilo patan mi, ngo nitin biko lyibyo ke, marti lyili ka, cidu yarnii bo, lalyi lyili ka, siicu yarnii bo, siitor lyili ka, talya yarnii bo, gyolan lyili ka, gyo yarnii bo, ruji lyil ka, su yarnii bo. 10. Yarnii gyonii ka, jilo patan mi, ngo nitin biko lyibyo ke, yarnii tace hudii la, aba nibo mi, ngo biilyo jaka kolo so, ngo pyakun tiigin giinii mi, perre hegin genii mi, nitin biko siilyi, yarnii tace yadii la, tatu pubo so, no tari jaka lalya to, biilyo kolo ka, lipa kalo ka, kalo jaka jilo ka, yarnii gyonii ka, jilo patan mi, ngo nitin duko sudu no, donyi hoda ka, yardan tatan mi, no yarnii jilo bo, ngo nitin ka cokan ka, tabii lyili mi, hormin cokan ka, ngo tarsi berri ka, yarnii jilo bo, no papin tenda ka, no pindo kangu mi, yarnii jilo bo, pame tenda ka, no medo kage mi, no yarnii jaka jilo bo, nyomping tenda ka, hitu punu mi, hacan tenda ka, rido tari mi, yarnii jilo bo, no kaju jaka minte lo. 11. Siiber lempii ka, kahu miru mi, ngo sibo lempii ka, kahu buru mi, no yarnii jaka jilo bo, ngo dulu kanu mi, dula kage mi, dotii penji mi, ngo dalyang ka canja mi, yarnii jilo bo, kaju minte lo, ngo aha jaka lyanko ka, bidu ato carun mi, tapyu carun mi, ngo habu so, kebo lako mi, segii bo, ngo yarnii jaka gyonii ka, alyo konso mi, ca gulyo mi, no alyo jaka cabii la, alyo konso mi, koji siilyi pa, no hulu jaka hargi bo, doha gulyo mi, alyo cabii la, no artii riimin mi, no silyang mi, lili jaka, lilan cabii la, hulu hagi bo, buru nyibu mi, no takin pa tara pa, susan ngiigii bo, delyang nyibu mi, no tako goda pa, sa bubii bo, konku nyibu ni, no susan jaka ngogii la,

transcription of the subu heniin sanbii hargii bo, pyaro nyibu mi, no hiju jaka ngogii la, dico pegii bo, no yarnii jilo bo, no kaju jaka minte lo, jilo kino mi, nondu giilyi ku, ngo lyayu jaka kino mi, no kolo bo, biilyo kolo ka, ngo lilyi bakan mi, ngo tapyu jaka pegii bo, borbe lalyang mi, tabyo legii bo, pyotii kampu mi, kokan begii bo, no dadu jaka kanda mi, dulan bengii bo, yarnii jilo bo. 12. No kaju minte lo, no lipa kalo ka, kalo jilo mi, ngo nondu jaka giilyi ku, myodi kalo ka, kalo jilo mi, ngo nondu jaka neku do, pyabii tiicin so, pyali hecin so, no rigan ka tatan mi, yarnii jilo ka, rebii tamo mi, no yarnii jaka jilo bo, supyu muku, gyayu mube mi, yarnii jilo bo, nesi taji mi, nebya jaka pilya mi, no yarnii jaka jilo ka, kando bakang mi, pange lalyang mi, no yarnii jaka jilo bo, piiri bobi mi, puyo lalyang mi, no hagin jaka yapin mi, pado tako mi, ngiiko jaka bakang mi, ngiira lalyang mi, yarnii gyoniin bo, no kaju jaka minte lo, no palyu lyili ka, norpi malyi mi, no parre jaka tenda ka, kulo tatan mi, yabyo jaka tamang mi, no yarnii jaka jilo bo, tahu tenda ka, hudo koji mi, no tase jaka tenda ka, sedo milo mi, yarnii ka jilo bo, yacu tenda ka, cubin cupo mi, no yabyo jaka tenda ka, byomi byopo mi, no yarnii jaka jilo bo, hadu papi mi, no danci bakang mi, dantii lalyang mi, yarnii jilo bo, no puri jaka mendii mi, piilan yamyang mi, no gano jaka tenda ka, ga hale mi, birin jaka yapin mi, dado tamang mi, jilo jaka yarnii bo. 13. No aba nibo nyibu mi, pyakun tiigin pa, perre hegin pa, ngo jilo jaka piigia mi, gyayu bo giilyi ku, nopai tenda ka, no pamum jaka pinii mi, amum tenda ka, pai konii mi, no yarnii jaka jilo bo, tadin koji mi, kure lako mi, no yarnii jaka gyonii bo, lyapu jarjo mi, puko tamang mi, no yarnii jaka gyonii ka, jilo tamang bo, lyayu pabin ka, no kuyi tatan mi, menko tatan mi, no kiyan ka koji mi, pai tamang mi, yarnii jilo bo, no catu jaka tapu mi,

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appendix d dile tade mi, dipii tenda ka, no rambo jaka hale mi, yarnii hu jilo bo, dolo yalyo mi, mando jaka yabo mi, jilo yarnii jilo bo, kaju minte lo, no larin jaka taci mi, lembya taha mi, pepu empu mi, no sala jaka dolyang mi, yarnii gyonii ka, jilo patan bo, niigin yamin mi, pusa budan mi, ngo landing ka bakang mi, pai lalyang mi, yarnii jilo bo, nenker tenda ka, pakar tuda mi, no sa jaka tenda ka, doji dori mi, rutii tenda ka, no ru jaka tago mi, hatii tenda ka, ha tamang mi, no yarnii jaka jilo bo, landiir bakang mi, pungo lalyang mi, no yaci jaka tatan mi, yatu tamang mi, jilyu ku mi, nide kaga mi, harsi tai mi, no koke jaka maku mi.

14. Yarnii yalo bo, ziro bo tenda ka, no kobo jaka pulo mi, kodin yombi mi, nencang tenda ka, ngo dulyang miti mi, yarnii jilo bo, no harsii jaka taji mi, koke maku mi, siigan jaka yalyo mi, diku papu mi, no gubu ka lyagi mi, no yarnii jaka jilo bo, pyuli huji mi, no si jaka human mi, pabur tenda ka, onyi mirun leyo mi, no dango tenda ka, talyang tatan mi, lampiir jaka yaki mi, siike hiba mi, hage tatan mi, no peci jaka tenda ka, rido pyali mi, no biirii jaka tenda ka, no turbo jaka miti mi, yarnii jilo bo, keran tada mi, no byaci murpin mi, byasan bo yabyang mi, no gano tenda ka, no ga hale mi, no duku jaka tenda ka, no duru mitu mi, alo soki mi, no aro soli mi, kotur malyi mi, laru jaka maku mi, no yarnii jilo bo, hiya pilya mi, ngo tiina ka rinyo mi, harci tatan mi, hartu tamang mi, no kotur jaka malyi mi, laru maku mi, keran ka tada mi, no biirii jaka tenda ka, pyeci tenda ka, no rido jaka tari mi, yarnii jilo bo, pengu tenda ka, no kando bakang mi, pyuci hapun, pyutu hale mi, no siilan jaka yali mi, siikre yamun mi, no diko tatan mi, no kobu jaka tamang mi, siikre maji mi, lanta maku mi, no yarnii jaka jilo bo, hadu popi mi, dip tenda ka, no rambo jaka hale ka, kalo yarnii jilo mi, nondu giilyi byo, ngo aba jaka kiilyi ka.

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15. Ditu tujin giinii ka, yarnii gyonii ka, no kiiyi jaka popi ka, kiitii sarmin, dilan pengu da, no tatin jaka targu mi, mudo kago mi, tatan tamang mi, doji lampu, tawa jaka roto mi, roto hape mi, mudo jaka kago mi, kenci kume mi, kabu pali mi, ngo delyang jaka pilya mi, pyudu miige mi, ngo turu ka patu mi, ngo tiipya jaka lima mi, delyang miiju mi, no aba jaka kiilyi mi, pyudu miige mi, ngo arki ditu ka, tulin jaka giinii mi, nondu jaka lyibyo ke, cajin bo giinii ka, yarnii gyonii ka, jilo patan mi, kiilyi popi mi, kiitii sarmin mi, no yarnii jaka jilo mi, nondu lyibyo ke. 16. Ngo jalyang ka likan do, siire linyi da, haci pabu ka, ngo hartii jaka pabu so, diibo tajer mi, no mici jaka tabyo mi, no sa hu siinya mi, no tai jaka hasi mi, dolo take mi, talyang taker mi, tado rade mi, to ka hana mi, koji bo hiran mi, no kiiyi jaka popi mi, no ditu tulyi giinii mi, ngo jalyang ka likan ka, ngo siire bo linyi ka, kiilyi popi mi, ngo yarnii gyonii ka, ngo ditu tiinii giinii mi, kiitii sarmin mi, ngo subaya calyi giinii mi, ngo jilo kiimin mi, lyayu lamin mi, ngo nondu jaka lyibyo ke. 17. Aba nibo nyibu ka, ngo ponu harcang so, ngo tatu lalu siilyi mi, jinyo tiibyo ke, ulun unsi si, no abu ungii lyato ku, no lyayu ka ulun si, ala ungii lyato ku, jilo piigia mi, no lyayu jaka giilyi bo, siilan likan da, siikre ka linyi da, kosan bo koyang mi, talyang jaka taker mi, kamii haco mi, no lali jaka hale mi, mubi bo lali mi, ngo tamang ka taka mi, no kiiyi jaka popi mi, arki ditu ka tulyi giinii bo, no yali yalu jilo ka, kaju minte lo, ngo tapyu lalu si mi, rinyo tubyo ke, no ulu jaka ulun si, unsin lato ku, ponu likan da, utu linyi da, no nentin papu da, si lambiir da, diko kombu da.

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appendix d

18. Ngo taco jaka silo mi, tai eka mi, dibo kaco mi, no lalyang bo silo mi, dibo haku mi, tiiba bo taku mi, ngo mando jaka kago mi, danyi nyipa mi, lalyang piibia mi, ngo cabur jaka haku mi, lihan tadu mi, halo taker mi, punu kamin mi, nana sambyo mi, ngo tusan jaka rade mi, no kiilyi popi mi, yarnii jilo bo, no kiitii sarmin mi, lonii lyayu bo kaju minte lo, ngo tapyu lalu si, paji jaka lyibyo ke, lyakun ore sukun, lyinyo tubyo ke, no ulu jaka ulun si, unsin lato ku, lyayu jaka ulun si, no usin ka lyayu to. 19. Jilo kino mi, ngo nondu jaka lyiku bo, ngo nencang ka jilo da, kiile miide da, ditii latii da, ngo kiilyi ka popi mi, yarnii jilo bo, diyu solo mi, ngo doni jaka hiki mi, nembu nenda mi, miso halyi mi, ngo sha habung mi, no kani jaka tari mi, pai ce mi, taker bumer mi, no rubu jaka cigin mi. 20. Yarnii gyonii ka, jilo patan bo, no kaju jaka minte lo, taku siidi da, no panyu ka yube da, nenker kago mi, no abo jaka padi mi, shaha habung mi, tupe duyu mi, ngo miido jaka koda mi, diibo nyime mi, no kiilyi jaka popi mi, no arki ditu ka, tugin jaka giinii bo, no aro jaka subyang mi, calyi bo giinii ka, yarnii gyonii ka. 21. Ngo jilo patan bo, kaju minte lo, ranci rantii da, no tailyang jaka yahi mi, kaco riku mi, lali pali mi, mom sanka mi, dolo rabi mi, no lod jaka nyime mi, yarnii gyonii ka, jilo patan bo, no kaju minte lo, jilo kino mi, ngo nondu gulyi byo, ngo tapyu lalu siilyi mi, panyi bo giitu ke, jorku ore jaka sukun mi, no jinyo tubyo ke. 22. Kaju minte lo, no rantii pige da, liga bo megyang da, neyun saran da, no tamang jaka taran mi, tame bo buke mi, no koji pilya mi, no marpu bo eka mi, taru kago mi, no tamen jaka milo mi, mitan libya mi, doging loda mi, no mudo jaka hiro mi, ciging bo mipya mi, ngudu tiibo mi,

transcription of the subu heniin no aba jaka kulyi mi, arki ditu mi, aro siilyang mi, no capyang jaka giinii ka, yarnii gyonii bo, jilo patan bo, no kaju minte lo, ngo aba nibo di, ponu harcan so, ngo tapyu jaka lalu ka, lalu si mi, ngo jinyo jaka bitu ke, ngo jorku orre ka, orre bo sukun, ngo jinyo jaka bitu ka, ulu ulun ja, lyayu ka ulun si, no unsin jaka bito ku, kaju minte lo, aba nibo ka, ngo pyakun jaka tiigin pa, perre hegin pa, yarnii jilo mi, ngo nondu jaka lyibyo ke. 23. Lampiir likan da, ngo siike linyi da, talyang taker mi, no kardo ka punyo mi, nalyi haci mi, no tayen jaka taco mi, dotii mude mi, turu saji mi, no yani jaka gode ka, jilo bo patan no, hasang pulo mi, no tamin jaka radhe mi, hipu habung mi, nitin tibyo mi, no pada siilo mi, nanu bo take mi, dolyang lampung mi, ngo dalyang jaka danyi mi, neha tiibo mi, bimbo tinyo mi, no loci jaka hari mi, tupe rade mi, aba kiilyi mi, no arki ditii ka, tugin bo giinii ka, no yarnii giinii ka, no jilo jaka patan bo, kaju minte lo, ngo jilo jaka piigia mi, ngo gayu bo giilyi bo, ngo aba nibo nyibu ka, ponu harcan so, ngo tapyu jaka lalu ka, lalu si mi, ngo jinyo jaka tubyo ke, aba kiilyi ka, ngo pinku koye ka, ngo rido jaka koye mi, jilo kino ja, nondu giilyi byo, ngo dolo talan mi, hambo tadu mi, siiri lilyi byo, loki kiilyi bo, no kiidu dugii bo, yarnii gyonii ka, kibo calyi bo, ngo jilo yarnii patan bo. 24. Tupan likan so, tile linyi so, no bungu jaka bumi mi, ahi ako mi, canter camar mi, nyilyi jaka rake mi, lido linya mi, tado tapyo mi, no pyali jaka popa mi, gyatun pamiir mi, ngo lyica jaka nire mi, lubo gembo mi, pyali hao mi, lali tara mi, nyitu nyilum mi, no talo ka tadu mi, durun dui, no lali jaka tara mi, talo tadu mi, jothan jaka joran mi, laji bido mi, kupe mai mi, no pai jaka poru mi, nabum tabia mi, dolo talan mi, no siili jaka yargii bo,

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appendix d hambo tadu mi, loki kiibo bo, no yarnii jaka jilo bo, kaju minte lo, ngo aba nibo jaka nyibu ka, ngo jilo jaka kino ka, nondu lyalyi so, lyayu kino mi, ngo nondu jaka lyalyi so.

25. Aba nibo nyibu mi, hulu harja lo, no lyayu jaka gyajo lo, ako tahu mi, no hulu jaka harko so, ralo pabu mi, no hulu harko so, siitin kiiyi mi, siire pamar mi, no hulu jaka harko so, piigia lyima mi, piiyo goman mi, harlya du la, byuci pesii ja, no gudar ka mane ko, butii mander ja, gudar yoma la, no aba nibo nyibu mi, hulu harja lo, no pyotii kampu mi, kampu gulan mi, abo yordan pa, dadu kanda mi, kanda gulan mi, no abo jaka yordan pa, dimin pulyang so, konku gulan mi, no abo jaka yordan pa, siral apang so, patii lanco mi, no abo jaka yordan pa, hulu hade lato pe, yarnii gyonii ka. 26. Ngo jilo ka kemi bo, lyayu layin mi, jilo soso mi, ngo lyayu ka yoyo mi, pyabii tiigin pa, no pyali jaka hegin pa, pyakun tiigin pa, perre hegin pa, no siilin jaka gicin pa, siicur corgin pa, jilo kino mi, sulo lolyang so, nondu lyibyo ke, ngo jilo jaka piigia mi, gayu giilyi ku, aba kiilyi ka, ngo pinku rila ka, ngo rido koye mi, apa kiilo ka, no jorku rila ka, ngo rido jaka koye mi, lyayu piigia mi, gayu giilyi ku, ngo jilo ka botii ka, tapyu lalu si, palyi kubyo ke, ngo jorku ala jaka sukun mi, jinyo tubyo ke, ulu ulun si, no abu ungu lyato ku, lyayu ulun si, ala unka lyato ku, cantii kane pa, hiiyi lanke jaka giilyi ku, dotii kane pa, menge lama jaka giilyi ku. 8. Duttu Hayu 1. Siilo dodu lo, ngo aba nibo nyibu ngo, siilo lolyang so, ngo benyi anyi mi, ngo pyabii jaka tiicin so, pyali hecin so,

transcription of the subu heniin ngo duttu loder mi, ngo dadun jaka neku do, hayu loder mi, dadun neku do, no iipyo jaka ami pa, duttu tamang lu, salin lyico lo, no wi jaka aban pa, hayu yato di, salin jaka kiile di, iipyo ami pa, ngo diidii jaka pulo so, wi aban pa, lyamo pulo so, ngo palan nisang lyi, palyi niire lyi, mudo tiida ka, popi popa mi, no diman kunyo giilyi bo, dimpa panyo giilyi bo, mudo tiida ka, no peji pepu mi, rutin bimbo giilyi bo, mudo tiida ka, no pelo pelan mi, rombo biihin giilyi bo, mudo tiida ka, no pando tiipan mi, bitu bibo giilyi bo, mudo tiida ka, no jodo sejo mi, biro bike giilyi bo, no mudo jaka tiida ka, byundo tagyung mi, lyindi biihi jaka giilyi ku, mudo jaka tiida ka, rado tara mi, no marpu bihi giilyi bo, ngo diidii pulo so, lyamo pulo so. 2. Ngo iipyo jaka ami pa, nyibu aban pa, lyanko tenda ka, no aju jaka yame mi, piipii piirii lyibyo mi, lyandi tenda ka, no doju jaka milo mi, biida darii kiile di, diidii pulo so, no lyamo jaka pulo so, mu kepii si, no kebe jaka giinii ku, tamang heko si, no cibyo berre, diidii pulo so, lyamo pulo so, no saye jaka mire na, rutii bosi mi, rutii pipin pa, no sabu giilyi ku, hatii bosi mi, ha manya pa, no sabu giilyi ku. 3. Saye mire la, talyang tabya mi, no siilyi siido mi, sii mi bo siigin mi, habung liilyi mi, no sai jaka mire la, siilan bo siike mi, sabung jaka kiile di, no puyi loder si, lyanko loder ja, darma dula mi, ngo duttu pinsan mi, tangiir pinsan pa, hayu rulan mi, ngo ngiipe jaka rulan pa, rutii hatii ka, paba lolyang so, ngo tangiir pinsan mi, dinyo kiile di, ngiipe rulan mi, no hanyo jaka kiile di, uku surin si, unu uci giido mi, no yoku siiso si, yolii yoci giido mi, no duttu pinsan si, no tangiir pinsan ajang lakin ma, hayu rulan si, ngiipe rulan si, no aliir jaka lakin ma, cipii ciidii mi, cidu cirii mi.

