This book celebrates the heritage of the distinctive Apatani community of the north-eastern Himalayan state of Arunachal Pradesh in India. It explores the fascinating indigenous knowledge of field and forest and a uniquely sustainable and enduring way of life that continues to evolve in the modern context. The book tells the story of how a material culture was shaped around bamboo and cane resources and nurtured by a strong community spirit and spirituality that transcended the human world and maintained an unbroken ethos of conservation through time It highlights the eco-sensitive lifestyle of this unique community and presents an in-depth analysis of the Apatani tradition of the exemplary use of natural resources.
Through this engrossing detailed study, the author observes how bamboo houses are built in 3 days, fish cultivated in a rice field and a single river used to feed an entire community for millennia. She highlights the triumph of the human spirit in engineering a cultural landscape out of a swamp and how peaceful co-existence with nature can withstand the trials of time.
Part autobiographical and powerfully personal, this book is a primer on sustainable living as practice. It will be of interest to researchers and students of tribal and Himalayan vernacular architecture, traditional bamboo-cane craft, urban ecology and geography, cultural studies, and sustainability. It will also attract general readership while being academically useful for anthropologists, sociologists, botanists, ecologists and environmentalists.
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