Il Paese di bambu ed il festival di Hornbill

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Trip to Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland
The Tirap, the village of bamboo ...
To join the 'Arunachal Pradesh, a beautiful state in the extreme east of India-although torn by civil war-, the easiest way is to arrive by plane at Dibrugarh [Assam]. Access to 'Tirap Arunachal region is guarded by the military because this area is bordered by Burma and the Naxalite movement is very strong. Here, apparently, the military should not be accountable for their actions even the central government! The road becomes uncomfortable; hole and climb in the dark to Khonsa, where he arrived after five hours of suffering. The compensation for the hardships is a guest house already partially occupied by VIP Indians of the few remaining rooms (three to be exact ...) are to be shared among any other arriving guests. Khonsa a paesone ten thousand souls, is situated at a height of 792 m., and is the gateway to the village where they live Tutsi or Tutsi tribes Olo, and for other villages and ethnic groups Nocte Wangcho. It is an area little visited by tourism due to the lack of infrastructure and difficulties in obtaining permits. The roads, bumpy, are fringed by forests of bamboo behind the bamboo, other forests that look like a green wall and impenetrable. The village is built entirely of bamboo houses on stilts have woven bamboo flooring, the center of the house is a fire, for cooking and warmth, the walls, obviously in bamboo, decorated outside with heads mithun The village is very clean and densely populated of puppies that will end up in a pan, the water is supplied by a fountain in the center of the country and the people we go with a container bamboo to make stock. Not far from the village is the cemetery. The tombs, the inhabitants are Christians-so-bury their dead, surrounded by reeds rise closing dome, the sides are hung with objects of the deceased - a radio, a suitcase, bottles and others-that must accompany him on the journey in the afterlife ... gradient of animism local integrated into Christianity. In other places along the road, stood tall towers of bamboo with an umbrella on top, on the day of death there is hung a cat or a cock together with the small property of the deceased in this case according to popular belief, the animal must bring the following items in the afterlife the deceased. I Nocte and Wangcho, people friendly and ridanciani, meet easily while traveling to work by walking barefoot on these poor little asphalt roads, the only clothes they wear loincloths, have the bare-chested, a bamboo basket slung el'immancabile dao in hand. Dao is a kind of machete, can be of various shapes, embellished with various ornaments: Sometimes the sheath is covered with animal skins,-lynx, bears, etc-, sometimes only of bamboo. The villages are still ruled by a king to Nimue the "palace" is a huge house of bamboo, with vast spaces, many rooms, all without even a small cabinet. Fenu, the queen of Nimue ethnics Wangcho, is petite and fragile, has 39 years and is the favorite among the fifteen wives of the king, who in total gave him twenty-nine children. In every village there are structures called "Murun 'dormitories where once lived the young people placed in strategic locations so you can spot the enemy in wartime, the murun contain a huge drum proceeds from the trunk of a tree. The drum was used to warn of the approach of the enemy, to call the rally for a village council, or simply a ritual. Wangcho in a village, close to one of these murun is a hut that contains 47 skulls: on a higher plane the skull of an enemy king, the lower the skulls of the enemy "community." Oh yes, here until 1970 there were still headhunters!
The Apatani
Apatani villages are more modern than those in Tirap, a mixture of concrete and bamboo houses, and roads pretty well maintained, though not paved through the villages. Young people have abandoned the traditional robes, but among the elderly is still encounter fantastic characters. Women have two circles of black wood inserted into the nostrils and their face is tattooed as women Gallong. The circles were initially small, and as we introduced the larger ones, to provoke a sort of cut between the two nostrils. This practice was abandoned decades ago, only older women will still bear the signs. The shamanistic tradition is still kept alive. For example, after the construction of a new home, as a good omen ritual offerings are made. You build a small bamboo totem, and the shaman binds a cock-legged, with his head down. Singing snatches some feathers sticking at the top of the totem and then casually grabs the dao and decapitated chicken. He unties him and rubs the blood on the bottom of the totem immediately after being cut in half and extract the liver and delivery to the landlord. Liver you read the omens good or bad. With the rest of the family, the shaman enters the house and around the central fire generally, the rooster is cooked and all Beven a local beer. It is not only in villages Apatani that runs toward the modernization, even in villages in Tirap described above, the juvenile population is almost completely absent: the boys are working in big cities wear modern dress, the girls are casual as it ever would in the rest India and only the elders still sit on the little porch of the house to weave bamboo baskets or baskets with reeds (cane? It bamboo cane for not repeating), still wear traditional clothing more women wear necklaces made of coins dating back to 1904, the British era.
The Nagaland: The Hornbill festival Kohima
Although structures with fairly primitive, the Nagaland has a population now modernized. But still there is a chance to see the ethnic groups in their traditional costumes at festivals in villages where performing dances in costume, and especially in the Hornbill Festival. The Nagaland is composed of 16 completely different tribes and customs, but all together under the sign of the bird feather "hornbill horned. During the festival the ethnic groups are found in a village specially built outside Kohima. The organization of the festival is meticulous; baths were built in cement, and an arena with a semicircular staircase. Every ethnic group has its own space, with a typical house of the tribe, a restaurant with traditional dishes and, of course, members of the tribe under the guidance of a teacher are training in dancing or in games that will run later in public. The festival program is done on time. The members of the ethnic groups participating in the show, morning or afternoon sitting on the steps, wrapped in their shawls wool red and blacks are typical of Nagaland, still woven by hand, when they enter the field are introduced by a voice, sometimes female, sometimes male, and symbolism of the dance or the fight or the game is explained in great detail. It is a spectacle of colors, sounds of drums, primal screams, songs and laughter that takes place in a circle of green hills, between rows of enormous poinsettia, red or white. In the evening many of the components of the ethnic groups are deprived of their costumes: forgive my jeans and they are found in the bazaars of Kohima. The Nagaland, with poor roads, lack