The Striped Sibling of the Idu Mishmi

The story of tigers as brothers can be heard commonly from the people of the Mishmi Hills. According to Mishmi mythology, the Mishmi and tigers were born to the same mother and were siblings; the tiger was the elder brother, and the human, the Mishmi, the younger brother. This myth and the taboo against hunting tigers was told to me by an īgù:

One day, a younger brother hunted a deer and left it with his elder brother before going into the jungle to collect firewood. On his return, he was terrified to see his brother eating the meat raw. He told his mother that his elder brother was a tiger. ‘If he can eat the raw meat, then one day he will eat me too,’ he said. This became a serious concern.

A plan was made by their mother to have a competition between the two brothers. The one who crossed the river and reached the other side of the bank first would kill the other. The tiger decided to swim across the river, whereas the Mishmi took the bridge. The tiger was the first to reach the bank. When the tiger was about to come out of the river, however, the mother threw an ant’s nest at the tiger’s body to prevent him from winning.

To get rid of the ants, the tiger went back into the river and scratched itself against a rock. The Mishmi, meanwhile, reached the bank and shot the tiger with an arrow. Thus, the tiger died and its body floated in the river. It was swept away to a far off place. After several years, a bird saw the bones of the tiger scattered on the riverside. The bones were white and bright under the sunlight. The bird thought them to be eggs and sat on them to incubate. It is believed that the large bones transformed back into a tiger. From the tiny bones emerged a leopard, a leopard cat, a clouded leopard, and civet cats.

This is the story of the tiger being born again. Therefore, tigers cannot be killed.

According to the Mishmi, tigers can only be killed or trapped when there is a loss of property or for personal safety. If a tiger is killed, an elaborate ritual (tamamma) is conducted over five days, with restrictions on both the family members of the one who killed the tiger, as well as on the villagers as a whole. There are five clans (Meme, Umpo, Mena, Misichi, and Misiwu) of the Idu Mishmi who are exempted from performing this ritual.

According to Morris (2004), treating animals as persons sets up a relational epistemology towards the animal kingdom and other ‘natural’ beings. In the case of the Mishmi, there is a kinship relation that the Mishmi share with tigers. Morris also argues that we need to distinguish carefully between social practices and cultural representations. If a tiger is killed or trapped accidentally, a senior īgù is invited to carry out the required ritual (tamamma), which involves a huge expenditure because it is equivalent to the funerary ritual conducted for humans. During this elaborate ritual carried out over five days, strict taboos (èná) are observed not only by the person who killed the tiger but also by the entire village. Every igu owns a belt (āmrāla) made of linearly arranged tiger canines, through which he receives power. This belt is a necessary ritual item for a īgù while performing a funeral or any other important ritual, such as amrase (a healing ritual, usually carried out for a day) or Reh (one of the most important festivals of the Mishmi). To prevent attacks by spirits (khenyū) and to awaken the spirit of the tiger, the īgù wears these tiger-tooth belts. The teeth are collected by an īgù when he is invited to perform the ritual. The belts are transfered to junior īgù. It is difficult to gauge the age of these belts.

Like tigers, Eastern hoolock gibbons (Hoolock leuconedys; or àme pá in the local language) also enjoy the status of religious protection among the Mishmi. Due to a sibling relationship with them (Sarma, Krishna, and Kumar 2014), the Mishmi are careful not to harm these animals in any way. While killing animals such as tigers and gibbons is perceived to be equivalent to homicide, other animals such as takin (Budorcas taxicolor), musk deer (Moschus chrysogaster), Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus), wild pig (Sus scrofa), Serow (Capricornis sumatraensis), Malayan giant squirrel (Ratufa bicolor), Temminck’s tragopan (Tragopan temminckii), Kalij pheasant (Lophura leucomela- nos), and Blyth’s tragopan (Tragopan blythii) are frequently hunted. The use of these animals is diverse and widespread: their meat is used as food and their skins as bags and mats. Animal skulls are used as sacred objects to be mounted on skull boards. However, as Morris suggests across his works, human relationships with animals are never monolithic. In the case of the Mishmi, attitudes towards animals are complex, ranging from complete protection (for example, of tigers and Hoolock gibbons) to restricted hunting (of ungulates and bears).

Excerpted with permission from Tigers Are Our Brothers by Ambika Aiyadurai, published by Oxford University Press, Price: Rs 5,030.00