[ Kuru Sunya ]
As I doomscrolled on Instagram the other day, I swiped on the travel video of an influencer who was visiting Ziro, my home. Sitting on a high plateau in the middle of Arunachal Pradesh, Ziro has long made the itineraries of ‘offbeat’ travellers who dare into India’s ‘tribal’ Northeast. His long tourist checklist also included seeing tattooed Apatani women, about whom he had heard a lot. Watching such videos or reading throwback travel blogs never fails to give me that unexplainable ick, and yet, whenever I come across such content I immediately and impulsively click on them.
I am among the many who contribute to making internet algorithms smarter and more potent. My mind soon drifted into thinking about the outsider gaze on our people, our women: how, why, and what creates this image? My thoughts find solidarity in another Apatani woman, Millo Ankha’s writing. “As a child, I used to see images of Apatani women mostly with tattoos and nose plugs. It made me curious to know if the generations who didn’t have any tattoos were not photographable – like my mother, for instance,” she writes on the visual representation of Apatani women, who are among many others “capitalised on through the fetishization of tribals by the neoliberal tourism industry.” At this point, I decide to write, in real-time, about my personal conception and relationship with tiipae/tipe (the tattoo) as an inherent part of my identity.
Although facial tattoos are also worn by men, it is the female tattoo, a combination of the tattooed T-zone – chin, ear and nose plugs – that comes out as louder and more visibly talked about.
There are multiple theories and narratives on the origin and symbolic meaning of tiipae, and the inking procedure is equally complex. One narrative suggests that it was seen as a symbol of beauty, another as a form of disfigurement to avoid being kidnapped by men from rival tribes. Both narratives are borne of the patriarchal gaze, dictating the norms of female beauty and its appeal for the opposite gender. I wish we could collectively explore and share the real histories beyond these theories, especially those that are inherently feminine, with meaning and relationships emanating from and for women; weaving the narratives as symbols of female identities, of sisterhood, of motherhood, of a homemaker and a strong provider.
Looking back, my earliest relationship with tiipae developed from what I saw with my own eyes and heard through my mother’s stories. Because of a ban imposed in the 1970s by the Apatanii Student Union, tiipae is now worn exclusively by elderly Tanii women. As a child, I saw tiipae as a symbol of love and comfort, a permission to call anyone wearing one Ane (mother). I remember a popular Arunachali-Hindi jingle, often used by young kids of other Arunachal tribes, to poke fun at their Apatani peers: it went like, ‘Apatani, tana tani, naak me dekho imli gutti’ (it translates to ‘The quarrelsome Apatani with tamarind seeds in their noses’, referring to the nose plugs). The origin of this satirical jingle is unknown. Surprisingly, we, the Apatani kids, never took much offence.
Years ago, I remember my mother’s complaints that government advertisements for incredible Arunachal showed an old Ane as the sole representation of the Apatani. She felt that our tribe would stand out as the least progressive of the rest, who looked beautiful and elegant dancing in their colourful traditional garments. She would share her childhood memories of the student unions’ monthly rounds in the villages to make sure the tattoo ban was kept in check. These marches were led by female students who would gather people around the lapang (community ritual platforms where women are traditionally forbidden) to announce the ban as an act of progress and move towards gender equality. As the first generation of the Apatani, including girls, were starting to venture out to the cities, the fear of being discriminated against because of the tattoo brought in unanimous agreement even among the village elders and parents. Years later, I have the same complaint as my mother has/had: the visual representation of the Apatani people. But my reason for the contestation is different this time; it is on the reduction of our identities and cultures to exotic images in travel brochures. The Ane who was photographed is likely unaware of the dollars cashed off her images used in exhibitions and sold as NFTs to attract buyers with an objective we are all well aware of. To an outsider these images are a part of their exhibit collection, an objectification of the other, of the romanticised tribe dwelling in the pristine wilderness. Such perception reeks of a rustic odour, the colonial gaze.
Within a short period, the life trajectories and experiences in my community have experienced massive transformations in the social, political, and larger realms. While the misgivings for our public representations persist, it is no surprise that the emotions behind and reasons for these complaints have changed. I must admit that my complaints aren’t universally echoed even among my generation.
I play the influencer’s video for the eighth time – a younger Apatani woman, a host, helps the tourist track down a tattooed elder, checking it off their list. Some younger Apatani have their own, perhaps equally valid, reasons to be content with the specific recognition our tattooed elders bring us and are happy to be a part of it. I hope that others too would understand the tourist gaze as a neoliberal fetish that objectifies and then commodifies us. But then, am I imposing on those who have differing ideas about how our collective identity might find a corner in this world?
As I reflect on the text above, I realise that our contemporary indigenous identities are complex – formed and influenced equally by our collective cultural heritage and individual agencies. (The author was affiliated with the Nature Conservation Foundation as senior research assistant. Currently, Sunya is exploring themes of indigenousness and indigenous modernity.)