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4. Ngo anu niisan jaka rulan ja, aban niide rulan di, no kuru jaka kime ka, landing paying ka, pabyang lolyang so, no tangiir jaka pinsan mi, siigin tarsi pa, siile male pa, ngo tangiir ka pinsan mi, dinyo kiile di, uku siiri si, no unii jaka uci kendo mi, nyoku siiso si, no yonii jaka kenda di, ngo tangiir pinsan di, ajang jaka lakin ma, ngiipe rulan si, aliir lakin ma, bilyo kolo di. 5. Ngo niigin jaka pusa ka, myolya saru ka, paba lolyang so, ngo cipii ciidii mi, anu niisan giido la, cidu cirii mi, ngo aban nude giido la, tangiir bo pinsan mi, duttu pinsan pa, ngo ngiipe jaka rulan mi, hayu rulan pa, dinyo kiile di, no uku jaka siirin si, unii uci kendo, nyoko suso si, no yolii yoci kendo mi, duttu pinsan, tangiir pinsan si, no ajang jaka lakin ma, no ayu bo rulan ka, ngiipe ajang lakin ma, ngo tanan siya ka, balyi jaka ngiira ka, ngo yaci yatii ka, ngo pabang lolyang so, no cipii cirii mi, ngo anu nusan giido la, cidu cirii mi, aban niide giido la, ngo siigin tarsi pa, siile male pa, ngo tangiir jaka pinsan mi, dinyo kiile di, ngiipe rulan mi, ngo dinyo jaka kiile di, uku surin si, unii uci kendo mi, no nyoku jaka siiso si, yolii yoci kendo mi, tangiir pinsan si, no ajan ka lama do, ngiipe rulan si, aliir jaka lama do. 6. Landur piingo ka, cilan culyu ka, no paba jaka lolyang ja so, ngo cipii hii ciidii mi, anu niisan jaka giido la, cidu ka cirii mi, aban niide giido la, tangiir pinsan mi, ngo dinyo jaka kiile di, ngiipe rulan mi, dinyo kiile di, no uku siirin si, unii uci kiilyi mi, nyoku siiso si, yolii yoci kendo mi, tangiir bo pinsan, ajang lakin ma, no ngiipe jaka rulan si, aliir lakin ma, no sipyu jaka gyayu ka, karin parin ka, yolyang tagio ka, no paba ka lolyang so, siigin tarsi pa, siile male pa, ngo tangiir jaka pinsan mi, duttu pinsan dinyo kiile di, no ngiipe jaka rulan mi, hayu rulan pa, dinyo kiile di, no uku surin si, unii uci kendu mi, nyoku siiso si, no yolii yoci kendo mi,

transcription of the subu heniin tangiir pinsan, ajang lakin ma, no ngiipe jaka rulan ka, aliir bo lakin ma, no kandu jaka pange ka, tayo milo ka, no pabang jaka lolyang so, cipii cirii mi, anu niisan jaka giido la, ngo cidu jaka cirun mi, aban niide giido la, no siigin tarsi pa, ngo siile jaka male pa, tangiir pinsan, dinyo kiile di, ngo ngiipe jaka rulan mi, dinyo kiile di, no uku siirin lo, unii uci kendo ke, yokii siiso si, no yolu yoci kendo mi, tangiir pinsan, ajang lakin ma, ngo ngiipe jaka rulan si, aliir lakin ma. 7. Gume lentii ka, babo pari ka, susan lampiir ka, ngo pabang jaka lolyang so, cipii cirii mi, anu niisan ka giido la, ngo cirii jaka cidu mi, aban niide huhu dola, tangiir pinsan mi, no dinyo jaka kule di, ngiipe rulan mi, hanyo kiile di, no uku jaka surin si, unii uci kendu mi, yoku siiso si, no yolu yoci kendo mi, tangiir pinsan, ajang lakin ma, no ngiipe jaka rulan si, duttu pinsan ja, hayu rulan si, no ajang jaka lakin ma, nyenci penji ka, liiri liilyang ka, paba lolyang so, cipii cirii mi, ngo anu niisan giido la, cidu cirii mi, aban niide giido la, ngo tangiir ka pinsan mi, siigin tarsi pa, siile male pa, ngo tangiir pinsan dinyo kiile di, uku sirre di, unii uci jaka kelu mi, no yoku siiso lu, yolu yoci kendu mi, tangiir pinsan si, no ajang jaka lakin ma. 8. Diibo muntii ka, no pakang ka toke ka, nano para ka, no pabang lolyang so, cipii ciidii mi, anu niisan giido la, no cidu ka cirii, aban niide giido la, siigin tarsi pa, siile jaka male pa, ngo duttu pinsan, tangiir jaka pinsan mi, no dinyo kiile di, no uku siirin ja, unii uci kendo mi, no yoku siiso si, yolu yoci kendu mi, tangiir pinsan si, duttu pinsan, ajang ka lakin ma, ngo hagin jaka pado ka, piiri puyo ka, no pabang ka lolyang so, cipii ciidii mi, no anu niisan giido la, ngo cidu jaka cirii mi, aba niide giido la, siigin tarsi pa, ngo siile ka male pa,

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appendix d tangiir pinsan dinyo kiile di, uku sirre du, no unii uci kendu mi, yoku siiso si, yolu yoci kendo mi, no tangiir pinsan ja, ajang lakin ma, panyu jaka pare ka, kiile pange ka, pabang ka lolyang so, ngo cipii ciidii mi, anu niisan giido la, cidu jaka cirii mi, duttu pinsan, tangiir pinsan mi, ngo dinyo jaka kiile di, uku sirre ja, unii uci kendo mi, nyoku siiso si, yolu yoci kendu mi, tangiir pinsan mi, no ngiipe rulan ajang lakin ma.

9. Ngo panii siran jaka kempa di, dinyo giilyi ku, no kimin ka kudu ka, kiire kiipa ka, pabang lolyang so, no siigin tarsi pa, siile male pa, tangiir pinsan si, duttu pinsan di, dinyo kiile di, no nyibo jaka tajer co, konju rici kendo, nyito taro di, koda paci kendo mi, no tangiir pinsan di, ajan lakin ma, ngiipe rulan si, no aliir lakin ma. biilyo kolo di, no kulo ka yabyo ka, soka petii ka, pabang lolyang so, so siigin tarsi pa siile male pa, tangiir pinsan dinyo kiile di no nyibo tajo lu, konju rici kendo nyito taro lu, no koda paci kendo mi, duttu pinsan tangiir pinsan di, no ajang jaka lakin ma, no yacu jaka yaja ka, binyo hii tago ka, pabang lolyang so, so siigin tarsi pa, siile male pa tangiir pinsan mi, dinyo kiile di, nyibo tajo di konju rici kendo, nyito taro lu, koda paci kendo, tangiir pinsan ajang lakin ma, no ngiipe rulan aliir lakin ma. 10. No hadu jaka payen ka, siilyo palyu ka, pabang lolyang so, ngo tangiir pinsan dinyo kiile di, nyibo tajo di, konju rici kiile di, no nyito taro di, koda paci kelyi mi, no tangiir pinsan si, ngo ajang lakin ma, danci dantii ka, ngo gayi jaka armin ka, ngo tahu ja tiibe ka, pabang lolyang so, tangiir ka pinsan mi, ngo ngiipe rulan mi, dinyo kiile di, no nyibo jaka tajo lu, konju rici kendo, nyito taro lu, koda paci kendo mi, no tangiir pinsan si,

transcription of the subu heniin aliir lakin ma, no gorbii loder ka, pulyang bo palyu ka, ngo pabang lolyang so. 11. Ngo duttu pinsan mi, ngo tangiir pinsan mi dinyo kiile di, nyibo tajo di, konju rici kiile mi, no nyito taro lu, koda paci kendo da, ngo tangiir pinsan ja, ngiipe rulan si, aliir lakin ma, no pai jaka amun ka, siigia gyoha ka, no nibyo jaka lare ka, siibe yambi ka, no pabang lolyang so, siigin tarsi pa, ngo siile male pa, no tangiir pinsan mi, duttu pinsan mi, dinyo kiile di, no nyibo tajo lu, konju rici kendo mi, nyito tajo lu, kodo paci kendo mi. ngo dolo mando ka, no padin jaka tapin ka, nyibo lare ka, ngo siibe jaka yame ka, pabang lolyang so, no siigin tarsi pa, siile bo male pa, tangiir pinsan mi, no dinyo jaka kiile di, ngiipe rulan mi, hanyo kiile di, no nyibo jaka tajo di, konju rici kendo mi, nyito taro lu, no koda paci kendo mi, tangiir pinsan, ajang ka lakin ma. 12. Myoci hii saro ka, pampa ka palyo ka, tadin hii tai ka, no mari jaka piiko pa, pabang lolyang so, ngo siile male pa, so siigin tarsi pa, tangiir pinsan mi, no duttu pinsan mi, dinyo kiile di, nyibo tajo lu, konju rici kendo mi, nyito taro lu, koda paci kendo mi, tangiir pinsan ajan lakin ma, ngiipe rulan allir lakin ma, menko tamu ka, kuyi hii darbo ka, pacur hii paru ka, pabang lolyang so, no siigin jaka tarsi pa, siile male pa, no duttu pinsan mi, tangiir pinsan mi, dinyo kiile di, ngo hayu jaka rulan mi, ngiipe rulan mi, dinyo kiile di, no nyibo jaka tajo ka, konju rici kendo mi, nyito taro lu, koda paci kendo mi, karlo jaka paku ka, kelyang hii pai ka, didu lake ka, no pabang ka lolyang so, siigin tarsi pa, siile male pa, no duttu pinsan mi, no dinyo kiile di, nyibu tajo lu, konju rici kendo mi, no nyito taro lu, koda paci kendo, tangiir pinsan ajang lakin ma, ngiipe rulan aliir lakin ma. 13. Ngo catu jaka dile ka, larin ako ka, pepu sala ka, pabang lolyang so, no siigin tarsi pa,

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appendix d no siile male pa, tangiir pinsan mi, no duttu pinsan di, dinyo kiile di, nyibo tajo lu, no konju rici kendo lu, nyito taro, koda paci kendo mi, no duttu pinsan si, ajang lakin ma, tangiir pinsan aliir lakin ma, kiiyan pai ka, rutii hatii ka, simya hii pange ka, hiici nyoryang ka, pabang lolyang so, no siigin tarsi pa, siile male pa, dinyo kiile di, ngiipe rulan mi, hanyo kiile di, no nyibo jaka tajo di, konju rici kendo, nyito taro lu, no koda paci kendo mi, tangiir pinsan, ajang lakin ma, ngiipe rulan di, aliir lakin ma, no rutii hatii ka.

14. Ngo rutii hatii ka, pabang bo lolyang so, ngo siike keru mi, tampii taro pa, ngo siika jaka kemii mi, tampu tamii pa, siigin tarsi pa, siile jaka male pa, tangiir pinsan, duttu pinsan mi, no dinyo jaka kiile di, nyibo tajo di, konju rici lama do, no nyito taro lu, koda paci lama do, uku surin lu, no unii uci lama do, yoku siiso di, yolu yoci lama do, no duttu pinsan si, tangiir pinsan, ajang ka kubyo ke, no hayu jaka rulan si, ngiipe rulan si, aliir lyibyo ke. 15. Ngo duttu nyimii ka, cikin danii mi, hayu milo ka, no mekin jaka danii mi, nyampo tanyo du, dulin dula di, ngo sito ka sibo mi, pero hango mi, ngo duttu pirii pa, no arki lolyang jaka pirii pa, dinyo kiile di, duttu nyimii si, no pintii jaka kubyo ke, hayu milo si, taro nebyo ke, no tangiir ka nyimii si, pintii nebyo ke, ngiipe rulan si, no taro jaka nebyo ke. 16. Hiido helyang pa, no benyi jaka anyi ka, no rici jaka nyimii, pintii nalya to, no kemyo milo si, no taro jaka neku pe, endin lyakung nyimii si, no pintii neku pe, no dolo sibo milo si, taro neku pe, aba nibo ka, ngo jilo ka nyimiii, duttu kane pa, no nyimii jaka kane pa, no hayu kane pa, milo kane pa, no duttu nyimii pintii kane pa, jilo nyimii pintii neku pe, lyayu milo si, no taro jaka neku pe,

transcription of the subu heniin cantii kane pa, no jilo ka botii si, dimin didin lyato ku, dotii kane pa, no lyayu jaka katii si, siira jimer lyato ku. 9. Wi Sampiu, Pyonii Saber, Kolyung Saber, Kolo Saber, Armin Acu Saber 1. Siiro dodu lo, ngo dodu aro so, aba nibo nyibu ngo, ngo ato doni jaka niybu ngo, silo aba lapang pulyang so, ngo pyabii jaka tiicin so, pyali hecin so, no pyoyu jaka tanga pa, pyoyu sampiu mi, ngo kadun ka neku do, wi sampiu mi, kadun jaka giilyi byo, pyoyu jaka sampiu pa, pyoyu anii di, kanku anii si, no siiro tiiran si, no dari jaka kiile di, no pyoyu jaka anii ka, kanku anii ka, duntu dulo si, no wi popi ka, no popi yahi ka, piinii riigi byo, kotii kolo si, wi sarmin ka, sarmin jaka yato ka, tako pagi bo, no liban jaka tuli si, pyoyu tuli byo, no laha jaka paga si, pyoyu paga bo, no huhan jaka yalyang si, pyoyu malo co, gyasi gargo si, no pyoyu jaka nalye bo, sintii simbyan si, pyoyu pyakun bo, no hatii hatu si, pyoyu piimii bo, no guha jaka gulin si, pyoyu lyarii bo, simbya dalyang si, no pyoyu pyakun byo, no pyoyu jaka sampiu do, hahu laru si, pyoyu jaka lyarii byo, pintii pimbu si, no pyoyu jaka gambii byo, harbii ligo si, pyoyu jaka gambii byo, harbii ligo si, no wi gambii byo, harbii libo si, no wi gyoli ka, lali gambii do, harbii ligo si, no wi gyoda ka, buda yorlo byo, no harbii ligo si, wi handu ka, handu gambii byo. 2. No harbii jaka ligo si, no wi kuka ka, kuka yorda byo, harbii ligo si, no wi jaka kura ka, kiire yorda byo, harbii ligo si, no wi acan ka, acan gambii byo, acan piigan ka, nimon linko byo, harbii ligo si, wi ando ka, no ando jaka siike ka, liru lenko si, ando gambii byo,

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pilo nyolyi si, no wi tugi ka, no tugi jaka yorbii byo, kiiya gyalya si, wi liagi ka, no liagi jaka siiko byo, niitu nuri si, pyoyu donyi byo, niitu nuri si, no pyoyu ka hiilyo ka, yolyo pulo byo, no siimyang jaka dalyang si, pyohu pyakun byo, no lobu ka hadii si, wi rigan so, no tapyu jaka hadii byo, lobu hasun si, no neha jaka rigan so, yorku pinsun lyipo line byo. 3. No pyoyu jaka sampiu byo, wi sante byo, taci darpyu la, no kiiri jaka karko byo, kempu darpyu la, no neli karko byo, no garlan ka darpyu la, pyotii karko byo, no pyoyu jaka sampiu mi, ngo kadun ka giilyi ku, kempu darpyu la, neli karko byo, no murta jaka darpyu la, rontu karko la, buyu darpyu la, no ronsan jaka karko byo, rupu darpyu la, no kirun ka karko byo, no ayen jaka darpyu la, kilo karko byo, bindu darpyu la, no siikki karko byo, tatan tapu la, rintii karko byo, no bulu jaka darpyu la, riji karko byo, suju darpyu la, no danyi karko byo, ruji darpyu la, no su jaka karko byo, no pyoyu sampiu mi, kadun nebyo ke, no wi sampiu mi, kadun jaka lyibyo ke, kolyung saber mi, no kala neku do. 4. No kolo saber mi, pyonii saber mi, barla neku do, no pyonii pyoki si, arki bulyi byo, pyonii pyolo di, no aro jaka bulyi byo, pyodu mindu bo, pyogi jaka hiigin byo, pyoki jaji byo, pyoma pilya byo, pyobu hubu bo, pyonii saber mi, kala lyibyo ke. 5. No pyonii barsi pa, kolyung saber mi, no barla jaka neku do, lyunca buto la, siican mi bulyi bo, lyundo jaka buto la, nyido bulyi byo, lyunsi iisi byo, no lyumii jaka iimu do, lyinder taker bo, dai yai bo, no hiijer jaka tajer bo, no kolyung jaka saber mi, barla giilyi ku. 6. Kolyung barsin pa, no kolo saber mi, tata buto nii, no iijan jaka tata bo,

transcription of the subu heniin

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lala buto nii, hai lala byo, no kirun ka buto nii, rupu kiilyi byo, kilo buto nii, no ayen jaka kilo bo, tutu myodi bo, lala jaka yasi bo, no kolo saber mi, kala giilyi ku. 7. No kolo jaka barsi pa, pyonii barku la, no wi aban pa, no wi jaka tadu co, urun aban pa, no urun ka, tagiang co, gyalang aban pa, no kasu rigo co, no punu jaka aban pa, tatar gibo lyibyo co, no siro jaka aban pa, taru kabo co, no harnya ka aban pa, gyanku tagian co, lyapin jaka aban pa, no diitii pada co, no piika ka aban pa, solo rigo co no lyu jaka aban pa, no turi jaka tukun co. 8. No armin aban pa, armin kargio co, no permo aban pa, permo hii talo co, yasang aban pa, no sandu keban co, yalang aban pa, landu keban co, nising aban pa, nisin jaka taci co. no niji aban pa, niji tado co. 9. No acu aban pa, no acu karpu co, tabu aban pa, no bulyang ka co, no supyu aban pa, no pumbo taker co, no konku aban pa, koji riber co, kubu aban pa, no kiisan kiibo co, ngui aban pa, no kiib rilo co, no pita aban pa, tap dimbu co, ngiila aban pa, ngiila dingia co, hogio aban pa, sarmo kido co, no tayu aban pa, tayu kopu co. no patii aban pa, pabo talo co. 10. Ngo pyoha jaka tanga pa, pyuhu sampiu mi, pyonii saber mi, kadun lyibyo ke, no barpin jaka kubyo ke, kolyung saber mi, ngo barpin jaka kubyo ke, kolo saber mi, kala gebyo ke, ngo pyoyu sampiu ka, kadun kubyo ke, wi sante pa, ngo kadun jaka kubyo ke. 11. Hiido helyang pa, ngo benyi anyi ka, ngo tiike rade ka, taker dumi ka, ngo rici nyimii ka,

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pintii neko pa, ngo kemyo milo ka, no taro jaka neko pa, endin nyimii si, no pintii neko pa, no neko laka milo ka, taro neko pa, dolo nyimii ka, sibo milo ka, ngo aba jaka nibo ka, jilo nyimii si, ngo jilo jaka milo ka, jilo nyimii si, cantii kane pa, no dimin diidii jaka toku byo, dotii kane pa, siira jimer jaka toku ku, hiiyin lanke lyibyo ke, ngo dotii kane pa, ngo mengii lama jaka lyibyo ke. 10. Wi Myu Saber 1. Siiro dodu lo, ngo dodu jaka aro so, aba nibo nyibu ngo, ngo ato doni jaka nyibu ngo, haci nyili ka, ngo pyomin jaka nyili ka, tiikun jamii ngo, hatii nyili ka, ngo pyotii nyili ka, tiikun jamii ngo, ngo myolyi jaka nyili ka, tabi nyili ka, ngo tiikun jaka jamii ngo, myobya nyili ka, ngo tarsi nyili ka, ngo tiikun ka, jamii ngo, asan nyili ka, ngo dotii jaka nyili ka, tiikun jamii ngo, ngo aba nyili ka, penji lyili ka, ngo tiikun jamii ngo, popi sarmin ka, ngo arre amyo ka, danyi tugo ka, no pinii jaka siyo ka, cantu myole ka, arre jaka amyo ka, ngo yakun ja giidu la, pyomin kaniin pa, pyotii kaniin pa, ngo haker ka lapang so, haci arre ka, ngo yakun jamii ngo, hatii arre ka, ngo yakun jamii ngo. 2. No sinyang jaka anyang ka, tiike rade, ngo taker ka dumi ka, myodi likan so, ngo rici jaka diiri ka, bulin jaka danii si, myoso linyi so, kemyo holo ka, no gorin jaka danii si, suci hugo lu, endin diiri ka, no bulin jaka danii di, myoso linyi so, lyakun hulu ka, no gorin jaka danii si, lutii likan, dolo diiri ka, no bulin jaka danii si, giira linyi so, subo hulo ka, no gorin jaka danii si, hambi diiri pa, no gulin jaka mami co, no arki diiri pa, aro hulo pa golin dabyo mi.

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3. No benyi anyi mi, no iipyo diiri mi, siitar ka ma, no wi jaka hiiro mi, ketiir bima no, kami diiri mi, no keci yama do, kamo hulo mi, kutar ka yama do, no doni jaka diiri mi, keci yama do, jaje yulo mi, no ketiir ka buma do, nibo diiri mi, jarbo hulo mi, no ketiir jaka yama do, pyoha tanga pa, yulo jaka tanga pa, pyakun tiigin pa, perre hegin pa, no pyoha diiri si, bulin dabyo mi, yulo hulo mi, ngo gorin ka, dubyo mi, ngo siilo lolyang so, ngo aba nibo nyibu ngo, aba lapang pulyang so, pyakun jaka tiicin so, perre hecin so, ngo iipyo diiri mi, ngo iipyo japa neku do, wi hulo mi, keci neku do. 4. No kolyung jaka kolo so, ditu hubyang so, popi hulin mi, popi neli pa, arre jaka ninii co, ngo diika hubyang so, no sarmin ja hulin byo, sarmin neli pa, amyo ninii co, no hulin jaka kiile di, arre bugyang, pinii bulyi co, no amyo ka bugyang so, siyo hulin byo, pinii neli pa, no dinji jaka ninii co, siyo neli pa, marmo ninii pa, no neli jaka tulyi mi, pinii husi pa, no siyo jaka husi pa, no iipyo hiiro si, hulin lyibyo mi, no iipyo jaka hulu pa, tuka hulin byo, no wi jaka hulu pa, no kaya jaka hulin byo, tuka katu pa, katu jami bulyi co, kaya koho pa, karu bulyi byo, no katu jaka neli pa, kami bo yaku co, no katu jaka neli pa, kamo yaru co. 5. Iipyo diiri pa, bulin jaka kiilyi so, wi hulo ka, golin kiilyi so, no iipyo jiji sibo mi, lalin budo la, no wi kanka jaka hango mi, lalin budo la, iipyo hiiro si, no arki lolyang piirii dinyo kiile di, iipyo wi nu si, pintii kubyo ke, no wi jaka milo si, taro kubyo ke, iipyo hiiro ka, no piirii jaka digio mi, gyopu gyalo mi, ngo kiile jaka larin mi, ngo iipyo hiiro ka, ngo piirii jaka diigio mi, ngo arki lolyang jaka piirii pa, diinyo lyibyo ke, no wi hiiro ka, no piirii jaka digio mi, delyang bo lyibyo ke.

