Karbi Anglong

Given that I've spent most of the past week here, it's only fair I post a thing or two about Karbi Anglong. It's the largest district in the state of Assam, with its headquarters at Diphu, which surprisingly isn't even featured on the map in the Lonely Planet guide to North-east India. The name of the district translates as 'Karbi Hills', the Karbis being the dominant ethnic group here.



I'm here visiting my friend L. who's been doing research on the Karbi language for some years now. I got to sit in on a few sessions with her main language consultant which was really cool. I'm also staying with a Karbi friend whom L. introduced me to when I first visited in early 2009 and have been staying at her family (apart from the 2 nights I was at Kohora).



The Karbi totem pictured above is known as Jambili Athon and consists of a bird at the apex surrounded by five smaller birds and two even smaller birds on the main body of the totem. I like it because the main bird is a drongo, usually a species of racquet-tailed drongo with its long tail feather extensions. You can find drongos in rainforests across SE Asia and they're always a pleasant find (unless you're from Australia, where the word 'drongo' refers to an idiot). Anyway, according to my friend here the drongo symbolises the king of the Karbi people, and the four birds around it represent the four main Karbi clans. The little birds are also said to offer food to the drongo, who pretty much lives in luxury.

One reason my friend says the drongo is respected is its ability to mimic most other sounds, including the barking of dogs - a fact I'm familiar with back from my nature guiding days in Singapore. Its call also signals the presence of danger nearby, although I'm not sure what one would listen out for it in the jungle, given its ability to mimic most other sounds.

L.'s language consultant called it a 'bird of paradise', which is apparently what many people call it in English. However, true birds of paradise are only found on the island of New Guinea.

Now the last time I visited Diphu in 2009, the situation wasn't terribly stable. I remember there was a protest march near the football field and seeing a few fires lit. I'm not quite sure, but it was probably led by a rebel group agitating for independence / greater autonomy from Assam, following the shooting of someone by the police.



Since then, the situation has stabilised with the surrender of most members of the Karbi Longri National Liberation Front (KLNLF). In exchange, the government has offered them both amnesty and plots of land. According to my friends here, some people who weren't KLNLF members also 'surrendered' in order to get some land. Hmm....