Mountains of Dawn

by Mamang Dai

English 176 pages 1 edition

‘Sedi (earth) desired to return to her husband Melo (sky), but as she was raising herself towards him, the sun and moon appeared; she was ashamed and could go no further. That part of her which was reaching towards her lord became fixed forever as the great mountains.’ A land of mountains, hills and rivers, hidden in rain and mist; a place where life and legend intertwine. Arunachal Pradesh, in India’s North-East, is a land of great beauty—in its forests teeming with wildlife, as in its barren high mountain passes—and even greater diversity, home as it is to over 26 major tribes and over 100 sub-tribes, all with distinct, age-old customs and beliefs. Once a forbidden, secret world believed to be inhabited by ‘unknown savages’, Arunachal Pradesh—formerly, the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA)—has undergone rapid transformation since India’s Independence. As modernization sweeps through the land, changing it irrevocably, efforts are also on to protect and preserve the state’s tribal culture and its immense ecological wealth. This beautifully written and illustrated book records all of this in a manner that has never been done before. It is a magnificent tribute to a magnificent land and its people.