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appendix d

6. No iipyo jaka husin pa, dokii buto nii, donii bulyi byo, no likii jaka buto nii, libo hulin kiile di, ngo donii neli pa, no kami jaka yatu mi, libo neli pa, kamo jaka yaru mi, ngo neli jaka tuke le, donii diiri ka, bulin taniin mi, ngo libo jaka hiiro ka, bulin taniin mi, ngo donii hiiro lu, no poper ka sibo mi, momer hango mi, lalin jaka budo la, no arki lolyang jaka piirii pa, dinyo kiile di, no donii nyimii si, pintii kubyo ke, libo milo si, no taro jaka kubyo ke, donii hiiro ka, piirii digio mi, ngo libo hiiro ka, piirii bo digio mi, gyopu gyalo mi, ngo kiile jaka larin mi, ngo arki lolyang piirii pa, dinyo lyibyo ke, rici nyimii si, donii kane pa, no nyimii jaka kane pa, pintii neko pa, libo milo ka, no taro jaka kiile di, ngo benyi anyi ka, kemyo milo ka, ngo taro jaka neko pa, pyakun tiilyang lyibyo ke, perre helyang lyibyo ke. 7. Donii hii husin pa, no mitu jaka buto nii, ato kami co, mitu buto nii, no ato kamo co, no hulin jaka kiile di, kami hii neli pa, no iipyo yakii mi, neli hii tulyi byo, kamo neli pa, no wi yahii mi, no neli jaka tulyi mi, kami hii diiri mi, bulin jaka tanii mi, kami hii diiri mi, bulin jaka tanii mi, ato ho kami di, tendin jaka sibo mi, no lalin ka budo la, paba hii hango mi, lalin ka budo la, no arki lalyang piirii pa, diinyo hii kiile di, no kami jaka nyimii si, pintii hii nebyo ke, no kamo milo si, taro hebyo ke, hiido helyang pa, ngo benyi jaka anyi ka, taker hii dumi di, gyapo gyalo mi, kiile larin mi, ngo arki lolyang jaka pinii pa, diinyo hii lyibyo ke, no benyi anyi ka, ngo rici jaka nyimii si, kami hii hiiro ka, tantii kane pa, no kemyo jaka mito si, kamo hii milo ka, taro kane pa, no rici nyimii pintii neku pe, kemyo milo si, taro neku pe. 8. Ngo kami bo husin pa, no doni jaka hiiro co, kamo hii husin pa, jaji hiiro co, hulin co, hulin jaka kiile di, doni hii neli pa, ngo talin ka koda ka, jaji diinii mi, tai koda ka, ngo jamer ka dinii hii, neli hii tuke le, ngo doni jaka diiri si, bulin hii kendo mi,

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jaji hulo si, no gorin jaka kendo mi, ato hii doni di, no yanyi jaka sibo mi, lalin bo diido la, ngo ato jaji lu, yako ho hango mi, lalin biido la, arki lolyang piirii pa, diinyo kiile di, no doni jaka nyimii di, pintii nebyo ke, jaji milo si, no taro jaka nebyo ke, yanyi hii sibo ka hatii hatu mi, ngo ato doni ka, katin hii cuca so, hahii cicin byo, no panii pacu pa, no pido diiran lyibyo ke, ngo doni jaka hiiro mi, no diiri pibu jaka lyimi byo, jaji hii hulo mi, hulo pibu lyimi do, no doni ka, piirii hii diigio mi, delyang ka lyibyo ke, ngo jaji jaka hiiro ka, miinyo hii tambu mi, tagyang ka lyibyo ke. 9. No doni jaka husin pa, nibo ho hulo co, bulin jaka lyimi co, jaji hii husin pa, jarbo hulo co, bulin lyimi co, nibo hii neli pa, nani hii tenda ka, no nyambo jaka mi, karmi hii tenda ka, karbe cibyo mi, no neli jaka tuke le, nibo hii diiri ka, bulin jaka tamiin mi, jarbo hiiro ka, garin tanii mi, nibo hiiro si, no kedo ka, sotii mi, buko hii siiro mi, lalin jaka biido la, arki lolyang hii piirii diinyo kiile di, no nibo nyimii si, pintii hii kubyo ke, no jarbo mito so, taro hii kubyo ke, ngo ato nibo ka, ngo gyopu gyalo mi, kiile hii larin mi, ngo arki lolyang jaka piirii pa, ngo diinyo hebyo ke, ngo hiido helyang pa, benyi anyi ka, no myodi hii likan so, rici hii nyimii ka, pintii neko pa, no myoso lyinyi so, kemyo milo ka taro neko pa, gyopu hii gyalo mi, ngo kiile jaka larin mi, ngo arki lolyang jaka piirii pa, diinyo hii lyibyo ke. 10. Ngo nibo jaka husin pa, tiici hii kojing co, hulin kiile di, tiici hii neli pa, ngo iipyo ka yaci mi, neli hii tuke le, no tiici tiita ja, no piila jaka lama do, koji hii kota hula lama do, ngo siigan bo toto ka biinii harbu mi, tamang hii lobyang mi, ngo siigo roro mi, ngo neli jaka tuke le, tiici tiilyung nyado mi, koji kolyung jaka yado mi, ngo tiiran bo piigang ja, siike lango di, no hulin jaka kiile di, epi hii erre ka, ngo neli jami tulyi mi, ho hii husin pa. 11. Iipyo penu si, ato nyime co, wi pembo mi, no hulin jaka kiile di, no nyime jaka diiri ka,

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appendix d hulin hii tanii mi, siibun jaka siibo mi, siike hango lalin hii biido la, no arki lolyang jaka piirii pa, siike bo hii hango mi, ngo laling jaka budo la, ngo aro longo piiriii pa, diinyo kiile di, ngo nyime nyimii si, pintii hii kubyo ke, nyipa milo si, no taro jaka nebyo ke, nyime hii hiiro ka, ngo piirii pa, ngo diinyo lyibyo ke, benyi anyi ka, no rici nyimii si, kemyo hii milo si, ato nyime ka , no nyimii jaka kane pa, ato nyipa ka, kemyo milo ka, taro hii kane pa, no rici jaka nyimii si, pintii hii neku pe, no kemyo jaka milo si, taro hii neko pe.

12. Nyime husin pa, panii hii hulin byo, manii hulin byo, ngo asun byo, dole di, ngo jungi jaka julo nyi, sunda hii randa nyi, bapu ka balyu nyi, no hulin jaka kiile di, panii hii diiri ka, hulin jaka taniin mi, no repu jaka siibo si, reke hii hango mi, laling jaka biido la, no panii hiiro si, arki lolyang piirii pa, diinyo kiile di, no panii nyimii di, pintii nebyo ke, ngo manii milo si, no taro jaka kubyo ke, hiido hii helyang pa, ngo benyi anyi mi, ngo pyabii jaka tiicin so, pyali hii hecin so, ngo panii hiiro ka, ngo nyimii pintii kane pa, manii hiiro ka, ngo milo taro kane pa, pyakun tiilyang lyibyo ke, perre helyang jaka lyibyo ke. 13. Panii hii husin pa, ngo tiidin ka pobii so, ato dodin co, tiilo pobiir so, ato hii dolo co, hulin jaka kiile di, doding hii diiri ka, ngo hulin jaka kiile di, doding hii diiri ka, ngo hulin jaka taniin mi, dolo hii hiiro ka, golin jaka taniin mi, ngo dindo jaka taso mi, siibo hii gyalo mi, ngo lalin jaka biido la, ngo ato dodin di, ngo arki lolyang piirii pa, diinyo kiile di, ngo doding jaka nyimii si, pintii kubyo ke, ngo dolo milo si, no taro kubyo ke, ngo ato dodin ka, ngo piirii jaka diibyung mi, benyi hii anyi ka, ngo taker jaka dumi ka, gyopu hii gyalo mi, ngo kiile larin mi, no arki lolyang jaka piirii pa, diinyo hebyo ke, aro longo jaka piirii pa, diinyo hii hebyo ke.

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14. Ngo doding jaka husin pa, no kusin hii buto nii, hiisin jami bulyi byo, kubyo hii buto nii, hibyo bulyi byo, no hiisin jaka hiiro si, hiisin hii diiri si, no bulin jaka kendo mi, hibyo hii hulo si, no garin jaka kendu mi, no hibyo jaka hiiro si, hiisin hii hiiro si, sanyi hii sii bo mi, no sako hango mi, no lalin jaka biido la, hiisin hii hiiro si, no arki lolyang jaka piirii pa, diinyo kiile di, no hiising jaka nyimii, pintii hii kubyo ke, hebyo milo si, no taro jaka kubyo ke, hiisin hii hiiro ka, no piirii jaka diigio ka, tiike hii rade ka, no taker jaka dumi ka, gyopu hii gyalo mi, kiile larin mi, no arki lolyang jaka piirii pa, delyang jaka kubyo ke. 15. No husin jaka hiiro ka, diiri hii kane pa, hibyo hulo ka, no hiiro jaka kane pa, benyi hii anyi ka, no myodi jaka likan so, rici hii taker ja, hiirre jaka neko pa, myoso hii linyi so, no kemyo jaka giilyang pa, pyotii bo neko pa, no suci jaka likan so, endin hii talyu ka, no rulyu neko pa, ngo suro linyi so, lyakun hii tape pe, no sebe neko so, gantii likan so, no dolo jaka talyu ka, rulyu hii neko pa, no giiha ka linyi so, siibo hii tape ka, hebe neko pa, no pulun jaka aku so, tapyu hii mutu ka, no rulyu neko pa, gantii hii aku so, no kedo jaka delyang si, no jojing jaka neko pa, lyaso linyi so, hada jaka sai ka, no popan jaka neko pa, balyi hii likan so, no tapo jaka tanyi ka, rulyu hii neko pa, no paker ka pari so, tunii hii talyung ka, no rulyu jaka neko pa. 16. Ngo pyoha jaka dulu mi, selyang hii lyibyo ke, no cantii kane pa, diidin hii lato ku, dotii kane pa, no menge jaka siira si, jimer bo lato ku, ngo abo nibo nyibu ka, no pyakun jaka tiicin so, jilo hii botii ha, no dimin diidin toku ha, no lyayu jaka katii bo, siira jimer neku pe, no cantii kane pa, ngo hiiyin lanke jaka siilyi la, dotii hii kane pa, menge lama laka siilyi la.

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appendix d

11. Tani Diiri Bunii 1. Siiro dodu lo, ngo dodu jaka aro so, aba nibo nyibu ngo, ngo ato doni jaka nyibu ngo, tani saber mi, ngo barla ka neku do, toro saber mi, ngo barla jaka neku do, canii cantu di, ngo dinii ditu di, bulin taniin di, no cantu ja bulyi byo, ngo cantu neli pa, ngo pyonii tiikur la, pyomu diiru mi, neli tuke le, no nyimii tani do, tani neli pa, ngo sanka ka aran so, kunii kala, ngo doji jaka lojo mi, punii lojo mi, neli tuke le, ngo lyapun ka lomiir mi, siiyo lomiir mi, no neli jaka tuke le, abo loma mi, loya ka borba pa, lopi giima pa, koho bulyi nii. 2. No tani darma dola co, canii turii la, ngo canka riman, canka ka riman mi, neli bo tuke le, no canka jaka koho pa, yama tani mi, no koho jaka bulyi nni, tani neli pa, ngo ayo diibu mi, diilyang diibu mi, no neli jaka tuke le, no diibu koho pa, no tarin tati mi, no katii jaka kotii mi, nici nica mi, no koho jaka buke le. 3. Yama tani di, no calo ka rigan so, tosi arki ja, no tobo jaka biike le, tini rungia mi, ngo myorii jaka rungia mi, mu turii tii, ngo tupa ka biilyi bo, sa seri ja, sempa jaka kiile di, tini rungia di, ngo nudu ka alyang si, hodu ango pa, yama tani mi, ayo diibu ka, ngo lolyang jaka miinii mi, lokin paci ke, ngo lokin jaka miinii mi, konci paci ke, ngo konci jaka miinii mi, sada pabyo ke, no sada jaka miinii mi, yukur paci ke, no palii ka ralyang mi, mihii lato pe, kele rango mi, no miinii jaka lato pe.

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4. Yama tani ja, no ayo diibu mi, no tugo jaka lantin so, turi lato pe, byago suro so, no byari jaka lato pe, hiika bito la, niidu ka alyang si, niipe bito la, yama jaka tani di, ayo diibu mi, diilyang ka diibu mi, no tugo lantin so, no turi jaka lyibyo ke, byago suru so, byari kiile di, ayo diibu lu, diilyang gantii so, no diibu jaja lyinyo si, myopa nebyo ke. 5. Ngo tini jaka rungia mi, palii ralyang mi, no kele rango mi, no miilii jaka kiile di, siiko lanta so, no kalo rigan so, no kapa jaka lendo, tinii tinsa mi, no ranii jaka rasang mi, ralyo rabo mi, nilyo ka nibo mi, koho buhan do, no mipin jaka ali mi, mapi ali mi, engi ali mi, no engi jaka ali mi, kama data co, no koho tarin mi, koho tati mi, ngo nunyo kiile di, napin pyanyo kiile di, ngo lanko nanto la, tumbii naker ya, bobiir dola co, habyo ka nanto lo, gyoho naker si, bobiir ka handu ka. 6. Hibin tola di, yama tani di, ngo dacan jaka miica la, koho tarin mi, koho tati mi, no dindu jaka hiidu byo, piiyu sugio so, tarin nyimii si, tati nyimii si, myopa hane ta, tinii tinsa si, no nilyo jaka nibo si, ranii rasang si, ralyo rambo si, tumbii atu mi, gyiho atu mi, no koho jaka biihan do, tani darma dola mi, no tini rungia lu, nikum darma domi co. 7. Yama tani di, hiima neli mi, hiidun nebyo ke, paku tendu mi, donyi lidu mi, no neli jaka tuke le, koho biihan do, polo byalyung mi, neli tuke le, no puha ka tinka do, donyi ligiu mi, neli tuke le, no cigiu jaka taci do, donyi liida mi, neli tuke le, no cama ka cada mi, koho biihan do, no donyi jaka lino mi, neli tuke le, kano naka do, no tiipii lyolye mi, no suru ka patu mi, no neli jaka tuke le,

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appendix d no tiipii lyolye mi, koho biihan do, no yako ka yalo mi, neli tuke le, no sirre jaka tiike mi, koho biihan do, no tani jaka darma do.

8. Piilan yamyang mi, neli tuto la, no mecu ka tagiun mi, calo rigan so, no dolyi jaka hembo si kiile di, yaro sibo si, no sibo jaka yulii si, byabo kiile di, yaro piitii mi, ngo tiibii ka jala di, kibo lemba so, bolii toke le, no kibo hano di, cikar giilyi mi, ropo lemba so, no bolii ka kiile di, ropo hano lu, paker hando ta, ludi lemba so, no bolii jaka kiile di, ludi bo muri ka, pontang ka tani si, talu giido mi, lulyo lemba so, no bolii jaka kiile di, lulyo lubo ka, bolii lyimi si, no likar ka giido mi, santi lemba so, bolii toke le, no santi hunyi si, no dampa ka hando mi, sari lemba so, bolii kiile di, no sari jaka hunyi si, hupa giido ta, ngo tani loder di, ngo darma jaka kiile di. 9. Dolyang canja ja, anii puyu ka, no gombya jaka alyang ka, gombi toku nii, yama tani do, no tani ka tola mi, calo rigan so, topa arre ja, no topa jaka yoka du, murtu durii so, hintii dugia so, no tani jaka dola mi, gyalii kiile di, ngo murtu ka durii mi, hintii dugia mi, no arki tacar jaka piita, aro piilyo hopu piita si, ngo dulin ka dula di. 10. Ngo tani jaka dola mi, ledu lepo giilyi byo, miidu mipo jaka giilyi byo, danyi hartii so, no byatu ka likan so, byalang linyi so, no gartii tamang ka, no mubo cintii ka, diilii doko so, no sa jaka cintii ka, diilii doko so, no diilii so, tiidii tulyo so, no murtu jaka durii mi, tani dola mi, bipo lilyi mi, no tiidii jaka tiilo ka, piilo nyonyi pa, no tiilo jaka nyonyi kii, gompii coko pa, no gompii coko kii, haman bo kulyo pa, ngo tani jaka dola mi, bipo liigii lyi, habyang kubyo ke. 11. No canii laru pa, donii lango pa, bipo kiile di, diidii pulo so, no lyamo jaka pulo so, gartii tamang di, ngo hasang ka gula lyi,

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gandi gula lyi, ha gula lyi, no saye ka gula lyi, mu kepii si, bebe ka biirii lyi, no tamang jaka keko si, hebe berii kelii di, popi sarmin du, no arre ka amyo lu, dukun biido la, hasang ka goman di, gyandi goman ka, no ha jaka goma ke, saye goma ke, no canii langu so, rici apu co, pulin tado nii, no donii langu so, kemyo angiir co, galin tado nii, hedo pako so, ngo yama ka tani mi. 12. Tubo hime si, ngo tubo ngiikii hiilyi mi, lyabo hime si, lyabo ngiikii hiilyi ka, myotii hime si, myotii ngiikii hiilyi ka, pilya hime si, pilya ngiikii si, dingia hime si, dingia ngiikii hiilyi ka, si hime si, si ngiikii hiilyi di, biilyo kolo di, ngo tani jaka piidin mi, dikar lyita mi, no taru ka sangia si, gyakan siibyo ke, talo sangia mi, no gyakang siike le, dingia pale do, si pale do, myotii pale do, pilya ku pale do, ngo tani bo sangia si, no gyada ka yalyi mi, tani kiiya co, hiilin haco lu, no kiidi jaka riipii si, cangia riipii si, piika sibyo sa, ngo mudo jaka riipii si, dogian riipii si, piika siibyo sa, no hiika jaka kiile di, no yorku goda co, siiko goda do, no tani jaka riipii si, canya riipii si, ngo talu jaka riipii co, nogian riipii si, no talo riipii si, no pitar ka yado mi, tani ja kebyo ke, kiidi ka siibyo ke, miiri paji ha, jika siibyo ke, cango pabya ya, byaka ya siike le, dingia byanii si, yorpu goda co, no si jaka byanii si, siiko goda co, ngo tani jaka paji si, miiri paji si, yitar yane ke, toro pabya si, cango pabya si, no byatiir ka yala si, doding byakiir yalyi mi, dolo byada jaka yalyi mi. 13. No tani ka paji si, jitar yadu ke, no toro jaka pabya si, no byatiir ka yadu ke, tani kebyo ke, hiilin ja hebyo ke, ngo diidii pulso so, ngo dingia ka kiimii lo, no cikun ka pulo so,

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appendix d si kiimii lo, cinyi pulo so, no rici saber hiine kubyo ke, tani kiimii lo, no pulo koha so, no kemyo saber di, barne diibyo ke, popi migung si, gomping ka siibyo ke, no tani hager si, garka ka siibyo ke, dingia hager mi, no si hager mi, no garka ka siibyo ke.

