The Apatani Today
Much of the information regarding the Apatani tribe currently available in books or on the Internet is known to be fairly outdated. It is generally based on observations made by Professor Christopher von Furer-Haimendorf in the 1940s.
The Apatani have incorporated many ways of the modern world, but the traditional culture and customs still retain their significance. Many of them are high-level government employees, doctors, and engineers and are working far away from their native villages around Ziro. Even so, they make it a point to return to their villages during important festivals, notable among which are Myoko in March and Murung in January every year. Dree Festival, another important festival of the Apatanis are celebrated in all the major towns in Arunachal Pradesh and in some cities outside the state. As in any other developing countries, teenagers have been influenced by Western culture, but the traditional lifestyles are still maintained.
Read more about this topic: Apatani People
Famous quotes containing the word today:
“The East is the hearthside of America. Like any home, therefore, it has the defects of its virtues. Because it is a long-lived-in house, it bursts its seams, is inconvenient, needs constant refurbishing. And some of the family resources have been spent. To attain the privacy that grown-up people find so desirable, Easterners live a harder life than people elsewhere. Today it is we and not the frontiersman who must be rugged to survive.”
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978)