Northeast India: Arunachal Pradesh - a visit to an Apatani Village

In this video we explore the area of Ziro with some Apatani villages, such as Hong Dutta, Hijo, Bamin, Hari and Mudang Gale.
The culture of the Apatani is quite different from the other tribes of Arunachal Pradesh.
Unlike the other tribes the Apatani are non-nomadic in nature.
The Apatani practice permanent wetland cultivation in hilly terrain by slicing the hills,

Apatani believe they are direct descendants of Abotani, the first man. Only about 15,000 Apatani live in this region.
They have a strict social system that was supposed to protect against hostile tribes like the neighbouring Nishi tribe.

The most captivating members are the older women of the tribe, who wear facial tattoos and massive nose plugs.
The tradition, though non-existent now, dates back to pre-modern times. One of the stories is that the Apatani women were considered to be the most beautiful in all of Arunachal Pradesh.
Men of other tribes would therefore often steal the Apatani women, which led the Apatani men to tattoo the faces of their women and make them wear massive nose plugs, in order to make them less appealing.

I got the following comments:

Apatani speaks Apatani dialect they called Tanii aguu (Tani language).
Apatani does have any written language it is spoken language only...

and:

Sir you've got the wrong description, nose plugs and facial tattoos were meant for beautification. That false disfigurement story is only made up youngsters which somehow got spread up.

The complete story of our trip to the Northeast of India (Nagaland, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh) including our visit to Ziro can be found on www.travelbyphoto.nl. The site is in Dutch and English.