14. Dingia kiimii lo, liban ka poci so, si kiimii lo lalo poro so, no rici jaka hager mi, garka lyisa, no kemyo hager mi, garka ka nebyo so, giinii kiimii lo, no harbii so hager to, pilya kiimii lo, lapyo hager to, no alo ja kiimii lo, diidii hager to, no ponta ka kiinii lo, no koga so hager to, myotii kiimii lo, rulyung so hager to, siibo kiimii lo, rulyung hager to, no tani jaka kiimii lo, canii larun so, hager tiiko lo, no donii larun so, hager tiiko lo, hiika ja siibyo ke. 15. No popi sarmin lu, arre amyo di, no pinii jaka siyo di, migung gomping kiile di, no pulo koha so, kemyo hager mi, canii larun so, no rici jaka hager mi, donii larun so, kemyo hager mi, galin ka kiile di, tani kiibyo ke, no ato neha mi, lampo ciipe pa, alyang kuhang pa, no hutang jaka tabo pa, koho buke le, ngo tani jaka kubyo ke, popi sarmin lu, arre amyo lu, no myalin jaka kiile di, ato neha di, no tani jaka darbo byo. 16. Neha dider dobyo mi, ngo neha jaka neli pa, tangu turii la, ngo lorii biinyi mi, neli tuke le, ngo neha jaka niikun ka, kanku diibo mi, koho biihan do, neha niibii ka, rumbii pati mi, no koho jaka buhan do, ca turii la, ngo lorii biinyi mi, neli tuke le, ngo neha ka nirun ka, buru labo mi, taken taro pa, no koho jaka buhan do, neha darma neha mi, neha nigo ka, ngo rumbo ka siiso mi, koho buhan do, neha jaka darma do. 17. Carung turii la, ngo lorii biinyi mi, neli tuke le, ngo neha jaka binyi ka, bulyang kango mi, ngo tabu jaka aban mi, ngo oho buhan do,

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neha darma dola mi, rupu turii la, ngo lolyang ka tamang mi, neli bo tuke le, no hirin jaka catung mi, koho buke le, no neha jaka neder do. 18. Cantu neli pa, pyonii tuku la, no pyonii jaka yasin mi, neli tuke le, no yasin jaka koho pa, ato hapung mi, ngo ato harung mi, harin hale mi, koho buke le, no harin ka piicin do, hiido haco lo, ngo bilyo koho di, ato hapung byo, ato harung ja, no bulin jaka kiile di, hapung neli pa, harung neli pa, milo goro di, no hulin jaka kiile di. 19. Doding turii la, parin yasin mi, ngo neli jaka tuke le, doding pombo mi, koho buke le, ngo ato pombo mi, koho biilin byo, ngo niikun ja dardo byo, tani dabyo byo, neha dabyo byo, no tani jaka diiri mi, byotiir hebyo ke, no niikun ka dirii mi, no byotiir jaka kubyo ke. 12. Dolo Doding Diiri Bunii 1. Aba nibo nyibu ngo, ngo siilo jaka lolyang so, aba lapang pulyang so, ngo doding jaka loder mi, dardun neran do, ngo dolo loder mi, ngo dardun jaka neku do, doding darma mi, no dolo darma mi, ngo darpa ka neran do. 2. Donyi lota mi, neli tuke le, ngo lota ka lobya mi, koho buhan do, no doding jaka darma do, donyi kentu mi, ngo anii kentu mi, ngo neli jaka tuke le, niitu buhan do, ngo donyi kempu mi, neli tuke le, niipo buhan do, donyi yalang mi, anii yalang mi, ngo neli jaka tuke le, ayen bo tacang mi, koho buhan do, no doding jaka darma do, dolo darma do. 3. Ngo donyi jaka nyire mi, koho buke le, nyire dumbi do, no nyita ka dumbi mi, koho biiya do, ngo donyi jaka lino mi, neli tuto lo, tayo tage ka, no ami geno do, donyi lina mi, neli tuke le, no mima ka sorka do, doding darma darma do, no dolo darma co.

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4. Donyi didan mi, no neli tuke le, no yama cada do, kano naka do, no doding jaka darma do, donyi lika mi, neli tuto la, no pamu kuyu do, puha kaja do, doding jaka darma do, doding loder mi, dardun ka neku do, ngo dolo loder mi, dadun lyinii di. 5. Ngo anii joyi mi, siinyi joyi mi, neli tuke le, ngo asun dole mi, sunda randa mi, no jugi ka julo mi, hulin lyibyo ke, doding loder mi, ngo darling ka giilyi ku, dolo loder mi, darling giilyi ku, lyanko sai mi, no neli jaka tuke le, laji bulin haco lo, kiiri yasun mi, ngo neli tuka kiile di, bulin bulyo lyibyo ke, kiiri yasun mi, ngo neli jaka tuke le, kupe pugo so, kupe rade co, hulin lyibyo ke. 6. Yarii yayung mi, no neli tuto la, maye pugo so, maye rade co, no hulin ka lyibyo ke, donyi diimi yace mi, bido haco lo, donyi pi mi, ami pi mi, ngo neli jaka tuke le, buhun bumi nyi, hulin haco lo, no donyi yaker mi, anii yaker mi, neli tuke le, no aye jaka ako nyi, hulin haco lo, donyi yamer mi, no anii jaka yamer mi, neli tuke le, canka camer nyi, no hulin ka lyibyo ke. 7 Donyi kepi mi, ngo neli jaka tuke le, rading rake nyi, no hulin ka lyibyo ke, no pali hao nyi, rading rake co, hulin ka lyibyo ke, lali taci hulin mi, no neli jaka tuke le, lali tara nyi, hulin laco lo, no buda tara yanya mi, neli tuke le, tacang tara nyi, no hulin jaka kiile di, donyi ruyin pu, neli tuke le, no talo ka taran nyi, jotan joram di, hulin laco lo, donyi ruba mate, neli tuke le, no tali jaka tabia nyi, hulin nebyo ke, doding loder mi, ngo dadur giilyi ku, dolo loder mi, dadur giilyi ku. 8. Anii kuru rutii buda so, lampe pare do, anii panyu pugo jaso di, lanta pare giilyi ku, pali gompu lyibyo mi, hao sahu jaka kiile di, lyanku tapu ka, lyamin hare, karpu coda, karmin hare lu, ngo doding jaka duko la.

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9. Biilyo kolo di, ngo doding jaka siider mi, dolo siile mi, diider lyibyo ke, ngo doding jaka hunya pa, anya siibi co, dolo hunya pa, ngo olo pamu co, hulin lyibyo ke. 10. Doding ami pa, parin jaka yasin co, dolo aban pa hinda nana co, ngo doding jaka ami pa, dolo aban pa, hulin lyibyo ke, ngo doding jaka siilii mi, lyampu tapu co, doding gompu mi, ngo dolo sahu mi, yamin harin ka, no karpu cada co, coki pobii ka, mepin tapu pa, no coder jaka pabiir ka, meder taker pa, bulin dala di. 11. Ngo doding ka siider mi, dolo siider mi, diilo kiile di, no kiile jaka siilyo ka, tolyo ayen pa, giipa lotii mi, ngo doding jaka loder mi, darling giilyi byo, dolo loder mi, darling giilyi ku, dolo loder mi, hinku hiimbii so, no ato kojing ja, murku mobii so, ato pusang ja, rupu hiimbii so, ato pusang ja, no hulin ka lyila mi, ahi morli pa, ako morla pa. 12. Cilang silyang pa, iido siiko pa, patii yorbii so, hari hulyi mi, no pata ka siiko so, bula hulyi mi, no gulii jaka yorbii so, dusu hulyi byo, nyinyang siiko pa, no tanyang jaka hulyi byo, rebii siiko so, tapin hulyi byo, regan siiko so, diibo hulyi byo. 13. Papi siiko pa, halyang ja hulyi byo, pepo yargo so, sulung hulyi byo, mimi kori so, tabyu hulyi byo, muma koko so, ziro hulyi byo. 14. Ngo niikun ka tani mi, doding loder mi, darling jaka giilyi ku, ngo ayo danyi ka, miro miri so, ato pulo ka, ngo kado jaka kari so, benyi anyi mi, ngo rici lankar mi, ngo kemyo lankar mi, kalii bo giilyi ku. 15. Benyi anyi ka, ngo rici jaka yaru ka, ruma tanii mi, ngo ru mugii lyiku bo, kemyo yapin ka, pima tanii mi, ngo piyu mugii lyibyo ke, endin yaru ka, ruma tanii mi, ngo ru mugii lyiku,

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appendix d lyakun yapin ka, pima tanii mi, ngo piyu mugii lyiku bo, ngo dolo bo yaru ka, ruma tanii mi, ngo ru mugii lyibyo ke, sibo yapin ka, pima danii mi, ngo piyu miigii lyibyo ke, abo nibo nyibu ka, ngo jilo jaka yaru ka, ruma donii mi, ngo ru mugii lyibyo ke, ngo lyayu bo yapin ka, no pima jaka donii mi, piyu mugii bo lyibyo ke, doding siider ka, ngo dala ka calyi so, dolo siider ka, no darla jaka yalyi so, puyu yapin ka, pima tanii mi, ngo piyu miigii lyiku bo, lyiyu yaru ka, ngo ruma jaka danii mi, ngo ru mugii lyibyo ke.

16. Abo nibo nyibu ka, pyakun tiicin so, perre hecin so, aba lapang so, abo nibo nyibu ka, cantii kane pa, no jilo jaka botii si, dimin diirin lyato ku, dotii kane pa, no lyayu jaka katii si, siira jimer lato pe, ngo niikun tani mi, ngo tani jaka tiigo mi, lolyang pyakun nanii pa, ngo toro jaka tiigo mi, longo perre nanii pa, ngo supung ka loder mi, ngo dadur bo neku do, niikun loder mi, ngo darkun jaka neku do, ngo niikun darma do, sukun darma pa, no benyi anyi ka, myodi likan so, rici diimin ja, didin ka lyato ku, myoso linyi so, kemyo siira si, no jimer jaka lyato ku, suci likan so, endin jaka dimin si, no suro linyi so, pyakun bo siira, jimer ka lyato ku, no lutii likan so, no dolo bo dimin si, no didin jaka nalya to, no giira linyi so, sibo sora ja, no jimer jaka lato ku, doni jaka nyibo ka, no jilo bo botii si, dimin diiri jaka yato ku, ngo lyayu jaka katii si, siira jimer lyato ku, ngo cantii kane pa, no jilo dimin didi lyato ku, dotii kane pa, lyalu siira jimer jaka lyato ku. 13. Niikun Sukun 1. Siiro dodu lo, dodu jaka aro so, benyi anyi mi, ngo tiike rade mi, ngo taker dumi mi, ngo pyakun ka tiigin pa, perre hegin pa, ngo niikun tani mi, ngo tani jaka tiigo mi,

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lolyang ka nanii pa, ngo niikun jaka loder mi, sukun loder mi, dardun ka neku do, arii huron ja, no siitii huron do, amyo hiire si, no siimyo hiire do, niikun darma do, sukun darma do, arii soyi si, no dimbo soyi do, amyo sokiir si, no dimbo sokiir do, arii bo todu si, bimbo todu do, amyo toke si, no bicu toke do, arii tasa si, bicu tasa do, amyo tasa si, yalo tasa do, niikun darma do, sukun darma do. 2. Jume etu si, no jila ka pale si, koji bindi si, ziro dolo si, no niikun darma dola mi, penji parii si, neha rugu si, no tabin ka panam si, kardo buko si, ziro dolo si, ngo talyang ka kentii si, jalyang liigu si, no niikun darma dola mi, tubii tabyo si, toho piire si, no sukun darma dola do, penji parii si, no niikun ja darma do, sukun darma dola bo. 3. Ngo dacan jaka halan si, halan lungi tiiran si, dari kiile di, no dacan gyoyu tapu do, niikun darma dola bo, ngo niikun ka halan ka, lungi tiiran si, dari kiile di, ngo kodii jaka subu ka, adin dinsa do, yano subu ka, no eko ka kosa do, donyi sicu rubu do, niikun darma do, no sukun darma dola co, arii hulun si, siitii hulun do, no amyo jaka hiire si, siimyo hiire do, no niikun ja darma do, sukun darla mabyo mi. 4. Ngo niikun lungi anii, siiro tiiran ja, no dari jaka kiile di, no sukun lima tiiran si, siiro tiiran ja, no dari jaka kiile di, niikun jigi pu si, jika jaka kiile di, sukun jima pu si, jilii ja kiile di, no niikun jilii loder mi, sukun jilyu dola mi, niikun loder si, no darla jaka mala co, sukun loder si, darla ka yoma do, niikun lungi gaga so, ngo rupu soso jaka karbo si, sukun loder gega so, ngo ayen bobo karbo si, niikun sobu limbyo ke, sukun sohu limbyo mi. 5. Ngo anii mambii so, ngo biinyi bo siinyi nyi, biinyi yalu si, ngo rudu jaka yasu la, siinyi yalu si, rudu kiilyi la,

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anii mambii mi, ngo biinyi mambii pa, gapyo yasu la, siinyi mambii pa, no gapyo jaka yasu la, biinyi yalu si, rudu siila di, no siinyi jaka yalu si, ruru bo kiile di, popi sarmin di, no biinyi yaka siinyi mi, migung gomping siibyo ke, ngo anii jaka siinyi ke, ami biinyi ke, rusu kiile la, no popi sarmin di, arre amyo di, migung gomping kebyo ke. 6. Niikun kobyu ka, kocin ka manii mi, niikun sarmin yarsan co, no jarsan jaka kopyu co, siinyi kobyu ka, no kocin ka, manii mi, kosar daku nii sukun lamii yolang co, yolang kopyu co, no kosar ka danii di, biinyi miibu ka, bucin ka manii mi, no sarmin jaka yasang lu, siinyi miibu mi, buser dabyo ke, no miiri jaka mimii ka, harcin manii mi, ngo sukun yalang lami si, yalang mimii co, no aser jaka danii du, biinyi kopyo ka, kocin manii mi, no yasang jaka kopyu si, kotiir haco lo, no siinyi kopyu ka, no koci ka manii mi, yalang kopyu ja, koser ladi, no biinyi jaka saber ka, bacin manii mi, no niikun sarmin yasang si, biinyi saber mi, baser lindo co, siinyi saber ka, barla manii mi, niikun lami yalang si, no yalang jaka saber co, baser kiile di, ngo giido jaka giilam pa, niikun lyangu so, ngo sukun ka lyangu so, ngo biinyi jaka saber mi, kempu biimiir so, saber ka loli mi, ngo siinyi jaka saber mi, diya biimiir so, saber balo kiile di, niikun doyi mi, ngo neha ka dohi co, sukun doyi mi, hiisin doye co, no yapin jaka lyibyo ke, biinyi diimyo nii, permo diinyo co, no siinyi jaka diimyo mi, niisin dimyo co, simpo lyibyo ke. 7. Anu siinyi ka, ami biinyi mi, ngo siinyi jaka punja so, talyi kalyi hebyo ke, no biinyi liban so, tabu kalyi kiile di, niikun karii di, ngo tabu jaka dapii mi, laho hebyo ke, lyanku tapu ka, no lyamin ka hare bo, karcu cada ka, karmin jaka biila di, ngo dudin ka dulo di, marti pu lali la, ngo siinyi jaka punja ka, talyi miili mi, mempa ka lyibyo ke, ngo tape jaka miili mi, mempa kiile di, ngo anu jaka biinyi mi, aban siinyi mi, no rudu ka sandu mi, duka siikin lyi, no rite jaka sampo mi, purka siike le, no ami jaka siinyi lu, siinyi siitii pa,

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liban diiyu lyibyo ke, no siimbo jaka sirre pa, lolo siipe lyibyo ke, ngo lalo siipe lyibyo ke, liban sulyu doya do, ngo lampi duko jaka lama do, lanta duke lama do, ngo niisin ka lyibyo mi, lyandu siike, no niiji jaka golyang mi, godun siike ke, ngo siinyi siitii pa, liban sulyu siido ya, siimyo sirre pa, lalo siipe siido la, hiido pako lo, no yapyo lato pe, tute paci la, no dapii lato pe, no rubu jaka paci la, hiisu hebyo ke, tapo lato pe, ngo nuri jaka paci la, yopo lato pe, nyago paci la, hapung lato pe, no erre ka paci la, hiisu lyibyo ke. 8. No anu jaka siinyi no, ami biinyi mi, mikun pokan mi, no kanka jaka siibyo ke, miti pore mi, raka ka siike le, no siinyi jaka pokan si, papu lidu yadu lo, no siinyi jaka tiigo mi, ami biinyi mi, lolyang pokun nalya so, biinyi pokun si, kiibo liko jaka yalyi lo, no biinyi jaka tiigo mi, anu siinyi mi, lolyang ka pokun mi, kana nansu sa, no biinyi jaka popi lu, siinyi popi di, migung gomping siibyo ka, biinyi pokan si, no mitii pokan do, sartii pore do, papun lidu yalyi mi, siinyi pokan si, mikun ka pokan do, mihu pore do, papun lidu loma do, kiibo liko lama do, biinyi pokan si, no papun lidu yado ku, kiibo liko yado ke, no biinyi jaka tiigo mi, lolyang pokan mi, kana nalya pe, popi sarmin di, migung gomping jaka siibyo ke, biinyi pokan si, papun lidu yasu ke, kiibo liko yasu ke. 9. Anu siinyi no, murta lyangu so, siinii tacan pa canca jaka siibyo ke, hirii lyandi so, murta ka lyangu so, no siibo jaka tanyo pa, myonyo myinsu byo, no lyanko jaka tiida ka, aju lyambe di, no lyandi jaka tiida ka, doju milo di, no siinii riso mi, no siibo jaka punja so, riso bike siibyo ke, no siibo jaka riso mi, siinii punja so, no riso bike kiile di, medu menii si, todur ja giido ke, mebo ka menii si, tobo mico meta menii si, no yata byabyu lyibyo ke, myu menii di, yahu haco lo, niikun loder mi, dardun lyibyo ke, no sukun jaka loder mi, darkun lyibyo ke.

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10. Ngo hintii hartii si, donyi hartii byo, ngo murta jaka kartii si, donyi hartii byo, armyan ka giilyi mi, no donyi jaka hartii so, gartii garnii si, siinyi garlyi mi, no gale jaka garnii si, kiile garlyi mi, no gartu garniin si, ngo buntu ali garco lo, garyu kiipu do, garyang ka yuncan do, garbii tabi do, garlin kiile di, no pyoha jaka nyiga si, gakar kelyi mi, nyiga yulo si, no gatiir jaka kelyi mi, danyi hartii so, no sibo jaka lito si, dilan kiile di, no dadu pyotii nyi, nyiga hebyo ke, no kiile jaka anga si, no dulan ka kiile di, lubii mepin nyi, nyiga garca lo, no buntu jaka paru si, siilyu kiile di, sonyi ka sora nyi, no nyiga jaka jilo ke, lyipo gento, dulan kiile di, no kiiri jaka pinsan nyi, nyiga hebyoke, no kibo peto di, no dulan jaka kiile di, doko gyamu nyi, nyiga garca lo, ropo kato ja, dulan ka kiile di, no pilya nyiga garco lo, tunii papu mi, myorii nyiga garco lo, tunii parin mi, no rinji nyiga garco lo, piipii dumpe mi, no hiiyi ka hiigi nyi, nyiga haco lo, no danyi jaka hartii so. 11. Siinyi ganda pa, raru bugyang mi, no kiile jaka ganda pa, pamin myogang co, no buntu ka mogya pa, miiri myogang, no yui jaka ganda pa, nuli myogang co, tunii ganda pa, pamin ganda co, no kiipu jaka ganda pa, siicer bo myogang ja, ngo jinyo lyibyo ke, donyi hartii so, no gyopu loder mi, dalin bo giilyi byo, kiile loder mi, ngo dalin jaka giilyi ku, payu loder mi, dalin giilyi byo. 12. No donyi jaka hartii so, biinyi siinyi mi, kalyang ka siilyi la, permo yalyang di, no pelyang jaka siilyi la, paye pako si, no kalyang jaka siilyi la, hiiyi hiiko si, kalyang ka siilyi ku, no biinyi jaka siinyi nyi, kalyang lyibyo ke, permo yalyang nyi, no kalyang ka siilyi ku, iini gohar nyi, kalyang siilyi byo, ngo pahii jaka pako si, hiiyi hiiko si, kalyang ka siilyi ku, donyi hartii so, ngo lutii siige mi, giira siige mi, ngegii lyiku byo. 13. Aba nibo nyibu ka, pyakun jaka tiigin pa, perre hegin pa, ngo mortu ka lempii mi, piipii giilyi bo, hintii neso mi, ngo piiso jaka giilyi ku, mudo nayo mi, piiyo giilyi ku,

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iigi lengi mi, piigii giilyi ku, hintii lenso mi, ngopii so giilyi byo, pyagang lempii mi, pigan giilyi ku, ngo benyi anyi ka, lutii likan so, dolo doging mi, ngo ganga jaka giilyi ku, giira lyinyi so, no sibo doging mi, ngo ganga ka giilyi byo, paker pari so, tunii doging mi, ngo ganga jaka giilyi ku, gundu gompa so, ngo yui jaka doging mi, paker pari so, tunii doging mi, no ganga ja giilyi ku. 14. Gyapo gyalo bo, kiile larin mi, ngo cantii lemba so, jilo siran ja, hiitu lyibyo ke, ngo dotii lemba so, lyayu siran hiidi lyibyo ke, sisan colyang jaka lyayo ka, kuru biidan nebyo ke, siran ca yoka ka, no kime rapya nebyo ke, gyapo hatii sinya to, ramin haro lalya to, no bilo ka bihi ka, dandu lenda mi, gayu bilo ka, no dandu jaka menda mi, gyapo hatii lalya to, ramin haro lalya to. 15. Cantii kane pa, no benyi jaka anyi ka, myodi likan so, no rici jaka dimin si, didin bo lato ku, myoso linyi so, no kemyo siira si, jimer bo nalya to, paker pari so, tunii dimin di, gundu gompa so, no yui jaka siran si, suci suro so, no endin jaka dimin si, diidin siilya to, lyakun jaka siran si, jimer bo sinya to, lutii likan so, no dolo jaka dimin si, dimin diiri siilya to, giira linyi so, no sibo siran si, jimer bo lato ku, aba nibo ka, ngo jilo jaka botii si, dimin dirin lato ku, no lyayu jaka siran si, dotii kane pa, no siira jimer lato ku, no niikun jaka loder mi, dardun kubyo ke, sukun loder mi, no dardun jaka kubyo ke, benyi anyi ka, ngo pyabii jaka tiigin pa, pyali hegin pa, no jilo ka botii si, dimin dirin lato ku, lyayu jaka katii si, siira jimer lato ku, cantii kane pa, ngo hiyin lanke lyibyo ke, dotii kane pa, ngo mengii lama jaka lyibyo ke. 14. Hombi Honto 1. Siiro dodu lo, dodu jaka aro so, aba lapang pulyang so, ngo gyopu siilin mi, giidu talyi ke, no ramin jaka siicur mi, codur talyi ke, ngo aba nibo nyibu ka, rici yaji mi,

