Giving food and drink to participants of an Apatani ritual procession

Lined up on the left are some of the many hundreds of participants in an Apatani ritual procession during a large feast Murung (Feast of Merit), : Facing them is a man from this particular neighbourhood offering them rice beer from a gourd : Each year, several Apatani families celebrate this three-w...

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Full title: Giving food and drink to participants of an Apatani ritual procession [electronic resource] English.
Format: Photo           
Language: English
Published: [S.l.] : [s.n.], 1945.
Series: SOAS Digital Library.
FURER.
RSA.
PHOTOS.
Subjects:
Online access: Click here to view record


Summary: Lined up on the left are some of the many hundreds of participants in an Apatani ritual procession during a large feast Murung (Feast of Merit), : Facing them is a man from this particular neighbourhood offering them rice beer from a gourd : Each year, several Apatani families celebrate this three-week long feast, involving mithun and cow sacrifice, public chanting by the shaman and complex gift-giving between the feast sponsor and various kin and ceremonial friends : During the procession, which takes place more than a week after the large animal sacrifice on the first day, the shaman leads a long line of young boys and men belonging to the sponsor's clan : Dressed in ceremonial finery and brandishing their machetes, they walk through the entire Apatani valley only 8 kilometres long and 4 across, visiting all nine villages and each ritual platform in each village : at every platform, they perform a simple dance and are given food and drink : this is what we see in this photograph, with the ritual platform visible in the background, behind the large pole.
Language: English
Published: [S.l.] : [s.n.], 1945.
Subjects:
Series: SOAS Digital Library.
FURER.
RSA.
PHOTOS.
Access: © 1945, The Estate of Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf. The Estate is currently (2015) represented by Nicholas Haimendorf, son of Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf. ----- Creative Commons (by-nc-nd). -- This image may be used in accord with Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs.
Place of Publication: India -- Arunachal Pradesh -- Lower Subansiri District -- Apatani River valley.