Exhibiting Tribal Ethnicity through Festivals: An Experience from the Nyishi of Arunachal Pradesh

Abstract

Drawing on the example of the Nyishi of Arunachal Pradesh, an ethnic group that has been enjoying a wave of popular revival in recent years, this study suggests that changes in the perceptions of an ethnic identity are related to socio-economic transformation. The festival is a key aspect of the Nyishi revival since the 1970s. An examination of the history, activities, and contemporary spatio-temporal organization of festivals reveals similarities to other aspects of a society of mass consumption. Niche marketing, the structuring of recreation around the modern work week, and the establishment of personal identity through the purchase of symbolically rich commodities are all embodied in contemporary Nyishi festivals. At the same time, the consumption of ethnic commodities is linked by the consumers with a sense of tradition and descent from a mythic past. The festivals of Nyishi are, in this sense, invented traditions and, paradoxically, a measure of the assimilation of this particular ethnic group into Indian culture. This study explores the significant role that Nyishi festivals has played, and continues to play, in the creation and maintenance of Nyishi identity, both within and outside the boundaries of Arunachal Pradesh. By regularly performing the festivals, the Nyishi people are constantly constructing and restructuring their culture, customs, traditions, values and identity, both to themselves and to the world beyond.