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ngo kemyo jaka yalo mi, endin yaji mi, no lyakun jaka yalo mi, payu yaji mi, ngo nyibu jaka yalo mi, dolo sibo ka, no yaji jaka yalo mi, jilo yaji mi, no lyalyu jaka yalo mi, gyopu siilin giko so, gita ja malyi ke, ramin siicur corko so, no corta jaka malyi ke, benyi anyi ka, ngo ngiika lyapin jaka naran so, cantu nako so, no talu jaka piidii ka, jisu piidii ka, no niimin ka doko so, talo piire ka, no irii jaka pulo ka, lyimin doko so, no pyonii dirun si, ale bo mane ke, unii siira si, ngo ale jaka mane la, pyonii dirun so. 2. Ngo pyakun ka tiiko so, perre heko so, ngo dohii jaka anyi ka, ngo tapyu miitu mi, ngo giijer jaka mailyi ke, tabyu lelo mi, baber malyi ke, pinku miitu mi, ngo jorku jaka lelo mi, miji gemim mi, mihi jaka genko mi, ngo yasi alyi malyi la, ngo abya jaka tamang la, tapyu miitu ja, giijer ka tamang ke, tabyo baber ja, no baber jaka tamang ke, benyi anyi ka, ngo lyapin jaka naran so, tajer lango si, no puntii lango si, ngo yanyi jaka lango mi, gocun siilyi la, yalo lango mi, ngo tapin jaka lango si, jutii longo ja, gocun siilyi ku. 3. Ngo aba nibo nyibu ngo, cantii kane pa, hiiyin lanke jaka siilyi la, dotii kane pa, mengii lama jaka siilyi ke, tiike rade ka, no taker jaka dumi ka, mihi yaji mi, koho yalo mi, endin bo yaji mi, lyakun yalo mi, dolo yaji mi, no sibo jaka yalo mi, benyi anyi ka, ngo lyapin jaka naran so, ngo yaji lango mi, gocun siilyi ka, yalo lango mi, ngo gocun siilyi ku, ngo anu patan ka, nyahii jaka patan ka, yaji siipyu ja, ubo yadii la, nyahii yaji si, pabo yalo si, no yaji supyu, pubo yadii la, ngo tajer jaka lango si, tapin lango, jutii lango si. 4. Ngo abo lapang pulyang so, jilo lango, gocun ka siilyi la, ngo lyayu jaka lango si, gocun nebyo ke, siyo yolyang ka, aba nibo nyibu ka, ngo jilo jaka kino ka, nondu toku nii, lyayu kino mi, ngo nondu jaka toku nii,

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miiti kocun, miihi ribun bo, no sartii jaka kocun ka, miilyo rija bo, no apu jaka alu ka, ada ama, junsi papi no, siico jarbo ha, siilyo pada bo, jilo tagio pa, ruji dabo, aba nibo ka, arun liite so, jilo biitin monto pe, no lyayu biitin monto ku, nyirii lyici lyaci jaka pilya bo, nyirii lyilii ka, lyale pilya bo, darnii pyabii ka, meder taker bo, no kaju jaka minte lo, gyopu siilin ka, giidu jalyi so, ngo hombi ja alyang mi, honto ango mi, ngo humbi alyang nalyi ke, honto ango talyi la, no jilo jaka taho bo, jilo lyengo si, yalyi lengo mi, no lyayu jaka lyengo si, yalo lyengo mi, gocon ka lyato pe, ngo tatu tapyu ja, giijer ka tamang ke, tabyo lelo ja, baber jaka malyi ke. 5. Ngo hombi alyang talyike, gyopu gyalo lo, kiile larin bo, ngo aba nibo nyibu ka, jilo biihi ka, gidu maran pa, no gyopu duco si, pengio lyayo, kiile larin bo, no lyayu ka bilo ka, dandu marnan pa, kiile lici ja, no penjia jaka lyayo ka, siisan penyo doko da, kuru budan ke, no sapen yo doko da, kime ropya, gyopu hatii siilya to, ramin haro lalya to. 6. Ngo aba nibo nyibu ngo, hombi alyang mi, pyakun tiicin so, no honto ango mi, no perre jaka tiicin so, no tiitii jaka duko si, talii hombi ke, lolii duko si, no lyiyo jaka hombi ke, pisu duko yaci hombi ke, no piiju duko si, yalo hombi ke, golan duko si, potiir hombi ke, doji duko si, metii humbi ke, cici duko si, sotu hombi ke, tari duko si, lyadii hombi ke, santi duko si, botii hombi ja, no sari duko si, nyibo hombi ke, no tasan ka duko si, karun hombi ke, kulyu duko si, no kare jaka hombi ke, gyolan duko si, gyo hombi ke, no hombi alyang nebyo ke, honto ango nebyo ke. 7. Cantu duko si, popi hombi ke, no lyika duko si, sarmin hombi ke, no haker duko si, pinii hombi ke, hare duko si, no siiyo jaka hombi ke, piilan duko si, lyapin hombi ke, lanje duko si, pinsan hombi ke, no tace duko, ngo kiiri jaka hombi ke,

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appendix d

kempu duko si, neli jaka hombi ke, murta duko si, rontu hombi ke, buyun duko si, ronsan jaka hombi ke, rupu duko si, kirun ka hombi co, no ayen duko si, jilo jaka hombi ka, no bindu duko si, siikki hombi ke, tatan duko si, rintii hombi co, no talan duko si, partii hombi ke, biilii duko si, no riiji jaka hombi co, canging duko si, no ci hombi ke, dulan duko si, nipu ka hombi co, pinku duko si, nyime hombi ja, jorku duko, gyame hombi ke, garlan duko si, no pyotii jaka hombi co, hilan duko si, no dadu hombi ke, landu duko si, no liitii hombi ke, no myodu duko si, cudu hombi co, no piirii duko si, ketun hombi ke, aju duko si, no lyike jaka hombi co, siiju duko si, danyi hombi ja, ruji duko, su hombi ke, no piimer jaka ka duko si, lubii hombi ke, no canya jaka duko si, mepin hombi ke, kordu duko si, no pungio jaka hombi ke, tatu duko si, heri hombi co, no murta duko si, myorii hombi co, tahan jaka duko si, myole hombi co, halan duko si, no korlan hombi, marti duko, cidu hombi co, no lalyi jaka duko si, siicu hombi co, no tahii jaka duko si, yarii hombi co, siitor jaka duko si, no talya hombi co, kardu jaka duko si, myopin hombi co, myome jaka duko si, moryang hombi ke. 8. No gyopu lici ja, pengia jaka yadii la, ramin laci ja, nayo yayo ka, cantii lembia so, ngo aba nibo nyibu ngo, jilo siran mi, hiitu lyiran ke, no jilo jaka bihi ka, hidu maran pa, lyayu bilo ka, no dandu maran pa, gyopu hatii lalya to, no ramin haro lalya to,

transcription of the subu heniin kelii hatii lalya to, no sisan colyo doko da, kuru budan nebyo ke, no sa codu doko da, kime ropya nyame ke, no cantii lembia so, ngo jilo siiran ja, hiitu ka lyiran ke, dotii lembia so, lyayu siiran si, ngo hiitu jaka lyibyo ke. 15. Neli Toniin cayen toniin 1. Siiro dodu lo, ngo dodu jaka aro so, aba nibo nyibu ngo, ngo gyopu siilin mi, gidu talyi ke, ramin siicur mi, ngo cordu jaka jalyi so, kaju mente lo, no pyoha jaka dirun si, aliir mani la, unii siiro si, ngo ala jaka mane ko, pyoha iicin ja, cima iicin da, yulo iipo si, no poma jaka iipo do, pyoha dirun so, no kano miima ja, miipa kiine yo, unii siran so, no hanger jaka miima si, miipa kiine yo, no haso yalo ka, tapyu nyimon bo, iijan rigan ka, no jorku jaka yapa bo, tapyu pokan mi, no kandu jaka guron to, tabyo pore mi, rado lyato pe. 2. Kaju mente lo, no jilo jaka tago bo, lyengo gotu lalya to, no lyayu ka taco bo, coco ropyo giito ku, no jilo jaka tacan bo, miican muru mi, japi jater mi, no buhu jaka giito pe, jilo tayun bo, no siipii piigii giito ku, jilo tapii bo, siipii siila jaka biito pe, jilo tago bo, danko danke mi, no siibun taye mi, dayo giito pe, no jilo jaka talin bo, biihi bilo mi, dandu giito ku. 3. No pyonii dirun si, ale mani la, unii siiran si, no ale jaka mani ku, arii gola lyi, bibo gola lyi, ruhi hitin kine yo, jilo bibo co, no anyo gulan ku, jilo gulan nyi, myago hetin jaka kiine yo, ngo lyayu ka jilo co, kade talyi nii, no arrii jaka gola lyi, bipo gola lyi, anyo gola lyi, biila niima co, no pyoha jaka dirun si, hiitin kiine yo, jilo bipo co, nyoge talyi nii, lyayu jilo co, kade lyinii nii, hogan gola lyi, parsin gola lyi, holya gola lyi, parii gola lyi,

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pyoha padu di, botin kiine yo, no yulo ka pato di, latin kiine yo, no jilo jaka taku co, kude talyi nii, lyayu tarin co, no ride jaka talyi nii. 4. Aba nibo nyibu ka, gyopu siilin mi, gidu maran pa, no jilo jaka talin bo, gyopu siilin mi, gipyo lyato ku, no jilo jaka taco bo, ramin siicur mi, corpyo ka lyato ku, kaju mente lo, benyi anyi ka, ngo tiike jaka rade ka, taker dumi ka, ngo lutii ali jaka gambii pa, gyopu siilin mi, gyopu gyalo mi, kiile larin mi, ngo lutii ali jaka gambii pa, gyopu siilin, gidu lyibyo ke, no lutii tiipan mi, corko malyi ke, giira siijo mi, cobor malyi ke. lutii ali gambii kii, ngo lubii ali gambii pa, lubii tiipan, corko malyi ke, ngo luto ka siijo mi, corko malyi ke, lubii ali gambii kii, pantii ali gambii pa, no galin jaka giilyi ku, pantii tiipan, corko malyi ke, jobii tiipan, corko jaka malyi ke. 5. Pantii ali gambii ke, botii ali gambii pa, siili ali gambii pa, ngo galin jaka giilyi byo, botii tiipan, corko malyi ke, siili siilyo mi, cober ka malyi ke, botii ali gambii kii, ngo su ali gambii ja, myoro ali gambii, gyopu siilin mi, ngo gidu jaka lyibyo ke, jilo siili ja, iipyo lyato ku, no lyayu ka siicur si, corpyo lato ku, no su jaka tiipan mi, corko malyi ke, myoro siijo mi, ngo corko jaka malyi la, su ali gambii pa, lyaso ali gambii pa, galin biilyi ku, gantii ali gambii kii, no pulun ali gambii pa, hiiro ali gambii pa, no gyopu siili mi, no galin jaka giilyi byo, ramin siicur mi, darling giilyi ku, no pulun ali gambii kii, iijan ali gambii pa, hai ali gambii pa, galin biilyi ku, no iijan ali gambii kii, hai ali gambii pa. 6. No cangii ali gambii pa, dohii ali gambii pa, ganyi giilyi ku, no cangii jaka cayen ka, pudu puku si, no cangii ka ngiitii anii ka, pudu puku si, no cango gotii tapu ke, neli abo mi, kempu tako si, no kortu jaka nebyo ke, mudo abo mi, iitan tako si, no kortu ka cane ke, lici petii ja, laci pero si, cangii ngiitii anii ka, pudu puku si, no cango gotii tapu ke, gyopu gyalo do, kiile larin ka, no rubu aga lyayo ka, tute agya lyayo, budan dugii kodii ke, tiira dorpo kodii ke,

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no riitii riita si, tado jibo ka, no pukun jaka pamin ko, riipii lyalye si, bulin sadin ka, no nasi jaka simin ke, tatii hiirii ka, maye koda ka, no tano koda ka, sibo tiimii si, no maye jaka apyu ke, tatii hiirii ka, miimin neko ke, no malyo jaka apyu ke, tano koda ka, dabo neko ke. 7. No cango gotii tapu ka, rubu agya yo, no tute jami agya yo, no harpii yalye pa, gyopu lici si, no pembo doko da, sibo tiibii si, tiimya kendo ke, cango gotii tapu ka, pelo nyonyi pa, pelo nyonyi kii, mander biido pa, no gyopu lici si, penyo dato ka, no ramin jaka lici si, penyo lato ku, no cangii ngiitii anii ka, hiso hisi si, no cayen lili sa ke, adu dato lo, kano marti do. arko kato lo, pa siingiir do, no dolo talan ka, pinku ali ka, tugi neko lo, hambo tadu ka, jorku ala ka, no nagi jaka neko ke, lipa pimpur ka, balo gagya pa, no jajen jaka rimbi ka, siipii duko, jayo tapi ka, siila pabu mi, ngo lipa ka pimpu ka, no suru jaka gagya pa, jilo sosin ja, riko boto ku. neli toniin 1. Benyi anyi ka, ngo tace jaka sa mi, siilin gita malyi ke, no ta jaka sa mi, siicur cota bo malyi ke, no anu jaka mikin lo, aban mikin ka, no gyopu siilin mi, kiiri lato ku, no ramin jaka siicur mi, kiirii lato ku, no tace soke mi, neli soke, ketu ja lato ku, ta soke, mudo soke si, no ketu jaka lalya to. 2. Neli darbii pa, no mitu lonii si, siro tiran dari kelii, no mitu jaka lonii ka, ladu keku si, neli gyadi siran byo, siran sungu dola mi, poko sungu dola mi, no neli jaka yulo bo, lipi aser do, no lake jaka aser do, genco genci pa, genjo pa molya to, paco paci pa, pajo jaka molya to, piijo danii lo, ngo dulo ta take mi, lipi lyabya so, no kolo jaka patan mi, niire bilya so, no lutii diran ja, giira paran lyandi si, no kiiri jaka lutii ja, giira bo lyatii so, no lyarii jaka giira si, para lyatii ke.

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3. No siinyang jaka anyang so, gyutii dibe pa, no arki jaka dibe pa, gyaro dibe pa, no aro jaka dibe pa, kiiri dibe di, beran yado mi, lyarii jaka dibe si, bera lyane nii, kiiri darbyo pa, no muryang lonii si, siro tiran, dari kiile di, no muryang jaka lonii ka, ladu keku si. 4. Kiiri gyadi jaka siran byo, simbyang dalyang di, kiiri tace lapang so, harke biile si, benyi anyi ka, no endin jaka dimpyu co, lyakun kunte co, no nutii nuri si, muryang kondu pukun, no kaci jaka hii mi ka, podu kumin ko, no pukun jaka neko ke, hatii hii mi ka, no giiri jaka banii ka, baker neko ke, no gyopu gyalo bo, siti si siiba sukun ke, so sike jaka ulun si, unha lalya to, no kiiri jaka nyanyi ka, arki nyanyi bo, kirun yadi ka, no tiihu jaka toku nii, kiilo liidi mi, tuhu ka cabyo ke, no kilo jaka liidi ka, tugu tanii di, yorlii anyi ka, no sa jaka pimbo byo, aban kiiri bo, taju piipin mi, no siisii ja karii bo, tama pere mi, sarsa jaka kaniin bo, murpin jiri mi, ayo bomin bo, no murko jaka jiri mi, ayo bomin bo, no tace kondu jaka pukun so, papyo giilya to, no rubu jaka butii mi, lyapyo giito ku, no lyarii jaka yulo bo, taba kondu pukun, panyu monto ku, no tute jaka lyaro mi, taba londu jaka pukun palyo lalya to. 5. Siinyang anyang so, no arki dibe pa, no mudo jaka dibe so, bedan hii nyoda nii, anii mikun bo, aba mikin ha, ngo neli nyanyi ka, arki nyanyi bo, no kempu kondu pukun so, gyopu dulo jaka kolo so, panyo biita ku, no danii neli bo, simbii seta ka, no keyi kesi jaka, neli ha, kiitii mudo ka, no liibii lilo ke, kiiyi asi ka, ngo neli jaka asi, kiitii ame ka, no mudo jaka ame bo, ami tati mi, gyasi tadu mi, ngo neli jaka nyanyi ka, arki hii nyanyi mi, ngo kempu jaka dulu so, ngo selyang ka lyibyo ke. 6. Neli hii yala ka, no rontu jaka yala di, nyanga nenii di, no neli jaka dalyi ka, niiman bo, cosan so, mudo dalyi so, no neha jaka cosan bo, cayen hii helyang la, ngo doyin ka, kame kuniin ha, no rontu jaka nyanyi ha, no rontu jaka nyanyi ha, arki nyanyi bo, murta kondu pukun so,

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no panyo lato ku, kiijang potii mi, kiiro poro ke, murta dulu selyang lyibyo ke, ngo rontu lyala di, no ronsan jaka lyala ka, nyanga neniin di. 7. Ngo ronsan jaka nyanyi ka, arki nyanyi bo, no biiyun kondu pukun panyo lato ku, ngo buyun biire dulu mi, ronsan hii nyanyi mi, ngo buyun jaka dulu mi, arki dulu pa, ngo selyang ka lyibyo ke, ronsan lyalya ja, ngo rule lyala ka, no lyanga ka neniin di. 8. Benyi anyi mi, no rici jaka sungu mi, no kirun hii nyanyi ka, ngo arki nyanyi bo, aha hii anii ka, no loci jaka anii ka, longi geci so, no doker gasi la, gambo nasi la, ayen rupu ka, no nyasi jaka koho pa, ato hii kirun, no kenya jaka rade la, aha hii kotiir ka, no yarsi yargang mi, ayo bomin bo, no rupu kondu pukun so, harbii hii potii mi, ngo kirun jaka ngotii mi, harbii dulu so, selyang lyibyo ke. 9. Kirun yala di, no keto jaka yala ka, nyanga neniin di, no aha jaka anii ka, ayen hii anii di, ngo siro tiran di, dari hii kiile di, doker hatii ka, no hatii koho pa, ato hii kilo lo, no ane pase mi, mimi hii pase mi, ano ayo jaka bomin bo, kilo hii nyanyi ka, no arki nyanyi ka, no arki nyanyi bo, ayen kondu pukun panyo monto lu, ngo kilo ka yulo mi, ayen hii dulu do, ngo selyang ka lyibkyo ke, hano taro ke, no kilo jaka yalo ko. 10. Siikki lyala, lyange neniin di bindu tangu ka, no anii hambii so, dokiir yonii ka, no gambo yonii ka, ayen rupu ke, no yonii koho pa, ato siikki no, kibo tanyo ka, no papun jaka gyosi mi, ayo hii bomin bo, no benyi anyi mi, rici hii lyego mi, yobu cada mi, kemyo lyego yobu daku ni, no endin jaka yulo mi, lyakun yulo mi, no dolo jaka yugo mi, sibo yogo mi, yogur cada nii, siikki nyanyi ka, no arki nyanyi bo, bindu kondu pukun ko, no panyo jaka talo ku, ami tati mi, siikki nyanyi ka, ngo arki nyanyi mi, bindu dulu selyang lyibyo ke.

