Articles

Apong and the Adi Tribe: Exploring the Cultural and Social Essence of Arunachal Pradesh’s Traditional Beverage

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Indigenous people across the globe have different knowledge of food production and consumption. These are unique knowledge passes down across the generation having cultural and tradition significances. Among tribal people food is more than just sustenance; it is a complex system of symbolic communication that conveys meaning and significance in various social contexts. Arunachal Pradesh is a home for 26 major tribes with more than 100 sub-tribes. The Adis are one of the major tribes of Arunachal Pradesh and hold rich knowledge on traditional fermented rice beer called Apong. The Apong is not merely a food commodity among the Adi, but it is an integral part of intangible cultural heritage preserved for ages. Grounded in the ethnographic method, we argue that Apong is deeply intertwined with the socio-cultural aspects of life among the Adi tribe, and it also facilitates social bonding and a sense of belongingness within the community.

White-rumped Vulture’s Distribution in Relation to the Landscape Factors in Arunachal Pradesh, India

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Avian distribution over the globe is normally influenced by many environmental factors including landscape factors. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the influence of landscape factors like elevation, vegetation, and land covers on occurrence of White-rumped Vultures in Arunachal Pradesh. The occurrence and abundance data were obtained following road count and point count methods from 2016 to 2020. The digital elevation model and normalized difference vegetation index data were obtained from the USGS database. The land-use land-cover data was obtained from the ESRI database. To evaluate the correlation between the WRV distribution and prevailing landscape factors spearman ranked correlation was used. Our correlation analysis showed highly negative correlation between elevation and WRV distribution (rs = -0.77, n=53, p <0.0001), moderately negative correlation between NDVI11 and WRV distribution (rs = -0.57, n=53, p <0.0001), moderately negative correlation between NDVI02 and WRV (rs = -0.56, n=53, p <0.0001), and moderately negative correlation between NDVI06 and WRV distribution (rs = -0.62, n=53, p <0.0001). In case of land-use land-covers, WRV was found most abundant in shrubs/ scrubs followed by croplands, barren areas, areas with trees, built areas, grasslands, and areas with waterbody. According to the present study, WRVs prefer habitats with lower elevation, lower NDVI values, and open areas with scattered vegetation, particularly trees. These findings provide more insight into the habitat requirements of WRV, which is significant information for conservation of WRV.