Origins and Historical Lineage
Origins Sherdukpen Tribe Culture in India are of the lineage descended from a mythical figure named Asu Gyaptong whom they consider to be the son of King Songtsen Gampo, who lived in Tibet during the 7th century and married an Ahom princess of Assam.
The ethnonym “Sherdukpen” refers to the place names where they live: “Sher” is a corruption of Shergaon village, and “Tukpen” is an older name for Rupa village, which define their territory.
But the community calls itself “Sheinji” and calling them Sherdukpen is a misnomer coined by outsiders. The historical movement of this population led to their linguistic and cultural differentiation from the surrounding Monpa, Aka (Hrusso), and Bugun communities; an overall geographical isolation that has resulted in relatively little attention from researchers.
The community’s shared history with Assam is one of the core elements of its cultural identity. Until about 40 years ago, the entire Sherdukpen population indulged in annual winter migration to Assam plains; they spent four months from December to March in lowland hamlets like Doimara near the border of Assam.
This transhumance enabled trade relations including the purchase of rice and kept alive their memory of Assamese descent. Between the Assamese Ahom times and Raj time, there were seven northern Sherdukpens that were known as ” Seven Rajas” (Saat Raja) and they got annual revenue for peaceful contacts over stability of trade.
After the arrival of British in 1885, they were allotted about 367 bighas of state land at the Jargaon area in Assam and around 50 bighas still reserved for cultural-religious purposes.
This past association with Assam sets the Sherdukpens apart from other highland Himalayan communities, and underlines their role as cultural intermediaries between plateau and hill cultures.
Religious Syncretism: Buddhism and Animism
Sherdukpen society is structurally divided into two hereditary classes: The Thong, Chao. The ThongThe Thong belong to the higher strata of Nyishi society and trace their lineage directly from the apical ancestor Asu Gyaptong, they have been divided into four primary clans namely, the Thongchi, Thongdok and Thongon are eight distinct from each other.
The Chao constitute the lower class of society; they are said to be the ancestors of the bearers and slaves who followed Asu Gyatong when he came from Rupa.
This hierarchy is an ascribed status system solely dictated by birth without any room for movement across the two categories.
In the past the Chao worked as hands and servants to the Thong households, but current social change has significantly modified these traditional roles.
Some older Thong still lament what they feel is a growing lack of submission on the part of Chao, even as wealth within the Thai-Chinese has created rich families among the Chao—complicating these established, but not always strictly observed historical differences.
Social structure plays a vital role in how people are married, what religion they serve and their capacity for instituting governance.
Intercaste marriages between Thong and Chao are considered very much taboo and not encouraged within the tribes leading to reproduction of these hereditary communities.
Some of the ceremonial activities and ritual duties are the prerogative of certain clans or of one hierarchy layer, so that there is a highly developed division of religious and social labor.
The tribe is monogamous, and descent is patrilineal, down male lines. Village governance functions through customary councils – Tukpen Village Council (TVC) in Rupa and the surrounding settlements, and Shergaon Village Council (SVC) for Shergaon village – which have significant powers to resolve civil and criminal disputes, including land disputes and family conflicts; an authority that usurps much of the role of formal courts.
The power-sharing system is the community’s way of maintaining tradition authority dynamics, even in their new role as part of a modern Indian state administrative model.
Festival Traditions and Ceremonial Life
The Sherdukpens’ religious life is a complex syncretism of Mahayana Buddhism and the indigenous pre-Buddhist animistic traditions, strongly influenced by the ancient Bon religion of Tibet.
Buddhism was brought among the Sherdukpens in the mid-1700s under evangelical impulse of Mera Lama and they followed Gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism, which is practiced by their Monpa neighbors to the north.
Nonetheless, although less so than their Monpa neighbors with their resident lamas and more complete Buddhist religious culture, the Sherdukpens still retain a strong pre-Buddhist animistic tendency.
This is reflected in the small numbers of monks from the tribe itself (they are known to call upon Monpa and Tibetan refugee lamas when a communal ritual necessitates it).