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11. No pyotii darbin pa, garlan bo lonii ka, no siro tiran di, dari kiile, garlan lonii ka, no hadu jaka keku si, no pyotii gyadi siran byo, yulo garku siran byo, no kiile larin byo, no siikki jaka ulun mi, siiyi ulun mi, no mecang ja tulyan mi, no garlan kondu pukun ke, garku kondu pukun ke, no siikki jaka ulun si, unga ha lalya to, siiyi ulun si, no unga ka labii to, liibii tati mi, selyang lyibyo ke. 12. Siikki hii unyi la, ngo pyotii garlan jaka unyi la, kilo hii unyi la, ngo yulo garku unyi si, uke yala di, ngo kaci jaka dalyi so, benyi anyi mi, no bulo jaka beli pa, biinii piilyi mi, dula yarnii si, no milo jaka mihi pa, milo hii lelo mi, no sulyi jaka lyanii si, kalin sibo mi, ka kago mi, no sula jaka lyangii bo, pyotii nyanyi bo, dadu nyanyi bo, no pyotii darbin pa, garlan lonii di, siro jaka tiiran dari hii nebyo ke, yulo darbin ka, no garku lonii si, siro hii tiiran dari kiile di, no garlan jaka lonii ka, dintii simbyo garlan lapang byo, no garlan ka lonii ka, landu keku si, pyotii gyadi siran byo. mican tulyan si, garlan kondu pukun byo, garlan jaka tangu ka, no anii mambii so, garlan hii hinii ka, no garku hinii ka, kampu hii hinii ka, ralyo hinii ka, loma hinii ka, kanku hinii ka, ngo hiker ka lyuto nii. 13. Hasang pyotii ka, no tadu jaka rade bo, ha pyotii ka, kanka rade bo, no lonyi jaka pyotii ka, kardu hii yulo ha, no urobya jaka pyotii ka, karko yulo bo, kolo lenku ka, ngo layin jaka laker mi, ayo hii bomin bo, no garlan kondu pukun ko, liibii tati ke, jilo rade bo, no garku kondu jaka pukun ko, panyo mombii to, pyotii nyanyi ka, ngo arki jaka nyanyi bo, yulo hii nyanyi ka, aro nyanyi bo, ngo garlan dulu selyang ka lyibyo ke, garku dulu selyang ka lyibyo ke. 14 . Pyotii yala di, ngo dadu jaka yulo ka, nyanga neku nii, no hilan jaka tangu ka, anii mambii so, ngo tado tumbo la, tayo tumbo la, ngo konku tumbo ka, patii hii tumbo ka, no hilan jaka tumbo ka, hido hii tumbo ka, no kedo koho pa, hilan hii lanka pa,

transcription of the subu heniin dadu dakan po, no hilan jaka leyo ka, dayo hii dadu bo, dadi dadu ka, no dasan jaka dadu bo, asan hii kotiir no tapo lyayo mi ayo bomin bo, hilan kondu so, panyo mobii to, no lilyo jaka taro mi, hilan dulu pa, selyang lyibyo ke. 15. Dadu lyanga ja, liite yalang ka, no lyanga neku mi, landu tangu ka, anii mambii so, no landu halan ka, laru halan ka, no halan jaka koho pa, liitii ditun, lyike ditun bo, no liitii lada ka, lyike laya bo, asan potiir ka, no yardu jaka yarle mi, ayo bomin bo, no halan kondu pukun so, ami tati mi, halan dulu pa, landu dulu so, selyang lyibyo ke. 16. Liitii yala di, no cudu jaka yala ka, nyanga siine m no yoka tangu ka, anii mambii so, yoka nyodu ka, no myobyang jaka nyodu ka, nyodu koho pa, ato cudu no, cudu hii cukur, piika kakur bo, no diike jaka tiibyo ka, piika hii kagio, cudu cile ka, no piika jaka kale bo, cudu hii yulo bo, no asan ka kotiir ka, ji hii dimi mi, ayo bomin bo, no aba jaka kiilyi mi, ji hii sango di, gola giido la, ngo jiri jaka lapin mi, yori hii saro mi, gola giido la, ngo yori lanke mi, tasan sango mi, gola hii giido mi, ngo tasan jaka lapin mi, lala giido mi, tai hingo mi, no gola, no cudu jaka bilo bo, aba hii kiilyi mi, no biinii piilyi pa, no apa jaka kiilo mi, milo lela pa, hula giido nii, no dadu jaka yulo bo, yoka kondu pukun so, no kemi tatii ke, ngo yuke jaka tati ke, ngo yuka jaka dulu mi, selyang lyibyo ke. 17. No piirii jaka tangu ka, anii mambii so, piile hinii ka, yayi hinii ka, ngo hiika jaka lito nii, koku nimii ka, ngo hika jaka lito nii, ato ketun no, hilan ketun ka, ato ketun no, hido kema ka, no ayo jaka kema bo, myolyi hii nii, myobya hebyo bo, no mobya dulo mi, myolyi hii hebyo bo, carun yatun mi, ayo bomin bo, no ketun jaka nyanyi ka, arki hii nyanyi bo, piirii kondu pukun so, yeku kondu pukun panyo talo ku, ngo ketun ka, nyanyi ka arki nyanyi mi, ami tati mi, ngo perre dulu so, yaye dulu so, selyang lyibyo ke.

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18. Ketun hii yala ka, nyangu lyala di, anii hii boje guha gule di, no lyibu jaka toku nii, lyikii piirii bo, guha gule di, no gubu jaka cato nii, nayo butun ka, no rupu jaka cato mi, nayo butun ka, no rupu jaka lato mi, ayo bomin bo, benyi anyi mi, nubu hii bugii go, nara kogii bo, no lyikii jaka perre bo, sa butun, ayo kondu pukun so, panyo lato ku, ngo lyikii jaka piirii mi, aju hii dulu pa, gyopu ka gyoya guli co, no ramin ka lyaya lyili ke, aju dulu mi, selyang lyibyo ke. 19. Ngo murta garyang jaka tiran ka, ayo danyi bo, no iiji jaka koye ka, liitii pulo ka, no benyi ani mi, rici pita kemyo pita, no dulu jaka giimi bo, disi arki mi, perre tajer mi, no lala giinii ja, danyi hii nyanyi bo, arki nyanyi bo, suju kondu pukun so, no danyi jaka pesu tatii ke, pulo kata ka, no mander taro suju dulu mi, selyang lyibyo ke, no siimer jaka dulu mi, kolyung kolo di, no hatii pyabii so. 20. Danyi hii lyala ja, su lyala di, no lyanga ka nenii di, su nyanyi ka, arki nyanyi bo, no rukun kondu pukun so, panyo lato ku, no runyi jaka tarii mi, no rukun dulu ko, selyang lyibyo ke, no patii kalyang bo, aba su lo, no yobii jaka kajo lo, apa hii myoro lo, no rukun pukun bo, rubu taro mi, ngo rukun jaka dulu ko, selyang lyibyo ke. 21. Kolyung ka luhin ko, koho buto nii, ngo lubii aba su no, kolo lunge ka, no koho buto nii, luto aba myoro lo, tapan dinii mi, siijo dinii mi, ayo bomin bo, panyo lato ku, ngo lubii jaka nyanyi mi, arki nyanyi mi, piimer dulu so, ngo selyang lyibyo ke, pesii tatii mi, mander taro mi no, selyang lyibyo ke. 22. No mepin jaka yalo ja, luto hii yalo ja, no mele yalu di, nyanga hii nenii du, no ca kunka, mepin hii nyanyi bo, doha kunka, no mele jaka tale bo, benyi hii anyi mi, hago riilyin mi, no saro jaka giinii bo, siibo hii riipa mi, papyo hii giinii bo, endin hii riilyin mi, no lyakun ka, riipa mi sorpyo hii giinii bo, diinii riilyin mi, tupe hii riipa mi, papyo giinii bo, ca hii kunka mepin, nyanyi bo tiipan diinii mi, siijo diinii mi,

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no ayo jaka bomin bo, canya kondu hii pukun, no ahin jaka sotii mi, canya hii nelo so, donya ka dulu ko, ngo selyang ka lalyi ku. 23. Mepin hii yala di, mele ka yala di, ngo nyanga nenii, benyi hii anyi mi, no rici hiidu ka, no tubii jaka yarnii si, lyakun hii jilo mi, tubu hii yaniin si, no kolo jaka aniin ka, koping anii ka, konya aniin ka, no anii mambii so, acan hii koping ka, ngo koping jaka dilan di, pyalii hii toku nii, hipin hirii bo, koping hii koku no, no hele jaka hinya ka, koku konya lo, hirii hipin ka, koku hii kopin no, no iijan cago ka, meyi hii niipin nii, ayo bomin bo, no tatu kondu pukun so, panyo lato ku, gyopu mimbu co, ngo tatu kondu selyang lyibyo ke. 24. Dacan hii anii ka, korii anii ka, ngo kotiir ka, anii di, anii hii mambii so, acan kotiir la, ado hii kotiir, kotiir jaka hilan di, pyalii hii toku nii, iijan cago ka, no niinyi jaka niiter mi, ayo bomin bo, hai bigo ka, no niilyo totiir mi, ayo bomin bo, no tatu kondu pukun so, gyopu hii mimbu mi, ramin mimso mi, ngo tatu jaka dulu mi, selyang lyibyo ke, no benyi anyi mi, kulyu hii piitin mi, nintu biido ka, no rici jaka piitin pa, bodu dutin hii giinii bo, tako haka mi, kemyo haka pa, katu giido la, siipii kapin giinii bo, kulyu piitin mi, no, huntu jaka yarnii bo, tako hii haka mi, katu yager bo. 25. No liitii jaka yulo, no kolo hii nyire ka anii mambii so, no buru jaka urre la, siitii urii, urii koho pa, no nyirii jaka siile ka, karii hii murii bo, no buru jaka jingur ka, siitii hii jinbur ka, jingur ka koho pa, no lyigur jaka lenku ka, liitii hii mutu bo, dacan yangu mi, no ayo bomin bo, iirii yame mi, ayo bomin bo, no karii jaka yulo bo, kulyu kondu pukun, liitii yulo bo, no tako kondu pukun so, kiimi hii sotii mi, ngo karii jaka nyanyi ka, arki nyanyi mi, kulyu dulu so, liitii nyanyi ka, aro nyanyi mi, tako dulu so, selyang lyibyo ke. 26. Liitii hii yala di, nyanga nenii di, ngo gyo jaka dulan ka nyanga hii neku nii, ngo kolo jaka anii ka, rupu hii anii ka,

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appendix d byobi kocun so, pungu hii gyola, piiye gyoyi la, no gyo jaka yulo ka, geopin libyo ke, pyalii tanii di, no gyo jaka nyanyi ka, arki hii nyanyi bo, hiilan kotiir ka, no riipi jaka diinii mi, ayo bomin bo, ha riiri jaka biinyi mi, ayo bomin bo, aba kiilyi mi, no geoyi jaka pubu so, cala hii giinii bo, gyopu pober do, no cale jaka giinii bo, byolan kondu pukun, no kemi jaka tatii mi, byolan hii dulu pa, byobi dulu bo, ngo selyang ka lyibyo ke, gyo yulo ka, no lyango ka niniin di.

27. No tahii jaka dunii ka, tako dunii ka, sanga saro ka, no kedo jaka hada ka, dunii hii koho pa, myodi pungio lo, no myobya jaka pungio ka, pungio yulo bo, siinyi dunii mi, no ayo bomin bo, siito dunii mi, yo bomin bo, no kordu kondu pukun so, kebi hii dolo pombo yulo mi, ngo kemi jaka dulu bo, kordu hii dulu pa, selyang ka lyibyo ke. 28. No korlan ja, kolo hii nyiri ka, anii mambii so, tahii hii halan ka, tako halan ka, ngo sango jaka saro ka, doji hii ta ka, halan koho pa, myopin ka siipin ka, korlan yulo bo, siinyi diinii mi, no ayo bomin bo, halan kondu pukun ko, no kemi jaka tatii mi, halan dulu selyang lyibyo ke, myopin yulo bo, tagium siitor binyi mi, no kemi jaka tatii mi, kordu dulu selyang lyibyo ke. 29. Ngo tahii jaka hatii ka, tako hatii ka, no kedo hada ka, no hatii koho pa, myorii nyanyi ka, arki nyanyi bo, no myorii jaka nyanyi ka, no rupu nyanu mi, ahin nyata mi ayo bomin so, myorii hii nyanyi bo, murta kondu pukun so, no kemi jaka tatii mi, kenda hii taro mi, no murta ka dulu pa, selyang hii lyibyo ke. 30. Tahii lenii ka, no tako lenii ka, kedo hada ka, lenii koho pa, no myopin ka siipin ka, kedo hada ka, lenii koho pa, myopin ka siipin ka, myole hii siile, no tahan kondu pukun so, panyo monto ku, no ami jaka mi, murta dulu di, lenii cantu mi, ayo bomin bo.

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31. Myopin siipin ka, no myome jaka yulo bo, muryang kondu pukun so, gyopu mepin sotii mi, no ami jaka mi, no ramin jaka yodin co. 32. Tahii hii cicin tako cicin la, no kedo jaka godan ko, cicin hii koho pa, myole haryang byo, cidu jaka budun ko, yasi hii pubyang lo, andu pubyang lo, cantii hii junii mi, dotii jame mi, no ayo bomin bo, cidu nyanyi ka, arki nyanyi bo, gandu hii nyanyi ka, aro nyanyi bo, no marti kondu pukun so, malan kondu hii pukun, gyopu liiban mi, no ramin ka lalo mi, marti dulu selyang lyibyo ke. 33. Ngo abo nibo nyibu ngo, cantii kane pa, ngo jilo ka, botii si, dindi didin nalya pa, lyayu kate si, no siira jimer neku pe, cantii hii kane pa, ngo hiiyin lanke lyibyo ke, dotii kane pa, mengii lama ka lyibyo ke. 16. Siikor Lapang Kornu 1. Siiro dodu lo, ngo dodu jaka aro so, aba nibo nyibo ngo, ngo benyi anyi mi, pyakun tiicin so, perre hecin so, pyoha siikor mi, korlyang neku do, ngo yulo jaka siikor mi, korlyang neku do, no kiiri jaka yulo mi, tace siikor pa, korlyang kubyo ke, no neli yulo mi, kempu siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no mudo jaka yulo mi, no iitan hii siikor ja, korlyang kubyo ke. 2. Ngo rontu jaka yulo mi, murta hii siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no ronsan jaka yulo mi, buyun siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no kirun jaka yulo mi, rupu siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no kilo jaka yulo mi, ayen siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no siikki jaka yulo mi, bindu siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke. 3. No pyotii jaka yulo mi, garlan siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no dadu jaka yulo mi, hilan siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no liitii rade mi, landu siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, ngo pyoha siikor korlyang lyibyo ke.

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appendix d

4. No cudu jaka yulo mi, yoka siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no ketun jaka yulo mi, piirii yaye siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no nike jaka yulo mi, piirii mi aju hii siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no nayo butun jaka yulo mi, ajan siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no danyi jaka yulo mi, suju siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no pulo jaka yulo mi, siimer siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke. 5. No su jaka yulo mi, ruji siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no myoro jaka yulo mi, rukun siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no lubii jaka yulo mi, piimer siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no mepin jaka yulo mi, canya siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, ngo pyoha siikor korlyang lyibyo ke. 6. No hiiri jaka yulo mi, tatu siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no koku jaka yulo mi, tata siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no karii jaka yulo mi, kolyu siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no liitii jaka yulo mi, tako siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, ngo lapang rulyang kubyo ke. 7. No gyo jaka yulo mi, gyolan siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no pungio jaka yulo mi, kordu siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no korlan jaka yulo mi, halan siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no myorii jaka yulo mi, murta siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no myole jaka yulo mi, tahan siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no cidu jaka yulo mi, marti siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke, no myome jaka yulo mi, muryang siikor pa, korlyang lyibyo ke. 8. Siikor kornu ja, ngolapang kalapang di, ngo ati jaka mabyo ke, pabii tiipu ja, pyali hepun di, ngo ati ka malyi bo, pyoha rade ka, ngo pyoha jaka dulu mi, selyang lyibyo ke, yulo perre mi no selyang jaka lyibyo ke, kaju minte lo. 17. Liimin Layin Kunii dulu perre seniin 1. Ngo aba nibo nyibu mi, pyakun tiicin pa, perre hecin pa, no siikor jaka kocin so, dulu secin so, ngo aba nibo nyibu mi, pyoha rade bo, no limin jaka arki mi, tapyu aci ka, cidii jaka boja mi, no jorku ala ka, tara boja mi, no pyoha jaka liimin si,

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turi teran pe, no pinku pinse mi, jorku jarsi mi, tatu tudii mi, no tabyo jaka tupu mi, pinku tace mi, jarku tadu mi, no liimin tupu hudu la, tatu aci ka, no ciidii jaka boja mi, tabyo aha pa, no tara ka boja mi, no pyoha jaka radhe no, liimin turi taku pe. 2. Benyi anyi mi, no pyoha dintii ka, dintii digio pa, parre ragio pa, no benyi anyi mi, pyoha liimin mi, liimin arki turi teku pe, yulo layin si, no layin aro teku pe, no rici jaka taci mi, liimin tupu hudu la, kemyo tabyo mi, no layin pyapu hudu la, endin tace mi, lyakun tagio mi, no dolo jaka taci mi, sibo tagyu mi, no payu taci mi, no liimin tupu yadii la, murpin aci mi, murko aha mi, no minsi pinsi mi, mila pinta mi, no liimin tupu yadii la, gyulyang taru mi, genco taso mi, no tangi jaka pulo mi, tako yalo mi, no liimin tupu hudu, huri apu mi, hula ayen mi, no layin tupu hudu ka, no endin bo aci ka, no cidu jaka boja mi, no layin jaka aha ka, tara boja mi, no dolo arki ka, cidu boja mi, no sibo aha ka, no tara boja mi, no yui ala ka, tara boja mi, no pyoha jaka rade ka. 3. Ngo aba nibo nyibu ka, dohii liipin pyatan so, no libo lager jaka buyu so, tapyu aci ka, ngo ciidii boja mi, no jorku aha ka, tara boja mi, ngo layin pyagii lyibyo ke, jorku aha ka, no tara jaka boja mi, liimin tugii lyibyo ke, layin jaka tupu tope, benyi anyi mi, no rici aci mi, kemyo ada mi, no endin jaka aci bo, ciidii boja mi, lyakun aha, no tara jaka boja mi, dolo aci ka, ciidii boja mi, no liimin tugii toku pe, lyayin pyagii tobyo pe, kaju minte lo, ngo puntii taye mi, jutii seme mi, liimin tupu lyadii la, no layin pyapu yadi la. 4. Pyoha rade bo, yulo rade bo, ngo kiiri jaka yulo mi, tace dulu bo, selyang tabyo la, no taci taba liimin turi toku pe, ngo neli yulo mi, ngo kempu iitan dulu mi, selyang tabyo la, kempu iitan liimin turi toku pe, ngo rontu yulo mi, murta bike dulu ho, selyang tobyo la, no murta bike liimin mi, turi toku pe, ngo ronsan yulo mi, buyun biirii dulu ho, selyang tobyo la, no buyun biirii liimin, turi toku pe,

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ngo kirun yulo mi, rupu dulu ho, selyang tobyo la, no rupu liimin mi, turi toku pe. 5. Ngo kilo yulo mi, ayen dulu ho, selyang tobyo la, no ayen jaka liimin mi, turi toku pe, ngo siikki yulo mi, bindu dulu ko, dulu perre mi, selyang libyo ke, ngo bindu jaka liimin si, turi hii linto pe, pyotii rade mi, ngo gulan dulu so, selyang kubyo ke, gulan liimin mi, turi lato ke, dadu yulo mi, ngo hilan dulu si, selyang kubyo ke, no hilan liimin mi, turi lato ku. 6. Ngo liitii yulo mi, ngo halan aci dulu si, selyang kubyo ke, no halan aci liimin pa, liimin turi toku pe, ngo cudu yulo bo, no yoka dulu so, selyang kubyo ke, no yoka liimin mi, turi toku pe, ketun hii yulo mi, no piirii jaka yaye ka dulu perre, selyang kubyo ke, no piirii yaye liimin si, turi toku pe, lyike piirii bo, no aju ka dulu so, selyang kubyo ke, no aju ka alyo ko liimin hii layin mi, turi lato ke. 7. Ngo danyi jaka yulo mi, suju dulu mi, selyang kubyo ke, no binii sama jaka liimin mi, tulin manto ku, no pulo dulu mi, no siimer dulu so, selyang lyibyo ke, siimer liimin pa, no turi lato ke, ngo lubii yulo mi, piimer dulu so, ngo selyang kubyo ke, piimer piito liimin tulin lato ku, ngo mepin jaka yulo mi, canya donya hii dulu pa, selyang ka kubyo ke, no canya donya liimin turi toku pe. 8. Ngo hiiri ka yulo mi, tatu dulu so, no selyang ka kubyo ke, no tatu tata liimin si, liimin turi hii nalya to, karii yulo mi, ngo kulyu jaka dulu so, selyang kubyo ke, karii yulo bo, no kulyu tako liimin turi hii nanto ku, gyo yulo mi, ngo gyolang byobi liimin mi, byobi dulu mi, ngo selyang lyibyo ke, liimin turi lato ke, pungio yulo mi, no kordu dulu so, selyang kuybyo ke, kordu koman ka, no liimin jaka layin mi, turi lato ku. 9. Ngo myorii yulo mi, murtan dulu so, selyang lyibyo ke, no murta bike liimin si, liimin turi lato ku, myole siile mi, ngo tahan jaka dulu so,

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sanga dulu pa, selyang lyibyo ke, no tahan tadu liimin mi, turi hii lato ku, cidu gando mi, ngo marti malan jaka dulu pa, selyang hii kubyo ke, no marti malan ka, liimin mi, turi lato pe, layin pyabii lato ke. 10. Benyi anyi mi, ngo puntii gamin so, jutii hii ganko so, tajer gamin so, ngo pyoha jaka liimin mi, tudi giilyi byo, abo nibo di, ngo tapyu ka liimin mi, tabyo layin mi, ngo dohii hepin dulu so, liiber laying buyin so, dohii ciku so, ngo libo jaka ciru so, liimin turi giilyi byo. liimin layin kunii 11. Myome hii yulo mi, ngo muryang murku dulu pa, selyang kubyo ke, no myome nyanyi arki nyanyi bo, no muryang murku nyanyi, liimin turi toku pe, ngo muryang jaka dulu mi, murku dulu mi, selyang kubyo ke. haci hatii ka, ngo dulu jaka korlan mi, halan hii dulu mi, ngo selyang kubyo ke, no dunii jaka korlan bo, halan haci hii liimin turi toke pe. 12. Haci hatii ka, no myorii jaka sii murta bike dulu mi, ngo selyang jaka kubyo ke, murta bike liimin turi toku pe, haci hatii ka, ngo siikii jaka nyanyi mi, ngo bindu dulu so, ngo selyang ka lyibyo ke, bindu liimin ja, no rulyang jaka layin, si tubi toku pe. 13. Ngo haci jaka lyayu mi, hartii hii lyayu mi, ngo lyayu jaka yulo mi, tapyu jorku dulu selyang ka, tobyo la, no tapyu jorku liimin mi, liimin tubi teku pe, ngo haci jaka tatii ka, lyayu hii yulo bo, no tapyu jorku liimin mi, liimin turi bo, teku pe, ngo tapyu jaka dulu bo mi, tabyo hii dulu mi, selyang ka lyibyo ke. 14. Haci hatii ka, ngo cantu jaka rade mi, lyayu laker dulu so, ngo selyang jaka kubyo ke, cantii hii rade bo, lyayu jaka laker ka, liimin hii layin mi, no turi toku pe, haci hatii ka, no dolo jaka hale mi, siibi dulu ho, ngo siibyo jaka dulu, siibi dulu mi, selyang hii lyibyo ke, ho haci hatii ka, dolo hii hale bo, no siibi siibyo liimin mi, liimin turi toku pe.

