Identity, Culture and Languages
Publisher: South Asia Publsihers
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Delhi
Description: "Arunachal Pradesh--land of rugged grandeur, mighty gorges, turbulent rivers, ever-green forests, deep valleys, beautiful plateaus and snow-capped mountains, colourful tribes with their glorious heritage, their arts and crafts of magnificient beauty, their enchanting and lilting music and folk songs. Linguistically, they are the most diversified in the world, speaking as many as 25 major languages and 60 dialects which have not been amply described by any of the researchers so far.
"The most glaring point, which hurts, was the lack of knowledge about the land and the people of Arunachal Pradesh. These people were generally described as wild, primitive etc. The government records about them too were confusing. No detailed research on them was available. Even the number of officially listed tribes was misleading where the number of tribes rose from 11 in 1956 to 110 in 1971, exactly 10 times within 15 years.
"In volume one, the identity of these tribes have been established through a detailed research from records as well as by physical check up. The actual number of tribes and their sub-tribes have been established beyond doubt, eliminating the unfounded identities systematically. Their names, territorial affinities, culture, kinship and languages have been taken as the parameters for the purpose of these eliminations and additions. The final numbers and names of these tribes turn out to be 23 tribes and 42 sub-tribes. The detailed study about the territory, culture and kinship of these finally listed tribes is taken up individually in later chapters. The study of languages of the tribes so identified has been included in volume two.
"Volume two of 'Tribes of Arunachal Pradesh' covers the details about identification, grouping, classification and detailed description of tribal languages of Arunachal Pradesh and is prepared keeping in mind both the researchers and the ordinary readers, with a hope that it will provide necessary inpetus for future studies on the subject. A comprehensive up-dated vocabulary has been added to facilitate further research." (jacket) No. 15084
Table of contents: value: Contents: Vol. I. Preface. List of photographs. 1. Introduction. 2. Identity. 3. Culture. 4. Culture of specific tribes. Bibliography. Index.; value: Vol. II. Preface. 5. Identification and classification of tribal languages/dialects. 6. Bodic languages. 7. Arunachal main-group (North-Assam group). 8. Kachin group. 9. Naga group. 10. Tai group--Khamti. Appendices. Bibliography.