Nyishi people

The Nyishi community is the largest ethnic group in Arunachal Pradesh in north-eastern India. They are spread across eight districts of Arunachal Pradesh: Kra Daadi, Kurung Kumey, East Kameng, West Kameng, Papum Pare, parts of Lower Subansiri, kamle, and Pakke Kessang district. The Kurung Kumey and Kra Daadi districts have the largest concentration of Nyishi population. The Nyishis also live in the Sonitpur and North Lakhimpur districts of Assam. Their population of around 300,000 makes them the most populous tribe of Arunachal Pradesh, closely followed by the tribes of the Adi according to 2001 census. The Nyishi language belongs to the Sino-Tibetan family, however, the origin is disputed. Polygyny is prevalent among the Nyishi. It signifies one's social status and economical stability and also proves handy during hard times like clan wars or social huntings and various other social activities. This practice, however is diminishing especially with the modernization and also with the spread of Christianity. They trace their descent patrilineally and are divided into several clans. In Nyishi, Nyi refers to "a human" and the word shi denotes "highland". The Nyishis are mentioned as the Dafla people in the contemporary Ahom documents and consequently the British documents, and historians of the post-independence period also used the same term. This terminology is, however, not used nowadays. The Nyishi are agriculturalists who practice jhum, known as rët rung-o in Nyishi, which is a form of shifting cultivation. The principal crops raised include paddy (rice), toppu (maize), mekung (cucumber), tak-yi (ginger), aeng (yams) and temi (millet), thumpe (pumkin) perring(bean) and some leafy vegetables as their self-subsistence products . Rice is the staple food of the people, supplemented by fish, meat of various animals, edible tubers. Before a Western market economic system arrived, they used a barter system. They greatly valued the generalized reciprocity and also balance reciprocity in their economic system.

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Related concepts (2)

Mising people

The Mising people, sometimes called Miri people, are a Tibeto-Burmese indigenous ethnic group inhabiting the Northeast Indian states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. They are part of Tani group of people of Northeast India. Mising is an endonym and literally means "man of the soil." Miri, on the other hand, is an exonym commonly applied by plains Assamese people.

Northeast India

Northeast India (officially the North Eastern Region (NER)) is the easternmost region of India representing both a geographic and political administrative division of the country. It comprises eight states—Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura (commonly known as the "Seven Sisters"), and the "brother" state Sikkim. The region shares an international border of (about 99 percent of its total geographical boundary) with several neighbouring countries – with China in the north, with Myanmar in the east, with Bangladesh in the south-west, with Nepal in the west, and with Bhutan in the north-west.