Reviving Bugun Tribe’s Cultural Tapestry

Adu Khanam describes his journey from a student leader of his Bugun (Khowa) in Arunachal Pradesh to founding the Bugun Cultural Society. He speaks about confronting the growing alienation of his community from their cultural roots and traditions in the name of modernizing. And over a period of 2 decades, how he and his team have been instrumental in not only showcasing their rich cultural tapestry across the country, but reviving it as a lived cultural heritage within his community.

Read this story in Hindi

To a casual observer, it may appear that the Bugun community is holding on tightly to its age-old culture and traditions and are proud of our cultural diversity. But the sad reality is that many aspects of our culture are gradually fading away. It has taken decades to turn this around.

Bugun (also known as Khowa) people have passed down their knowledge and stories of their origins, culture and traditions orally, as there is no written script for their language. Like many of the 26 major tribes of Arunachal Pradesh, the Bugun have their ethnic cultural identity. Their rich cultural heritage and language make them unique from the rest of the tribes of the world. Similarly, they are also rich in folk arts which have existed for generations. 

I am from the Bugun tribe and founded the Bugun Cultural Society to restore Bugun’s art through this cultural society. I have been living in Itanagar since my childhood because my father’s business was based there. I remember the time I came back to my village when I was in the second year of graduation and felt very bad to see that part of our culture was fading away from my village. I was sad to see that people were abandoning our rich culture in the name of being modern. Today, the Bugun language is almost on the verge of extinction as it is being replaced by Hindi, English or some regionally popular dialects. Likewise, traditional folk songs and musical instruments have almost disappeared. Fortunately, folk songs seem to have preserved many original words through their use in songs. But the lack of interest among younger generations towards folk arts was a cause of concern. 

Although I never thought that I would work in the cultural field, circumstances made me a student leader, a social worker, and I also served as a chairman of apex community-based organization called All Bugun Khowa Society. While doing my graduation in the year 2004, I realized as a student that in this competitive era my community is not doing well in the desired direction on many fronts. At that time the children did not even know the local language, and for that matter nor did I know my own language well. Children from our village were going out to study and people migrated out for jobs. I decided then, that I would work to save my culture. Along with some student friends from our community, I started as a student leader and formed our community based student union and named it the All Bugun (Khowa) Students Union as a humble start to assert our unique Bugun identity and to train our youth to be future leaders. And yes, I achieved my goal to some extent, challenged as we were with our small population, lower literacy rate along with other issues.

As a child I loved classical music very much and I took training in tabla and music for a few years. My love of music and dance led me to realize that our tribe has a unique folkart tradition which could be one of the best medium to popularize and to showcase Bugun culture. I found a small group of likeminded people of our Bugun community who were committed to preserve, protect and promote this rich but vanishing cultural heritage and we named it Bugun Cultural Society. When I started working, I had to face a lot of difficulties because we did not have money. Initially, we had great difficulty in finding people to work with because most people in our community not only did not know the dance form and music, but also because we were not able to pay them well. I remember when I started this Cultural Society, some of our team members were school and college students and when we had to collect money for traveling to participate in performances, some of them could not pay for themselves. In such situations we used to take only those members of our team for performances who could bear their expenses. And for these reasons, our group started off small. Now after 10 years of hard work and struggle we have reached a position where people themselves come to us and express their desire to work in our group.

Folk dances and songs are an inalienable expression of the Bugun culture and traditions. One such cultural aspect is the traditional dance form of Gasyo-Syo which literally translates “to dance” or “let’s dance” (or move to dance) and is performed in every celebratory event like births, weddings and festivals. This art form is popularly understood as a combination of folk music, songs and dances. There are two forms of Gasyo-Syonamely “Gek-Gasyo-Syo” and “Gidindak-Gasyo-Syo” which are performed in accordance to the occasions.

Gidindakis a group dance form which is usually performed in formal functions, rituals and festivals like Pham Kho Sowai (a local celebration that brings 11 villages of our community together). 

Gek is one of my favorites because it is an informal form of dance for entertainment and merry making and is usually performed solo or as a duet especially on occasions like birth, marriage or any other auspicious event. 

There are some locally popular songs composed by unknown people of the past which were passed down from the older generations of the Buguns. Many of them are associated with their folklores. These Eibwe or songs can be termed as the folk songs our tribe.

Let’s have a look at the  instruments played by Bugun tribe

The traditional musical instruments played by Bugun tribe include the Thabam (drums) and the Khenkhyap(Brass clappers) and are accompanied by simple clapping of hands while singing the folk songs. The musicians themselves have their unique dancing style and will wear their unique attire.

Apart from these traditional folk instruments, the Bugun also have the traditional flute called the Fly, single stringed fiddle called the Beeyen and the vibrating mouth harp made from bamboo called the Gong.

The juncture at which the Bugun folk arts is presently located is very crucial. The cultural diversity that included all forms of traditionally-made art and crafts is under threat from globalized culture. The stories, folk arts and traditional knowledge within the community are not passing down to the newer generation and remains only with the generation of old people.  For instance, there are only a few individuals of very old age who could play the traditional Fly (flute), their Beeyen (single stringed fiddle) and the Gong (mouth harp). There are very few elders who could sing the folk songs and tell the folktales. There are even fewer who could make the flute or basketry out of bamboo and canes. Moreover, they are not ready to work anymore as it’s too laborious and they won’t get the desired value of their services. 

I myself had ordered some of these items but they are still not ready even after five years. 

I am ready to pay but the craftsmen are not ready to work. 

But I feel things are not all bad. There have been some improvements since the last 10 years. I remember when we initially started working, we had difficulty in getting the traditional clothes and jewelry. 

Today we have been able to revive Bugun music and dance forms along with our aspects of our culture and the full credit for this goes to the Bugun Cultural Society. Initially, we used to ask people for these clothes with great difficulty and wear them in our cultural programs. As our popularity increased, the people here started remaking our traditional products. 

The Bugun Cultural Society recently started a series of recordings of Bugun folk songs. And the first album- Bugun Folk Melodies: Vol-1 has already been released. And the next volume is going to be released very soon to generate interest among the youth.

When we travel to perform, we sometimes face some challenges. That’s why we try not to take elderly people to participate in distant programs because their health deteriorates.

I still remember that once we travelled to South India and my entire performers team became unwell because there is a lot of difference between our food and the food of South India. We are not at all in the habit of eating sour food. A girl from my team said-

“Adu Sir, can we have kheer after the meal?”

Later I saw that what she thought was sweet kheer was actually a sour dish and it did not agree with our constitution. 

Wherever we travel to participate in festivals and performances, the responsibility of our program and the arrangements is taken up by our program organizers. But when we go for government programs, sometimes we fall short of money and have to spend our own money and perform. We still do so because more than money, we give more importance to enhancing our culture.

Today, our team has showcased Bugun folk songs and dances in several local, regional, national and even international events. Currently, Bugun Cultural Societyis working under Central Bureau of Communication, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India as a private troupe under a contract. This year we also presented the Bugun cultural program in the G20 where we got the chance to interact with the artists from Africa. Their dance style and ours are very similar and I love how art can connect people despite being so far apart and so different.