Customs and Lifestyle
Apatanis trace their descent patrilineally. While the status of men is considered higher than that of women, the sexes share responsibilities in the house and the family.
Apatani women carry out the household chores of gathering both wild and kitchen garden vegetables, cooking, fetching water, pounding rice, cleaning houses, washing clothes and utensils, nursing, looking after infants and children, ginning (clothes) and spinning of cotton, and other jobs associated with the household. In the field, the Apatani woman carries out the tasks that include gardening, seeding, transplanting of paddy and millet, weeding of fields, and other activities. At home, the internal family income is controlled by a woman. But the man also has his part of duty in looking after cultivation activities, and acts as the head of family in society.
Their wet rice cultivation system and their agriculture system are extensive even without the use of any farm animals or machines. So is their sustainable social forestry system. UNESCO has named the Apatani valley a World Heritage Site for its "extremely high productivity" and "unique" way of preserving the ecology. In July, the agricultural festival of Dree is celebrated with prayers for a bumper harvest and prosperity of all humankind. Pakhu-Itu, Daminda, Pree dance, etc. are the main cultural programmes performed in the Dree Festival.
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