Retrocession In The Heritage of Humans, one is struck by the deep impact of animism manifest in such phenomenon as “Chizi” (or “Jiji” or “Yumin” in the local language) who are traditional shamans that perform rites with aboriginal spirits and mythology that has accounts on human sacrifice and blood rituals which were typically alien to Tibetan Buddhism.
Bon culture is most apparent in the Sherdukpen connection to nature spirits and sacred geography.
The identity admits of a “supersensible world” in which, to airport the crude theorizing, all objects with which they have to do animate and apparently inanimate-have souls; so that at bottom they are nature worshippers.
Sacred groves (Lei; Lei thung—“Groves”) constitute one distinct category within the Sherdukpen spiritual ecology, and are so related with certain stones, streams or trees where forest spirits in serpent shape are held to dwell. These holy grounds are very well protected; it is certain doom for any defiant creature cutting down a tree or otherwise disturbing nature, such as disobediently relieving themselves within Lei borders.
Land-owners growing the groves of Lei are responsible for their protection and preservation.
The Sherdukpen shamans are the intermediaries between the human society and the spiritual world, they execute the healing practices, make traditional medicines out of herbs and roots and can also help to find lost items by means of divination that they called “Thaanbu”.
They follow rigorous dietary schedules – no eating of beef, mutton, chicken, pork, eggs, red onions or garlics while only selected species of fish are allowed -and either inherit the profession by blood or are asked to take up the profession after receiving their calling through dreams.
Traditional Attire and Material Culture
The Sherdukpen ceremonial calendar is a blend of Buddhist and Bonpo feasts, disclosing the retention of pre-Buddhistic practices.
Losar, the Buddhist New Year festival, is one of their big annual festivals and Kro-Chekor (also spelt as Kro-Cheykor) which pays homage Lord Buddha combines masked dances, music and lavish feasts.
It opens on the 4th day of the bright half of the third month on Saka Dawa, leaves in late spring and lasts for twenty days.
Between Kro-Chekor, Lei spirits and other nature-related spirits are appealed to for blessings, and with its end, a ceremonious farewell song -“The Lurjaang”-relinquishes the spirits to their abodes.
The most unique and culturally rich festival is Khiksaba (or, Khik-Saba) which is an aboriginal non-Buddhist festivity performed with the spirit of tranquilizing forest deities and guardian spirits.
Dating back to the era of Asu Gyaptong in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, legend has it that Rupa was created when Asu Gyaptong defeated and conquered Rupa ruler Kelling Sowa Gangan.
The festival begins when a particular drum is beaten from kamcha sree, a sacred hillock in the middle of Rupa village, synchronizing with new moon and seven stars as chanting is performed by specially ordained priests (khikzizis).
The week-long festival is the worship of Sherdukpen mountain gods — Sungkhits and Sorokhits by performing rites day and night for the well-being of all communities. People from the designated communities are sent to Dhekiajuli in Assam, where they bring back areca nuts who are generously offered by the Assamese people for centuries along with bananas, sugarcane and tubers brought by the Buguns.
“Khik-spuns”- Thongdok, Thongchi, Thongon and Mosobi known as panonyms of thakkar festival in association with clan-house at a single centre namely Thongdok-achung, Khrimey, Dingla, Megeji and Ubu-Chilu collectively called “khik-spu” are the main dimention for performance of all the events.
They are jiji shamanistic, not Buddhist lama system organizations, and they are pre-Buddhist in nature.
Economic Practices and Agricultural Systems
They wear Sherdukpen traditional costumes, which are intensely ornamented but distinguishing from their neighbours with intricate designs that bear semblance to the local flora and fauna.
Men wear a sleeveless silk garment that is wrapped around the body to hang to the knees, with both ends fastened together at the shoulders, and a jacket that resembles ‘ringo’ or bright jackets made of silk.
There are two kinds of male head-dress, the “gurdam”, or “Chitto Bothung”, a skull cap (made out of yak hair) with tassels and bearing on its front a white cockade, which is surmounted by an ornamental strap and band coloured bright red with yellow ornaments peculiar to Sherdukpen men.
