Arunachal Pradesh : Before 1947

[Lyrical Mockery]

^ 25 January 1937 - 05 February 1937 Arunachal Pradesh, East Siang District, India .This man is Colonel Rawdon Wright, Assam Rifles, based at Sadiya, who Adi area. He appears to be distributing something to this group of Adis, possibly porters.

^24 January 1937 Christoph travelled from the Naga Hills to the Siang valley in the company of Colonel Rawdon Wright, Assam Rifles, and his wife. They crossed the confluence of the Lohit and Dibang rivers, near Sadiya in Assam, by car-ferry, which is still the only way to cross this broad riverway. This handsome vehicle belonged to Col. Wright, while another car was also used in the expedition.

^16 February 1944,Belsiri River, Assam, Balipara District,This Sherdukpen yak dance is a version of a dance performed widely across the Tibetan Buddhist world. Sitting astride the yak is a goddess, who comes to the aid of a dispossessed son. These dancers are performing for J. P. Mills, Adviser to the Governor of Assam for Tribal Areas. Mills came to meet the Sherdukpen Sat Rajas ('Seven Kings') at
their winter camp on the Belsiri River, east of Charduar in Assam, where they presented him with an honorary scarf. Here Mills appears to place a scarf around the figure of the goddess sitting on the yak. The Indian man on the left is I. Ali, Political Officer of the Balipara Frontier Tract, with its headquarters at Charduar. The girl next to him is Philippa Mills, daughter of J.P. Mills, who was 12 at the time; she caught malaria fever, while on tour with her father, and died a few years later. Each year Sherdukpens (and other Arunachal tribes) came to Charduar to receive annual payments from the government. Charduar was the headquarters of the Balipara Frontier Tract, which included most of the eastern districts of present-day Arunachal Pradesh, where Sherdukpens (Akas, Mijis, Monpas and Buguns) live. Charduar ('Four-Door/Gate') was one of several duars along the base of the eastern Himalayas where hill tribes came to transact business with the rulers of the plains. Many tribes received an annual payment (posa) in goods and/or cash in return for not raiding villages in the plains. For some tribes, these payments continued for several years even after 1947.

^15 December 1944 - 18 December 1944 Kiyi River valley, Arunachal Pradesh, Lower Subansiri District, This Nyishi settlement is either Tabia, Bagi or Kirum, all of which were burned by the British colonial government. In December 1944, Christoph and Capt. Davy led a party of Apatanis and Assam Rifles on an expedition against a group of Nyishis in the Kiyi River valley, to thewest of the Apatani val
ley. These Nyishis, of the Licha clan, had for years waged war against Apatanis and other nearby Nyishis, taking hostages, stealing mithuns and occasionally murdering someone. The British colonial government was determined to break the stranglehold that this Nyishi clan held over the area, in order to promote civil administration and enable further exploration north, toward the McMahon Line. When the punitive party arrived in the area of Licha, christoph and Davy ordered the release of two recently captured Apatanis, a demand that ensured the support of the Apatanis in the party. Negotiations were held, villages evacuated, promises made, ultimatums issued and then ignored. In the end, houses and granaries (thought to belong to those most responsible for the Nyishis' intractability) were burned in the settlements of Tabia, Bagi and Kirum in the Kiyi River valley. Several weeks later, this generations-old conflict was settled, temporarily, by the traditional method of dispute resolution, involving long speeches and bamboo pieces as counters.