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appendix d

15. Benyi jaka anyi mi, pyokun tiicin so, no pyali jaka hecin so, pyabii tiicin so, no pyoha hii liimin mi, no gyopu gyalo ka, kiile larin ka, mutu lelo kane pa, pyoha liimin mi, turi toku pe, rici liimin mi, turi toku pe, no kemyo layin mi, endin lyakun liimin mi, no dolo sibo liimin mi, payu yui liimin mi, no tatu tabyu liimin mi, liimin tubi toku pe, layin pyadi tobyo ke. 16. Aba nibo nyibu mi, no siikor jaka karjo pa, lapang hii rajo pa, no pyakun hii tiijo pa, perre hejo pa, ngo abo nibo nyibu mi, sango nyibu mi, no ribun jaka diyun pa, hago diyu mi, yayin diyun pa, liimin hii tubyo mi, no tapyu jaka aci ka, ciidii boja mi, jorku ala ka, no tara jaka boja mi, dohii hiipin bodu so, no liibo layin boja so, layin pyali giilyi bo. 17. Kaju mente lo, no pyonii dirun si, alii mado ke, unii siiran si, no ale jaka mado ke, tajer gami so, tapin ganko so, puntii gami so, jutii ganko so, no yaji jaka subo si, riipin monto ku, yalo gyapin si, riilyang nalya to, ngo yaji jaka kino mi, yalo kino mi, ngo nonku jaka giilyi ku. 18. Aba nibo nyibu ka, ngo mihi jaka yui ka yaji ka, koho yalo bo, no endin ka yaji bo, lyakun hii yalo bo, no dolo sibo yalo bo, no hulan iitan paku ju, hurko anyi loku ju, gokan mutu loku ju, habyo lelo loku ju, no yaji jaka jilo si, repin hii talo ku, relyang hii lalya to, pyonii diirun so, ngo pyakun jaka tiicin so, unii siira so, perre hecin so, ngo tapyu jaka mutu mi, giijer malyi la tabyo lelo mi, ngo baber ka tama ke, pinku mutu mi, giijer malyi ke, jorku helo mi, baber malyi la, pinku mutu mi, giijer malyi la, ngo jorku mutu mi, baber malyi la, miji gami mi, ngo yasi abun malyi ke, murin genko mi, ngo yamu abya malyi bo, yaji hii patan hii patan. 19. Kaju mente lo, no pyoha jaka dirun so, pyoha hii iicin, no cima jaka ke, pintu diine lyama co, yulo iipo si, ngo poma jaka iipo do, ponii tanga hii lyama co, no yaji jaka piigia mi, gyahu lyiku co, yalo jaka piigia mi, ngo gyahu jaka lyibyo ke, yaji tarii lato ku, no yalo karii lato ku.

transcription of the subu heniin 18. Lyego Kuniin 1. Aba nibo nyibu ngo, ngo tunii atu pa, yaji patan mi, ngo lebur dari giilyi bo, ngoyi anii pa, ngo yendin jaka pelyang mi, lyi mi, piilyang giilyi bo, ngo yaji patan ka, kaju hii mente lo, no yalo jaka pabin ha, kaju mente lo, ngo lyego jaka beryang pa, bekin hii adii la, miilin talyi ku, ngo sa ka halyang mi, hokin miilin lyi, ngo haci jaka hatii ka, lyego mi, kohu giilyi ku, ngo halan gambii pa, galin hii giilyi ku, ngo haci jaka hatii ka, myorii hii sii ka, ngo murta ka lyego mi, bike hii lyego mi, ngo yaji jaka lyego mi, yalo hii lyego mi, ngo kohu jaka giilyi ku, murta bike gambii pa, galin giilyu ku, ngo haci jaka hatii pa, siikki yulo mi, bindu lyego so, benga lyeyo mi, kohu giilyi ku, haci hatii ka, no dolo jaka hale mi, siibo lyego mi, no siibyo jaka lyego mi, siibyo lyego mi, kohu jaka giilyi ku, no siibi gambii pa, siibyo gambii pa, galin giilyi ku. 2. Haci hatii ka, gambii pa, cantu jaka rade mi, lyayu laker gambii pa, ngo galin jaka giilyi ku, lyayu laker lyego no, dordu jaka lyego mi, siinyi lyego mi, kohu jaka giilyi ku, aha hii pungio ka, no kordu jaka lyego mi, siinyi lyego mi, kohu jaka giilyi ku, siinyi siito gambii pa kohu giilyi ku. 3. Siinyi siito gambii pa, galin hii giilyi ku, ngo aha korlan ka, haci lyego mi, kohu giilyi ku, ngo siinyi siito gambii pa, murta bike lyego mi, no nyanyi jaka lyego mi, kohu hii giilyi ku, ngo murta bike gambii pa, galin hii giilyi ku. 4. Ngo aha jaka myole ka, tahan taru lyego mi, ngo sanga jaka lyego pa, yaji hii lyego mi, no kohu ka giilyi ku, taru hii gambii pa, no galin giilyi ku. 5. Aha myome mi, ngo siinyi jaka myome mi, muryang murku lyego mi, no yaji jaka lyego mi, kohu hii giilyi ku,

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no cidu jaka gambii mi, marti lyego mi, no kohu jaka giilyi ku, gandu hii pubyang mi, marlan lyego mi, kohu giilyi ku, ngo siinyi jaka gondu ka, marti hii gambii pa, ngo marlan jaka gambii pa, galin giilyi ku, ngo siigan sicu mi, lanci lyego mi, no lalyo lyego mi, kohu giilyi ku, ngo lalyi layo gambii pa, kohu giilyi ku. 6. Ngo duri jaka landing ka, tagiung tupe ka, no dancan jaka lyego mi, kohu hii giilyi byo, ngo yati lyego mi, lanko ka tagung lyego mi, kohu giilyi ku, yaji lyego mi, no yalo lyego kohu giilyi ku. 7. Dacan gambii pa, no tagiung tupe ka yube ka, yari gambii pa, galin lyiku byo, ngo duri landing ka, ngo cidu jaka yulo mi, marti lyego mi, ngo kohu ka giilyi ku, duri landing ka, no myole siile mi, tahan tadu lyego mi, no kalin giilyi byo, tahan tadu gambii pa, galin giilyi byo, ngo duri landing ka, no myorii jaka sii mi, murta bike lyego mi, ngo yanyi jaka lyego mi, kohu giilyi byo, duri landing ka, ngo asan pungio mi, no kordu lyego mi, duri lyego mi, no kohu jaka giilyi byo, duri landing ka, ngo asan pungio mi, ngo tagiung tayi gambii pa, ngo yudi jaka gambii pa, karme gambii pa, ngo galin giilyi ku. 8. Ngo duri hii landing ka, ngo asan ka korlan ka, halan haci hii gambii pa, ngo galin giilyi ku, myopin hii korlan mi, ngo halan jaka lyego mi, haci lyego mi, no kohu jaka giilyi ku, halan haci gambii ku, ngo myopin jaka siipin pa, pungio hii yulo mi, ngo kordu lyego mi, yaji lyego mi, no kohu jaka giilyi ku, kordu hii gambii pa, no galin ka giilyi byo, myopin siipin ka, ngo myorii jaka yulo mi, murta bike gambii pa, ngo galin jaka giilyi ku, myole hii siile mi, ngo hatan jaka lyego mi, taru hii lyego, ngo kohu giilyi ku, myole siile ka, ngo tahan jaka gambii pa, taru hii gambii pa, ngo sanka jaka gambii pa, galin biilyi ku, no gyo jaka yulo mi, dolan byobi lyego mi, kohu jaka giilyi ku, dolan byobi gambii pa, ngo galin jaka giilyi ku, karii hiiro yulo mi, ngo kulyu gambii pa,

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liitii yulo ka, tako gambii pa, no galin jaka giilyi ku, ngo hiiri yulo ka, ngo tatu lyego mi, kohu hii giilyi byo. 9. Kaju mento lo, ngo danyi yulo ka, suju hii lyego mi, ngo kohu giilyi byo, pulo yulo ka, ngo siimer jaka lyego mi, kohu hii giilyi ku, ngo nyike jaka piirii mi, aju lyego mi, sa butun mi, ngo lyiki piirii ka, aju hii gambii mi, ngo sa jaka butun ka, aju hii gambii mi, ngo galin ka giilyi ku, kaju mento lo, cudu hii yulo ka, ngo yoka ka lyego mi, galin giilyi ku, no ketun jaka yulo ka, ngo piirii yaye gambii pa, ngo galin jaka giilyi ku, liitii hii yulo ka, ngo hanga jaka lyego mi, haci hii lyego mi, ngo kohu jaka giilyi byo, liitii rade ka, ngo alan aci gambii pa, galin giilyi ku, no dadu jaka yulo mi, hilan mi, lyego mi, ngo kohu jaka giilyi byo, hedo lyego mi, ngo kohu jaka giilyi ku, hilan hedo gambii pa, ngo galin giilyi ku. 10. Hasang pyotii ka, ngo garlan ka lyego mi, kohu giilyi byo, ngo ha jaka pytoii ka, garku hii lyego mi, ngo kohu jaka giilyi ku, hasang pyotii ka, ngo garlan gambii pa, galin giilyi ku, ha pyotii ka, no garku gambii pa, galin giilyi ku, no kaju mente lo, hasang pyotii ka, garlan gambii pa, ngo ato siikki ka, bindu gambii pa, ngo benya jaka gambii pa, dangi giilyi byo, ngo siikki jaka yulo mi, bindu lyego so, ngo kohu jaka giilyi ku, binga lyego mi, ngo kohu jaka giilyi ku, siikki yulo ka, ngo bindu gambii pa, biha gambii pa, ngo galin jaka giilyi ku, ato kilo ka, ngo ayen jaka yulo mi, ayen lyego mi, kohu giilyi ku, ngo yulo lyego mi, kohu giilyi ku, kilo hii yulo ka, ngo ayen jaka gambii pa, galin giilyi ku. 11. Ngo ato kirun ka, rupu lyego mi, ngo kohu ka giilyi ku, kirun hi yulo ka, no rupu jaka gambii pa, galin giilyi ku, kaju mente lo, ngo iitan jaka dulu ka, biiyu lyego mi, ngo biirii lyego mi, ngo kohu giilyi ku, ngo rontu jaka lyego ka, murta bike hii lyego mi, kohu giilyi ku, ronsan hii lyego pa, galin giilyi ku, no buyu gambii pa, ngo galin jaka giilyi ku, rontu hii yulo mi,

378

appendix d ngo murta gambii pa, murta lyego mi, ngo bike lyego mi, yaji jaka lyego kohu hii giilyi ku.

12. Kaju mente lo, neli jaka yulo mi, kempu hii lyego mi, ngo mudo yulo mi, iitan lyego mi, ngo kohu jaka giilyi ku, neli hii yulo ka, ngo kempu jaka gambii pa, mudo hii yulo ka, ngo iitan ka gambii pa, galin hii giilyi ku, kiiri jaka yulo mi, tace lyego mi, no kohu jaka giilyi ku, lyarii yulo mi, ngo taba ka lyego mi, kohu giilyi ku. 13. No kiiri jaka lapang so, yaji hii kino mi, ngo nonkung jaka giilyi ku, yalo hii kino mi, nonkung hii giilyi ku, ngo endin jaka, yaji lyakun hii yalo, no dolo jaka yaji mi, yui hii yalo mi, ngo kiiri jaka lapang so, jilo hii yaji jaka kino mi, nonkung giilyi ku, jilo ka yaji mi, lyayu yalo mi, ngo yaji jaka kino mi, nonkung giilyi ku. 14. No yaji jaka yalo mi, pyakun tiijo pa, no perre hejo pa, pyabii tiijo pa, pyali hejo pa, rici hii aci ka, ciidii boja mi, no kemyo jaka ala ka, tara boja mi, no endin ka aci ka, ciidii hii boja mi, no lyakun jaka ala ka, ciidii boja mi, ngo dolo hii aci ka, no ciidii boja mi, sibo hii ala ka, taro ka boja mi, no tatu jaka aci ka, ciidii boja mi, no liimin toku pe, layin turi tubyo ke, no gyopu mutu si, no belyang ka yalyi ke, ramin hii lelo bengo ka yalyi ke, no murpin aci mi, murko ala mi, gyunyang aci mi, lyine ho ala mi, minsi pinci mi, no nilan jaka pinta mi, gyunyang taci mi, genco taso mi, liimin tupu hudii la, ngurpin hii aci murko ka ala mi, layin toku ciidii ka, no tatu jaka aci ciidii boja mi. 15. Ngo aba nibo nyibu mi, liimin turi toku pe, no benyi jaka anyi mi, rici hii aci mi, no kemyo jaka ala mi, endin hii aci mi, lyakun jaka ala mi, dolo hii aci mi, no dolo hii aci mi, no sibo jaka la mi, liimin turi toku pe, pahu aci mi, no yui jaka ala ka, taro boje mi, no layin pyage toku pe, pyoha hii liimin mi, ngo tiige jaka giilyi ku, kiiri hii yulo bo, lyarii yulo bo,

transcription of the subu heniin no gyopu gyalo bo mi, kiile hii larin mi, no gyopu ali pa, kiile hii ali pa, ngo ngui jaka toko da, benyi anyi ku, ngo lutii dibi nedii ke, giira hiya hii kendu la, no nyomping hii tu, diime se diibyo ke, no hacan lyokan jaka diime so, lyine hii kudii ke, no diiri diinyo nanto lya, kano tanyo nanto lya, ngo taci jaka sa mi, bima hii lyibyo ke, no ta sa mi, ngo biima hii lyibyo ke, aba nibo nyibu ngo, ngo dohii kugii lyi libo, pahii pagii lyi. 16. Kiiri hii yulo mi, ngo tace gambii la, lyarii yulo ka, no taba jaka gambii li, tapyu ali gambii pa, ngo jorku aro gambii pa, yayi hii patan mi, ngo yalo jaka pabin mi, yaji hii gyabii mi, galin jaka giilyi ku, yalo hii gyabii mi, ngo gali jaka giilyi ku, tapyu ali gambii ku, tutii giigo pa, taro hii jire pa, ngo yaji jaka tutii mi, tuba hii giilyi ku, ngo yalo sente mi, ngo sembo jaka giilyi ku, tutii piigo ku, no iijan byada pa, hai hii byada pa, ngo yaji jaka byada mi, byo ke giilyi ku, ngo yalo jaka byada pa, byatin giilyi ku. 17. Ngo iijan ka gambii ku, ngo regan ka gambii pa, rebii gambii pa, rebii gambii pa, ngo aba jaka kiilyi ka, yaji hii doging pa, ngo helyang jaka koku byo, apu hii kiilo ka, ngo yulo jaka myoyu ka, hulya hii nyako byo. 18. Ngo regan ka gambii ku, rebii hii ganko ku, Ngo supyu jaka gyayu pa, tiilyang hii helyang pa, ngo aba jaka kiilyi pa, punu gambii pa, hiiro jaka gambii pa, galin giilyi ku, ngo hao hii gambii ku, lesin hii lebya ka, talyi tabya pa, ngo pulun ka gambii pa, ngiiro hii gambii pa, no bumi babo payin jaka gambii pa, no pulun ka gambii pa. 19. Ngiiro hii gambii pa, ngo galin ka giilyi ku, kenco hii pyali ka, ngo biirii jaka kensa ka, piike hii gange ka, no gantii gambii pa, lyaso gambii pa,

379

380

appendix d myanga giilyi ku, gantii gambii ku, su gambii pa, ngo dilan pengu pa, ngo su jaka gambii pa, no hunga ja giilyi ku.

20. No tacan jaka dirun do, myoro hii hiira su tayo hiira, no yanyi jaka patan no, yalo jaka pabin ha, su jaka dirun so, yaji hii muti ja, no pempu hudii la, myoro hiira so, no yulo jaka rici si, pempu hii yadii la, no su jaka dirun si, su hii gambii pa, ngo botii siili gambii pa, yaji doging mi, lyanga giilyi ku, yalo yoyu mi, hunga giilyi ku. 21. Ngo hao gambii ku, pantii hii jobii gambii pa, ganku giilyi ku, ngo abo nibo nyibu ka, rici hii yaji bo, kemyo yalo bo, endin hii lyakun yaji bo, no dolo sibo yalo ka, lyapin hii naran so, ngo cantu ka nako so, yaji hii asun mi, suncon lykiku byo, ngo yalo jaka asun mi, suncon hii lyibyo ke. 22. No iiji ka lote ka, lopin hii arki bo, murta lotii ka, lange aro bo, no lyapin ka tiipan mi, diidan hii biito ku, no cantu jaka siijo mi, riinyo hii biilya to, no lyapin karbii so, cantu hii nako so, ngo yaji jaka asun mi, suncon lyiku ke, ngo yalo jaka asun mi, suncon lyibyo ke. 23. Ngo tiike rade ka, taker dumi ka, ngo rici yaji mi, kemyo yalo mi, endin lyakun yaji mi, dolo sibo yalo mi, ngo lubii jaka mepin pa, yaji hii doging mi, ngo byatu jaka byago pa, yalo hii myoyun mi, no pargo jaka lyego pa, hiimi, hii myodi pa, ngo hiiro ka myoka pa, palan hii naran pa, piiko nako pa, lyapin naran so, cantu nako so, ngo tajer ka gami so, tapin ganko so, ngo puntii gami so, jutii hii ganko so, ngo yaji jaka bumi, bulin hii giilyi ku, ngo yalo ka yui mi, kome giilyi ku. 24. No lyapin ka tiipan si, diidan buto ku, no cantu jaka siiyo si, rinyo hii buto ku, cantii kane pa, ngo heyin lanke lyiku byo, dotii kane pa, ngo menge lama, lyibyo ke, tajer lango si, no yaji jaka lango mi, gocun hii lyibyo ke, ngo tapin ke lango si, yalo lango mi, ngo gocun ka lyiku ke.

transcription of the subu heniin

381

25. Gyopu gyalo ka, no kiile larin ko, biilyo hii koho di, ngo dohii ka, miti si, atu miti ja, ngo lumo jaka mirin si, ayo miilin ja, ngo pama tobyo ke, gyopu gyalo di, no kiile larin bo, no tajer ka yalyang mi, yale bito do, no tajer ka yenji, hilo hii lyibyo ke, tapin yalyang mi, no yale bito ka, tapin taken co, kulo lyinii pento lyalyang mi, lyale jaka bito la, puntu taken co, kulo biilyi nii, jutii penji co, no hiilo jaka biilyi nii, no iijan jaka penji mi, no iipyo taken co, no kulo jaka biilyi nii, nyanii rigur co, rilo biilyi nii, miida hii gyaso co, no golo jaka biilyi nii, kudin hii ribun co, no rilo biilyi nii, gyopu gyalo ka, ngo lali jaka adin pa, tiipun adin pa, dinke biilyi nii, ngo buda adin pa, no dinke biilyi nii, kuru muri pa, gyopu nuri pa, kime hanyo pa, no ramin ka, ganyo armyang hii biilyi ke, gyopu hii gyalo no, no hengi hentii nalya ko, kiile larin no myangi myaro sito lya. 26. Rici byopin danyi si, byoha ka lyidii ke, kemyo bober pulo si, no byoha jaka lyidii ke, gyopu lulu lyayo ka, no ramin rule lyayo ka, ngo iijan hoda ka, murta tapu mi, piiri diibyu mi, no dinyo nalyi ke, hai hoda ka, hintii tade mi, piiri diibyu mi, no dinyo nalyi ke, kami hoda ka tendin sibo, no kamo jaka hoda ka, paba hango pa, no piiri jaka dilo so, arki piiri pa, no aro jaka piiri pa, buje piiri pa, no taji jaka piiri pa, dinyo nalyi ke. 27. Benyi hii anyi mi, no myodi jaka likan so, rici dimin ja, ngo didin ka nalyi ku, myoso linyi so, no kemyo siira si, jimer nalyi ke, paker likan so, tunii limin si, no pari linyi so, ro dinun ka, no didin jaka kiine pe, suci likan so, endin jaka didin si, didin jaka neku pe, suro linyi so, no lyakun jaka siira si, jimer nalyi pe, no punu jaka aku so,

382

appendix d tatu dimin si, no didin ka neku pe, gantii aku so, no kedo jaka dimin si, didin hii nalyi ke.

