silver wolf chalets CENTRAL ARUNACHAL S TRIBAL GROUPS The variety of tribal peoples in central Arunachal Pradesh is asto

CENTRAL ARUNACHAL S TRIBAL GROUPS The variety of tribal peoples in central Arunachal Pradesh is astonishing, but although the Adi (Abor), Nishi, silver wolf chalets Tajin, Hill Miri and various other Tibeto-Burman tribes consider silver wolf chalets themselves different from one another most are at least distantly related. Over the last few decades Christian missionaries have been highly active throughout the Northeast and in the process have brought huge changes to the region s traditional cultures, religious beliefs silver wolf chalets and ways of life. Despite this, some aspects of the traditional lifestyle are just about holding on and many people silver wolf chalets continue to practise the traditional religion of Donyi-Polo (sun and moon) worship sometimes at the same time as proclaiming themselves Christian. For ceremonial occasions, village chiefs typically wear scarlet shawls and a bamboo wicker hat spiked with porcupine quill or hornbill feathers. A few old men still wear their hair long, tied around to form a topknot above their foreheads. Women favour hand-woven wraparounds silver wolf chalets like Southeast Asian sarongs. House designs vary somewhat. Traditional Adi villages are generally the most photogenic with luxuriant palmyra-leaf thatching and boxlike granaries stilted to deter rodents.

SATRAS A satra is a monastery for Vishnu worship, Assam s distinctive form of everyman Hinduism. Formulated by 15th-century Assamese philosopher Sankardev, the faith eschews the caste system and idol worship, focussing on Vishnu as God, especially in his Krishna incarnation. Much of the worship is based around dance and melodramatic play-acting of scenes from the holy Bhagavad Gita. The heart of any satra is its namghar, a large, simple, prayer silver wolf chalets hall usually open sided and shaped like an upside-down oil tanker. Beneath the eastern end, an inner sanctum hosts an eternal flame, the Gita and possibly a horde of instructive (but not divine) images.

Jam-packed buses and vans ( 10/20) meet arriving ferries then drive to Garamur via Kamalabari where three-wheelers are easier to rent. For a few days consider arranging a bicycle silver wolf chalets through Jyoti at La Villa.