[Assam] Dog Tag?

Thu Dec 18 12:05:47 PST 2008

"What about the Sindoor, Mongol-Sutro, etc. worn by other married women in all over India?" - True in rural India. The ones (Indian women in US and India) I frequently meet do not wear any of these identifiers.Perhaps some jewelry that unmarried women also wear.
The main identifier that I know both men and women wear after marriage is wedding band. Is that a western custom that modern India adopted?  
What was surprising in the AT news was that in this day and age some men decided what married women will use as identifier and the men kept themselves free.
Dilip Deka

________________________________
From: Alpana B. Sarangapani <absarangapani at hotmail.com>
To: assam at assamnet.org
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 1:44:47 PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Dog Tag?

> That seems like a dog collar and tag to me - the kind you put on a dog if you own one. The female has to wear a necklace if married and the male does not have to.> How did the female activists let that happen? There must be more to come.

What about the Sindoor, Mongol-Sutro, etc. worn by other married women in all over India? 

By the way, dog tags (comes in two) ARE identification tags for military personnel in the US (in other countries too probably).. They must wear them while in the battle field and are used to identify the dead or the wounded in a war field.

They simply are called 'dog tags' because they truly look like a the actual dog tags that we put on our dogs.

It is a fashion item now for some young people - civilians, that is.. How insensitive!!

“In order to make spiritual progress you must be patient like a tree and humble like a blade of grass.”

> Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 10:35:12 -0800> From: dilipdeka at yahoo.com> To: assam at assamnet.org> Subject: [Assam] Dog Tag?> > That seems like a dog collar and tag to me - the kind you put on a dog if you own one. The female has to wear a necklace if married and the male does not have to.> How did the female activists let that happen? There must be more to come.> Dilip Deka> ==============================================================================> >From the Assam Tribune> > > Jenjap’ solves conjugal woes of Nyishis> Correspondent>  ITANAGAR, Dec 17 – The Nyishi women of Arunachal Pradesh, from now onwards, will don 'jenjap' (necklace) as marital symbol, much like their non-tribal counterparts in the plains. Thanks to the new-found 'awakening' sweeping across 300 clans of Nyishis, a major tribe of this ethnic state, inhabited by more than 25 major tribes.> > Beset with an increasing number of adultery, a major societal problem, the tribal community
 has long been seeking an end to it. At a time when the 'discussions and debates', met with a dead end, two small clans of Nyishi—Tebw and Lappa having around 20,000 population spread across the hilly interiors of East Kameng, Papum Pare, Lower Subansiri, Upper Subansiri, Kurung Kumey, East and West Siang districts of Arunachal Pradesh. They are also active in some parts of neighbouring Assam’s Sonitpur district. They practice what they preach.> > Taba Hare, the president of Tebw and Lappa Welfare Society, who is the man behind the novel concept, said, “With calls from several quarters, including intellectuals of the Arunachalee society, to reform the outdated customs and traditions and anything genuinely acceptable to the society to match with the passing time, the Tebw and Lappa Welfare Society (TLWS) had conceptualised the idea to adapt ‘jenjap’ as a marital symbol for women at its 7th annual convention held at Balijan under Papum Pare
 district in February this year.”> > As per TLWS’ resolve, it was made mandatory for the married women to wear the necklace, similar to mangalsutra, so that the people could know about their marital status. > > The organization has also made it compulsory for every groom to present the jenjap to his new bride as a ritual at the time of solemnizing their marriage. Moreover, if a man possesses more than one wife, as is the common practice in the tribal societies, he should present the necklace to each of his wives to reveal their marital status to the community. > > Besides being a part of state's indigenous faith movement, Hare, himself a former politician, said that the 'identity crisis' for the tribal women has a bearing on the marital fabric of their respective communities. The fact that tribal women did not have any marital symbol identical to 'mangalsutra' and 'sindur' of Hindus, resulted in occurrences of 'many unfortunate incidents' that led to
 chaos among their own tribal brethren.> > Asserting that TLWS had only revived the age-old tradition not by imitating the practice of the people of plains, Taba Hare said, “We have the tradition of giving 'kopung tasang', an expensive necklace made of silver, by the mother-in-laws or other senior female members of tribal families to the newly-wedded brides as a blessing for their well-being. But those traditions have almost been discontinued or forgotten owing to the current wave of modernization.”> > According to the TLWS president, the reintroduction of jenjap, a modified version of 'kopung tasang' and its mass acceptance will go a long way in putting a check on the incidences of elopement and polyandry. It will rather strengthen the marital bonds between the husband and the wife.> > The married male members of Tebw and Lappa clans, in a ceremonial function held at Doimukh on December 16 last, presented 'jenjap' to their wives. Prominent among
 those who presented the traditional ornament to wives were Education Minister Tatar Kipa, Sports & Youth Affairs and Land Management Minister Atum Welly, local MLA Ngurang Pinch and Berlin Deori, son of former Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee president, late Omem Moyong Deori. > > Berlin, who does not belong to Nyishi tribe but associated with the community through marital ties, looked elated while tying jenjap around the neck of his Nyishi wife. > > Welly, Kipa and Pinch—all seemed effusive in praise of the initiative of Tebw and Lappa Welfare Society that blazed a trail in social transformation by introducing the jenjap. “The day certainly goes down in the annals of history of not only Nyishi tribe but all other tribes of the region as Tebw and Lappa, the two small clans, have set the trend for all tribes to follow,” said Atum Welly. > > Not to rest on his laurels, Taba Hare has set his sights on bigger goals—to convince all the tribes of
 the state to follow the suit. “Just the journey of a thousand miles begins with a step, we, though, belong to a small clan always aspire for the big. As for us, we will not sit idle and but will try to convince other tribes facing similar crisis to adopt the marital symbol for women,” Hare sighed off.> _______________________________________________> assam mailing list> assam at assamnet.org> http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
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