28. Ngo benyi anyi mi, pyaku tiicin so, no perre jaka hecin so, pybabii tiicin so, ngo tiike rade mi, taker dumi mi, ngo dintii dimin mi, pare rayi mi, ngo dinii lanker, kanan neku do, ngo biiyu lanker mi, kanan neku do, sudo suru si, supya no nyando tanyan si, nyampya neran do, ngo buri tago so, joypa nebyo ke, gantii cicin so, no biinii jaka cicin la, lyaso meme si, no mito jaka meme la, kudo taku si, no kumpya ka yane la, rido tarii si, no ripya ka yane la. 29. Dilan hii pengu da, ngo siikor lapang so, gantii tiitii pa, ngo lyaso jaka roro pa, milo roro pa, ngo danyi pa, miro miri so, ngo ato pulo ka, haro hari so, ngo ato su mi, tahii kapyu la, ngo ayo myoro mi, tako kate la, ngo doding rade mi, talu katu la, dolo kori mi, no talo jami kate la, palo hii rade mi, no jisu katu la, mala kari mi, hiiri kate la, no diinii paci ka, mema neko da, no biiyo jaka ngiira ka, jama neko pa. 30. Gantii kaniin mi, no kedo jami kakun lyi, lyaso kaniin mi, no ala jami kadun lyi, punu kaniin mi, ngo tatu jami kadun lyi, lutii kaniiin mi, dolo jami kadun lyi, henger kaniin ja, no sibo jami kadun lyi, suci kaniin si, no endin jami kadun lyi, suro hii kaniin mi, no lyakun jami kadun lyi, gondu hii kaniin si, no yui jami kadun lyi, paker kaniin di, no tunii kadun lyi, myolyi kaniin si, no rici jami kadun lyi, myoso kaniin si, ngo kemyo kadun lyi. 31. Benyi anyi mi, ngo cantii kane pa, heyi lanke lyibyo ke,

transcription of the subu heniin

383

dotii kane pa, menge lama lyibyo ke, ngo aba jaka nibo ka, jilo hii botii. 19. Mutu Lelo 1. Kolyung hatii oho buto mi, pantii hatii kolo haro, jobii haro mi, oho bunca tii, pantii aba su, jobii apa myoro, dohii ditun hiibi kiine ma, libo kortun hiile kiine ma, dupu pamun ajan giinii mi, date yabyo aliir giinii mi, kibo lijo hii, hii harci abi bo, ropo lita hiko ceke patin bo, pantii atin nyimon, jobii ala miha, atin pyakun murta pyakun mi, helyang lyi ala perre la, perre mi helyang lyi, lelo perre helyang lyi. 2. Si atin nyimon mi, sukun ala miha mi, timbo atin nyimon mi, labo ala miha mi, yorbii nyimon mi, siigan ala miha mi, kiri nyimon mi, lyarii ala miha mi, neli nyimon mi, hundo ala miha mi, myorii nyimon mi, sii ala miha mi, myome nyimon mi, heme ala miha mi, lutii nyimon mi, griiha ala miha mi. [............ ]1 3. Si ayin hetu tanii mi, sukun aha rabo tanii mi, mutu pyakun leca pyakun lelo perre helyang lyiku, pyakun tiikun perre hekun mi, helyang lyiku.

1

Mudan Pai explained that he did not chant several lines listing other spirits.

APPENDIX E

MUDAN PAI’S LIFE-HISTORY Mudan Pai gave this brief account of his life in 2005. Born about 1950, he is now one of the most respected nyibus in the Apatani valley. ‘His voice is clear’—this is what people say when explaining why they invite him to perform the long Subu Heniin chant during a Murung. He has chanted that text twenty-six times, as recorded by the twentysix little pieces of tajer bamboo fixed on the wall in the back right hand corner of his house. He is slight, wiry and alert, with copper-coloured skin, large ears, high cheekbones, drawn cheeks and a faded tattoo on his chin. He speaks softly, and patiently, until he breaks into his high pitched laugh. Leaning into the microphone, he spoke about his life: My father’s brother was a nyibu, but he died when I was young. I didn’t ‘train’ with anyone, but I liked to listen to other nyibus, while they chanted. I also asked some questions from time to time, how to do this and that. I had a hard childhood. My father died when I was still breastfeeding. Laling and Yalu had come and so times were tough.1 I was an only child. I had to look after my mother. She got ill and couldn’t work, so I had to do all the fieldwork, collect firewood and things like that. I called a nyibu to cure my mother, and he did chicken and egg divinations, and chanted—it stuck in my mind. I heard all that and it made a strong impression. Still my mother continued to be ill. She was ill for 10 years or so and then died. Before that, she arranged for my marriage and my wife moved in. After a year, my wife became ill and I called many nyibus. They all did divinations and I watched them in my house. I overheard them chanting as I did work around the house. My wife remained ill for about a year.

1 These are the Apatani names for Christoph and Betty von Fürer-Haimendorf, who visited the valley for several months in 1944–45 and returned for shorter visits.

386

appendix e

She didn’t get well, so my wife asked if we could move to her parents’ house.2 We moved there, but there was no nyibu. So I began to do a few small rituals. Also when working in the fields with my group, I heard ayus from the older men.3 People knew I was interested in miji migung and some said I would become a nyibu.4 They were saying this for five or six years, but I didn’t think so. They all said this, but I didn’t agree. Once my brother asked me to do an egg divination—he had heard what people were saying about me. That’s about all I could do then, an egg divination. My brother said that he had called a lot of nyibus but still wasn’t cured, so he wanted me to try. No nyibu would come back, he said. ‘But I can’t do it,’ I said to him. ‘You can try,’ he said. ‘Even though you’re not really a nyibu, even if you can’t do it properly, you can try.’ So I tried to do as much as I knew how. I did the bidu ritual, saying to my brother, ‘If you don’t get well, I won’t do anything more.5 I’m not a nyibu and I can’t do this kind of thing. If I don’t do it right, the spirits won’t accept it.’ My brother didn’t get well, but he lied and said he was better. After that other people asked me to do longer rituals and chants. And I did them well [laughs]! They asked me to do more complex tiigo and wi barnii rituals and chants.6 My assistant was Narang Buda, who was a good nyibu and actually knew a lot more than I did [laughs]. I was like a little boy trying to take his first steps. If I made mistakes, he told me about them later, after we had finished. So I began to do a few wi barnii rituals and he said I did them very well. My brother was cured. That was the starting point. Then people asked me to do divinations for tiigo rituals. They insisted. Still, I had no one to help with all the work [in the fields] and I just didn’t have the time to do these long tiigo rituals. When I became a fully-fledged nyibu, I began to ask others for help, for little details. I mostly asked Tage Tanyo and Tage Ade. I needed

His wife is from Biirii, a settlement linked to the village of Mudan Tage. Men and women used to work in a patan, an informal group that worked in each member’s fields on a rotating basis. 4 Miji migung means ‘ritual knowledge’ and ‘oral tradition.’ 5 The bidu is a minor healing ritual. 6 Tiigo and wi barnii are protective rituals and chants, respectively. 2 3

mudan pai’s life-history

387

to know how to do a ritual for each spirit—all the things that we have been talking about here. It was difficult for me to be a nyibu, because I had no one to help me with agricultural work. But now everyone seems to ask for me, to look for me to do a ritual for them. I suppose I’m successful. First I did a few of the preliminary divinations for a Murung, and then people asked me to do a full Murung. To climb on the lapang and chant the Subu Heniin. I did it well, like the old nyibus I had listened to [laughs]. They accepted me and now everyone calls me. At first I got some of my ceremonial dress from old nyibus. I borrowed some, but I had a few of my own pieces and I purchased others. I made a few pieces and my wife made my abyo [headdress]. Soon I had my own complete set. I have climbed on the lapang 26 times. Q. What about your sons? What will they do after you die? A: Most of my children have become Christians. They don’t care about miji migung, or any kind of traditional knowledge. But later on in their lives, they’ll go to doctors for medicine. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll try Christian things. And if they don’t work, they’ll be forced to call nyibus. They’ll have to try wi benii [healing rites]. Eventually, it will come out right, but they should learn miji migung now. But they’re not interested, too focused on their studies. I have seven children, the eldest daughter is married and I did a miida for her.7 My next eldest is a son—I gave him fields and a house. Of my seven children, five finished 10th standard. But none of them has any interest in old things, chants or rituals. Still, when they have illness in the future and doctors can’t help, they’ll go to nyibus. Q: How did you begin to chant ayus? A: I began with the Donii Ayu, which I heard a few times. Then during a Murung, I heard the Dulu Ayu. You see, other boys had to collect firewood in order to be permitted to hear ayus, but not me. I didn’t go in for that kiibo stuff [firewood collection]. I went often to listen, even during Myoko, and I heard byai byalo.8 But I wasn’t a council member. 7 8

A miida is an expensive feast given by the bride’s family to the husband’s family. This ayu involves verbal duelling between members of a village council (bulyang).

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appendix e

Q: What about Murungs? A: Well, I did my first Murung when my mother was ill. I think it was a subu taniin [minor Murung] for my eldest son. Q: Were Nyishi nyibus ever called to do rituals? A: When there were disputes between us [Apatanis], we might call Nyishis as outsiders. Those misan nyibus have contact with sotu spirits, the most dangerous ones. Q: Did Nyishis ever call you? A: No, but sometimes Nyishi families who lived nearby [but outside the valley] would call us to do small rituals. Q: Can you make ritual altars? A: Most of them, but not all. There’s a few I don’t know how to make. Q: Then who makes them? A: We call someone who knows how. Q: How did you learn to make altars? A: At first, I learned how to strip bamboo pieces, especially during Myoko, for Tamu and a few other spirits. Q: Is there any role for a nyibu in the Donyi-Polo Hall?9 A: That place is not named correctly. It shouldn’t be called ‘DonyiPolo Meder Nelo.’ You see, meder means ‘purification,’ to remove bad influences. It should be called ‘Danyi-Tanii Hall.’10

9 10

The worship place for the neo-traditional religion of Donyi-Polo. ‘Danyi’ is the Apatani variant of ‘Donyi’ (sun), and tanii is the Apatani ethnonym.

APPENDIX F

FEASTS OF MERIT IN THE EXTENDED EASTERN HIMALAYAS The map on the next page shows the approximate locations where a feast of merit has been reliably reported in the extended eastern Himalayas. Many of these feasts, it should be borne in mind, are no longer performed. Some reported rituals require more data, and several confirmed feasts lie outside the region.

390

appendix f

CHINA

Tibet Hi m

a

la

NEP AL

ya

ns Mountai

23 13

BHUTAN

BANGLADES

H

21?

18

20 15 4 12 11 14 75 6 2 83 1

9

INDIA

22 19

10

17

BURMA

16

OS LA

VI

Bay of Bengal

Ethnic group: source 1. Kabui Naga: Shakespear 1912a: 70–71 2. Mikir/Karbi: Stack 1908: 42 3. Tangkhul Naga: Watt 1887: 367; Hodson 1911: 153ff; Saul 2005: 105–07 4. Ao Naga: Mills 1926: 257–62, 370–96 5. Rengma Naga: Mills 1937: 181–95 6. Angami Naga: Hutton 1921a: 230–33, 345–47 7. Lhota Naga: Mills 1922: 136–44 8. Sema Naga: Hutton 1921b: 227–29 9. Lakher/Mara: Parry 1932: 372–78 10. Chin: Stevenson 1943: 137–47; Lehman 1963: 177–83; Reichle 1981: 230 11. Kachin/Jingpaw: Gilhodes 1996 [1922]: 37ff; Lehman, personal communication, 2008

THAILAND

12. Chang Naga & Phom Naga: Kauffmann 1937–1944 13. Apatani: Fürer-Haimendorf 1945: 88; 1980: 151–55 14. Sangtam Naga: Kauffmann 1939; Stonor 1950 15. Konyak Naga: Fürer-Haimendorf 1939: 219–20; 1969: 59–60 16. Lamet: Izikowitz 1951: 116–17 17. Mru: Brauns and Löffler 1990: 227–40 18. Pai-I: Ju-K‘ang 1986: 29–31 19. Adi: Megu 1990; Banerjee 1999: 164; Sarit Chaudhuri, personal communication, 2006 20. Wancho: Borooah 2000: 382 21. Zhuang: Holm 2003 22. Drung: Gros 2007: 276–78 23. Mra: Toni Huber, personal communication, 2009

ET

NA M

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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INDEX

Abo Tani (culture hero), 2, 60, 63, 130, 137 Ahoms, 36, 37, 38 animism, 5 See also Apatani cosmologies: and animism Apatani (s) as both ‘hill’ and ‘valley’ people, 20 categories for spirits, rituals and texts (tiigo and cicing), 13–14, 55, 81–82, 129, 142 and Christianity, 31, 138, 281 clan ancestors, 28, 35, 74–75, 131, 159, 278; and Murung, 27–28 clan groupings ( gyutii and gyuci ), 106, 110, 126 clans, 26–27, 140 family, 25; role in Murung, 25–26 historical contact with Assam, 37–45 historical contact with Europeans, 41–48 (see also Apatani valley: colonialism in) house, 23–26; role in Murung, 25–26 language shift among, 281 population, 23 and salt, 40 and Tibet, 37 villages, 23–24; village council (bulyang), 46, 106, 139 Apatani cosmologies, 6, 33–36, 63, 74–76 ancestors, 35, 63; ancestors compared with spirits, 131 and animism, 132–34 birth of water, 34, 35, 73, 155–56, 212 ‘gates’ and paths, 75–76, 277 ‘ghosts,’ 132 horizontal cosmology and history, 36 ideas and rituals concerning death, 76, 111–12, 134, 276–77 land of the dead (Neli), 32–33, 66, 78, 112, 132, 276 soul, 131–32, 133 spirits, 129–33; and ritual platforms (lapangs), 63, 159

Apatani identity and Apatani valley, 19, 32, 275 autonym, 32 clan-based (see Apatani(s): clans) ethnic categories: halyang (non-tribal outsiders), 31–32, 63; misan (tribal neighbours), 30–32, 63 and village (see Apatani(s): villages) Apatani oral tradition (miji-migung), 150, 155 Dulu Ayu, 96–97, 387 genres, 54–55, 150 Yorda Ayu, 64, 94 Apatani ritual specialist (nyibu), 8–9 assistant role, 141 association with hearth, 143 clan-based, 140 compared to similar specialists elsewhere, 134–39; Apatani idea and treatment of illness, 135–36; attributed powers, 137–38; lack of initiation, 136; spirit possession, 135 costume, 145–46 performance and audience, 146–49, 162, 165; honorary term for performance, 146 role in Apatani society, 139–42, 164; not hereditary, 141 role in Murung, 142–46; payment, 142, 144 sole local specialist, 137–39, 142, 161, 277 Apatani ritual speech, 150–51 aesthetics of, 160 compared with ritual speech in eastern Indonesia, 151–52; in eastern Nepal, 152–56 noun-pairs in, 150–51, 153–57 parallelism in, 152–53 redundancy in, 162 repetition in, 158–60 social significance of, 162–64 Apatani valley adaptation to, 23–36 agriculture in, 21–23 Apatani word for, 17–19

400

index

colonialism in, 31, 37, 43–48 description of, 20–21 as a ‘moral landscape,’ 48–50 role in local history, 37–45 See also Apatani identity: and Apatani valley Arnold, David, 50 Assam. See Apatani(s): historical contact with Assam Bakhtin, M. M., 149 Betts (née Graham Bower), Ursula, 14–15, 46–47, 280 Birket-Smith, Kaj, 103, 108, 112 Bouchery, Pascal, 125 Cederlof, Gunnel, 50 ceremonial friends. See Murung: exchange in chant as genre, 53–54 Comaroff, John and Jean Comaroff, 50 comparative analysis, 4, 279 Dalton, E.T., 39, 48 Donyi-Polo, 31, 388 Dree festival, 5, 17 Dunbar, Robin, 161 Durrenberger, Paul, 125 Eliade, Mircea, 136 Ete, Tumpak, 12 expanding bamboo (tajer), 6, 74–75, 276 and Murung feast, 71–72, 147 in Subu Heniin chant, 71–72 feasts of merit, 102–105 abandoned or transformed, 4 Fox, James, 150, 151, 162 Fürer-Haimendorf, Christoph von and Apatanis, 45–46, 49–50 and fertility, 3 and Murung, 14–15, 103–05, 128, 280 and nyibu, 140 Gaenszle, Martin, 148, 152, 154, 164 Gros, Stéphane, 279 Hage Komo, 10–11, 13–14 halyang (non-tribal outsiders) ancestors, 35 Hamayon, Roberte, 138 Hapoli, administrative centre of Apatani valley, 24, 32

Hill Miris, 38, 116 ancestors, 35, 75 and Apatanis, 31–32, 37, 41, 49, 63 Holm, David, 59 Humphrey, Caroline, 137, 139 Hutton, H. H., 104 Jacobs, Julian, 109 Kirsch, Thomas, 109 Kuipers, Joel, 148 Leach, Edmund, 19–20, 279 Lehman, F. K., 110, 113, 125 Lewis, A. D., 56 Maskarinec, Gregory, 160, 162 miida feast, 117, 142, 387 Mills, J. P., 40, 44–45, 104 Mudan Pai, 13, 165 Murung feast animal sacrifice in, 90–91 cash donations to, 123 changes over time, 84–85, 280–82 and clan, 74, 102, 120–21, 126–28, 277 compared with feasts in northeast India and upland Southeast Asia, 106–26, 277; ancestor and founder cults, 110; fertility, 108–10; relation between the living and dead, 110–13, 276; role of ceremonial friends, 123 competition and cooperation in, 125–26 exchange in, 113–23; with ceremonial friends, 113–16; affines, 116–17; maternal uncles, 119–20; non-kin, 117–19; valley-wide, 121–23 as feast of merit, 105–08 and fertility, 109–10, 276 forms of, 82–84 and funeral, 90, 112, 276 group status promoted by, 126–27, 277 individual status promoted by, 102 local understanding of, 81, 85–88 meat distribution and procession in, 86–87, 95–102, 122–23 reciprocity with sacrificial animals in, 77–78, 91 rice donations by women in, 92–95, 122–23 and social cohesion, 126, 277–78

index and social ranking, 106, 126 and spirits, 29, 75, 78–89, 111, 276 sponsor of, 82–83, 86–88, 105–06; lack of privileges earned by sponsor, 106–07, 127 tableau of married women in, 85, 88–89, 109 as tiigo ritual, 81–82 Myoko (festival), 7, 29, 49, 142, 278 Nevill, G. A., 44 nyibu. See Apatani ritual specialist Nyishis, 38, 116, 138, 140, 388 ancestors, 35, 75 and Apatanis, 31–32, 37, 39–40, 41, 43, 49, 63 Oppitz, Michael, 279 oral performance and ritual events, 278–79 Parry, Milman and Albert Lord, 160 ritual dialogues and ritual recitations, 55–56, 148 ritual exchange. See Murung feast: exchange in ritual platform (lapang) defines route of procession, 29 description of, 28–29 origin story of, 30 ritual extension of house, 30 role in Murung, 29–30, 146–47 ritual speech. See Apatani ritual speech

401

Scott, James, 19–20 Shakespear, John, 104 shaman, 8–9, 134–39 See also Apatani ritual specialist Shirokogoroff, S. M., 136 Subu Heniin text and cosmology, 63 images in: birth, 68–69; confluence of rivers, 73–75 (see also Apatani cosmologies: birth of water); dividing female body, 69–71; expanding bamboo (see expanding bamboo) not a healing chant, 14, 164 parallels: in Austronesia, 56–58; in eastern Himalayas, 58–60; in central Arunachal Pradesh, 60–61 performance of, 165; variation and consistency in, 61–63 (see also Apatani ritual specialist: performance and audience) as ritual recitation, 61, 148 story of man and mithun in, 77 (see also Murung feast: reciprocity with sacrificial animals in) textual sections, 64–66 themes: fertility, 66–74; ritual journey, 74–76; exchange, 77–79 transcription and translation of, 9–12, 165 Sulung ancestors, 35 Walker, Anthony, 59 Woodward, Mark, 109