Tibetan warriors place Tikpa swords through waistbands and fold a piece of cloth -bogre- on the shoulder. The women wear ankle-length outergarment, red colour full-sleeved embroidered jackets and waist cloth “mushaiks”.
The jacket is embellished with rainbow thread embroidery on front n back both, and a white mul airy cloth with light embroidered borders that’s tied at the neck from front in a knot and cascades at the back like floating cape.
The traditional footwear for women is “Chang-zang-Denu”.
In addition to Kasaba, the adornment is common among men and women of Both males and females wear beautiful stone and silver ornaments like “Zurok” (necklace), “Janjiri” ( a long silver chain),Gonkor ( a stone necklace), bangles, earrings etc.
Weaving is for women the most important traditional art among the Sherdukpens and declined only in recent decades significantly.
Women are skilled in weaving their own dress and beautiful carry bags, floor mats (karthok), carpets, and a range of utilitarian articles on traditional loin looms or back-strap looms.
The characteristic design in Sherdukpen woven fabrics is the right-handed or whirling cross swastika, frequently accompanied by several other motifs, all in red, blue and black (in some cases also green and yellow) over a white ground using fine wool yarns.
Expertise as a weaver is highly valued in potential Sherdukpen brides, highlighting the cultural importance of weaving. Sherdukpen woolen shawls are one of the sort after as this are very beautiful and its weaving technique is complicated.
The architectural tradition also embodies environment response and cultural aesthetics, with houses constructed on serious tonto foundations as deep as three to five feet with walls around three feet thick at the base.
The main structure has walls and floors built of heavy wooden planks to form two stories, the lower level being used as an apartment while the upper story is reserved for granary and storage.
An interior room often has two iron hearths, and a bamboo rack (“hakili”) is suspended above the hearth to dry and smoke food staples (grains and meat) in the heat of the fires.
Buildings have no windows or chimneys, so the inside is smoky and dark, while prayer flags fly from posts erected on rooftops.
Linguistic Heritage and Communication
The economy of the Sherdukpen is predominantly based on agriculture as 90-95% of the population are engaged in farming while only 5-15% hold salaried employment in the government.
Traditional shifting cultivation and, to a lesser extent, terrace cultivation are used by the community.
“Traditional maize production coupled with oak vegetation has several economic benefits: maize as the staple food, additional crops as forage in winter, soil and water conservation, preservation of Quercus spp.
Nevertheless, the agricultural landscape has changed subs- tantially with high expansion of horticultural crop productionand cash cropping.
Domestic cereals and vegetables are among the principal crops, as well as tomato, potato, apple and chilli, increasingly of commercial importance.
The proportion of area under horticultural crops in Arunachal Pradesh has increased from 7.4% in 1990-91 to 22.86% in 2013-14, as part of broader economic patterns. Average annual household income of the sampled Sherdukpen villages ranges from Rs. 47,000 to Rs.
1,35,000 and varies considerably with distance to markets and involvement in cash crops.
The Sherdukpen economy was mixed in which pastoral activity and hunting-fishing were conducted along with agriculture.
45-75% households still practice animal husbandry (depending on the village), 30-65% hunting and 30-50% fishing.
Their diet of the village is enriched by foraging in the forests, rich in plant resources such as wide range of herbs, edible plants and tubers; mushrooms and riverine fish.
Agricultural land holding average is 0.72 -1.2 per household along-with additional forestland of approximately 0.8 ha.higher elevation area particularly in Hazara division, and swings like a pendulum backward once again toward the north east (Horticulture).
In the traditional land classification system, five types of forest are identified: Blu dongsek (community forest), khik donsek (village forest), Sangthing dongsek (individuals’ forests attested for welfare of society and communities) Donsek achok (sacred groves) and Nyor see (grazing lands), reflecting a highly developed system of natural resource management.
New economic activities include entrepreneurship in fish farming like rainbow trout through individuals introducing pond based pisciculture, mini-trout hatcheries being the first in North East India.
