The Adi, or Bokar Lhoba people is a major collective tribe living in the Himalayan hills of Arunachal Pradesh, and they are found in the temperate and sub-tropical regions within the districts of East Siang, Upper Siang, West Siang and Lower Dibang Valley and Lohit. The older term Abor is a deprecated exonym from Assamese meaning 'uncontrol'. Some of them are found in Southern Tibet. The literal meaning of Adi is "hill" or "mountain top". The Adis live in hill villages, each traditionally keeping to itself,under a selected chief styled Gam or Gao Burra' who moderates the village council, which acts even as traditional court Kebang. The olden day councils consists of all the village elder and decisions were taken in a Musup/Dere (Village community house) on majority verdict. The Sub-groups within Adis include-
1. Shimong
2. Karko
3. Millang
4. Minyong
5. Padam
6. Pangi
7. Pasi
8. Bokar-Palibo-Ramo
9. Bori
10. Komkar
The Adi celebrate a number of festivals, in particular Solung, in first week of September for five days or more. It is a harvest festival performed after the sowing of seeds and transplantation, to seek for future bumper crops. Ponung songs and dances are performed during the festival. At the last day of Solung, throne and indigenous weaponry are displayed along the passage of the houses, a belief that they would protect people from evil spirits. The Adi practice wet rice cultivation and have a considerable agricultural economy. Rice serves as the staple foods for the Adi. Trapping and hunting, increasingly with firearms, supplement the diet; the favorite prey is the abundant rat, prepared in various ways, including pieces of rat and other meat in a rice flour cake wrapped in banana leaves, its served for aran;the Adi keep pigs, chickens, mithuns and grow vegetables. the Adi keep pigs in a very unusual way:The pigs are kept in a fenced area under the house, which is on stilts and feeds on human waste as the pig pen is situated right under the toilet! The pigs are let out in the day. The meat of the toilet pig is actually a delicacy.
Adis dances vary from the slow, rustic and beautifully enchanting style Ponung to the exhilarating, exuberant thumps of Delong. These dances have led to certain forms of dancing which jointly narrate a story, the Tapu War Dance. In the Tapu War Dance, the dancers vigorously re-enact the actions of war, its gory details and the triumphant cries of the warriors. Yakjong is another kind of dance whereby the dancers carry sticks with designs created by removing the barks in certain patterns and then put into the fire for some time, which creates the marked black designs. The majority of Adi traditionally followed the animist Donyi-Polo religion, which involves the worship of the sun, the moon, and the ancestral god, the shaman, called Miri, can be a female. Other deities traditionally worshipped by the Adi include Kine Nane, Doying Bote, Gumin Soyin and Pedong Nane. Each deity is associated with certain tasks and act as protector and guardian of various topics related to nature which revolves around their daily life. This included the food crops, home, rain, etc.
In modern times many of the Adi have moved away from Donyi-Polo. A growing number of Adi, especially among the youth, have converted to Christianity. Adis in Tibet, in particular the Bokars, have adopted Tibetan Buddhism to a certain extent, as a result of Tibetan influence. But in recent few years there was a revival in the faith and the search for indigenousity on the part of the people made it popular with the youth again. Followers of Donyi Polo faith can also be found in parts of upper Assam among the Mishing tribe; according to available knowledge of history and folklores the Mishings were the Adis who migrated to Assam.
Source: Wikipedia
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