[Assam] Dog Tag?

[amlan saha]

Hmmm... not in a totally different category from women introducing
themselves or preferring the use of "Mrs." in front of their names, is it?
Or for that matter taking on their husbands' last names!  I have always
wondered about what could lead educated self-respecting women to ever do
that.


On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 1:35 PM, Dilip and Dil Deka <dilipdeka at yahoo.com>wrote:

> 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 intellectuals of the Arunachalee society, to reform the outdated customs and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.
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