This includes ongoing work on a highway which will cut down the travel time from Guwahati to six hours, significantly boosting economic fortunes despite abandoning proposed airstrips that would have necessitated handing over fertile valley lands.
Contemporary Challenges and Cultural Preservation
Language The indigenous language of the region is Sherdukpen, known colloquially as “Mey nyuk”, a member of the Kho-Bwa cluster within the greater Tibeto-Burman family, itself counted among 300 Sino-Tibetan languages.
The language has two dialects: Mey of Shergaon (Sanjee Ngook) with approximately 1,500 speakers and Mey of Rupa (Thungjee Ngnok) with around 3,000 speakers.
However, the close affinity of Sherdukpen with speakers of Bugun and Parja phonetics in contrast to a relatively isolated location of Sherdukpen within Tibeto-Burman languages would indicate points to some form of migration if not necessarily a distant one.
Though the lexicon does not follow typical Tibeto-Burman patterns, there are a large number of apparent cognates with other Tibeto-Burman languages.
Consonants The consonant inventory has 23 consonants, with 12 plosives divided into three series (voiced, voiceless and voiceless aspirated), six fricatives, three approximants, three nasals and one trill; the vowel system includes twenty-two vowels with five nasal vowels.
As of 2007, Sherdukpen was almost entirely spoken and there was not a traditional script to write the language, although Tibetan script is used by some Buddhist monks for religious purposes.
This oral nature renders the language highly threatened, documentation efforts having become especially active only in recent years.
The counting system shows some interesting structures, such as a vigesimal (base 20) concept in numbers greater than twenty. Recent linguistic work has had to concentrate on phonological description and documentation in order to capture a term which seems it to be at some risk.
Tribes with no writing The lack of a tradition of writing has consequences for cultural transmission, or the ways that oral narratives, sacred knowledge and traditional ecological wisdom are handed down through time – not as written texts but through learning that is primarily oral.
Elder people have a wide knowledge of the forest vegetation and what it can do for them so that each leaf, flower, twig or bark as its positive use although there is tendency to unlock most of this information.
The urgency of capturing and preserving this traditional knowledge has gained traction as modernity and generational changes imperil its retention.
Conclusion
The Sherdukpen society is subjected to a number of challenges from modernization, economic forces and culture change which are posing severe threat to their traditional practices and knowledge systems.
The weaving heritage has been greatly reduced and it is only through SHG women, and the very few people who have preserved skill of whole textile production. Heritage architectural know-how — still discernible in buildings already constructed — rubs shoulders with modern construction materials and techniques.
The current trend of applying inorganic chemical inputs on cash crops is against the ethos of organic farming and exposes plants to the environment.
The informal custom is that commonalties made of the heads of the local units sit and deliberate on village policy, lie in parallel to formal institution s(panchayats)leading result dualism and basis for conflict on whom shall act when in case jurisdiction is concurrent.
Two taboos speak volumes about conservative Sherdukpen society, but the community is resolute in its efforts to save both itself and its heritage.
Projects like Garung Thuk that started with a library and has become a cultural and environmental heritage preservation centre catalogue the ideas of elders to promote sensible living practices.
The community engages in dialogues on resurrecting its traditional weaving, wood work and bamboo crafts by facilitating for market beyond the village.
This attention to detail in keeping a celebration like Khiksaba with all traditional protocols intact shows very well the abiding commitment to culture.
The local community has a strong sense of control over development choices and refused an offer to build an airstrip because it would mean vast areas used for agriculture would be lost.
Physical labor and agricultural produce are also still provided for ritual purposes despite declining numbers. Land form (common land, private agricultural land, sacred groves and community forest) are still practiced and managed communally according to traditional knowledge.
A strong educational tradition in the community has produced some leaders, former Chief Minister of MP, Members of Parliament and Speaker are the few who have kept their contact with traditional values even after they enter into modern political system.
The young increasingly see themselves as trustees of ancient traditions and are determined to pass on their prized heritage in a modernising world.