Dress
The dress of the Apatanis is elaborate and colorful, yet simple in style. Jilañ, the traditional dress of the priests has recently been made into a five rupee Indian postal stamp. Tattooing (Tiipe) and the stuffing of large nose plugs (yaping hullo) were once popular among the women, although this practice has gradually fallen into decline in recent years. This practice is believed to have started because the women wanted to look unattractive to males from neighboring tribes. Apatani women were considered to be the most beautiful ones among all the Arunachal tribes. Younger members of this community have stopped this traditional practice.
Traditionally, the men tie their hair in a knot just above the forehead (locally called piiding) using a brass rod (piiding khotu) measuring 12 inches, placed horizontally. Strips of fine cane belt painted in red (yari) and bent into the shape of a horse-collar with an elongated end were also worn. These strips of cane are loosely fastened together, with the loop of the horse-collar being tied round the waist. The men also tattoo (tiippe) their chin in the shape of a 'T' under the lower lip. The women tattoo themselves with broad blue lines from the forehead to the tip of the nose and five vertical stripes under the lower lip in the chin. The women bundle up their tresses, which are rolled into a ball (dilling) on the top of the head. A brass skewer (ading akh) may then be inserted horizontally.
Read more about this topic: Apatani People
Famous quotes containing the word dress:
“Borrow a child and get on welfare.
Borrow a child and stay in the house all day with the child,
or go to the public park with the child, and take the child
to the welfare office and cry and say your man left you and
be humble and wear your dress and your smile, and don’t talk
back ...”
—Susan Griffin (b. 1943)
“At the milliners, the ladies we met were so much dressed, that I should rather have imagined they were making visits than purchases. But what diverted me most was, that we were more frequently served by men than by women; and such men! so finical, so affected! they seemed to understand every part of a woman’s dress better than we do ourselves; and they recommended caps and ribbons with an air of so much importance, that I wished to ask them how long they had left off wearing them.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“Sweden,
what makes the people dress that way
and those who see you wish to stay?”
—Marianne Moore (1887–1972)