How thinking about conservation brought Millo Ankha closer to the ancestral knowledge of her community, the Apatanis.

The village elders sit with the nyibu (a shaman) under the peach tree. The nyibutranscends the Earthly realm, chanting to the ancestral spirits to protect the wellbeing and health of the clan members. My mother and aunts wait to smear rice powder paste mixed with rice wine onto the peach tree. It is said that the peach trees at the altar share their ancestral wisdom. The sacred rituals are carried out to sanctify the relationship between the humans and ancestral spirits. And it is believed that the survival of the peach tree nurtures human life.

The rice fields are sprawled across the valley; the smoke of burning bamboo and pines lingers from the villages. Surrounding them are the rolling mountains of varying green threaded by trailing clouds. During March, the pink burst of blooming peach and plum trees scattered in the Ziro valley herald the arrival of the Myoko festival: one of the biggest ritualistic festivals that is hosted by the cluster of villages in rotation every spring in the Apatani community. The Apatanis are one of the major ethnic groups of the Eastern Himalayas and the descendants of the ancestor Abotani.

One of the attas (elder sisters) tells me: “During Myoko, the forest god is worshipped and appeased. The boundaries between humans and spirits are cleared to acknowledge the community’s ownership of their lands.”

In 2021, I began to work on a project exploring the traditional ecological knowledge of my community and how that relates to the modern idea of conservation where the agency belongs to humans driving towards “progress” and often issues end up being greenwashed.

In the Apatani language, we don’t have the word for conservation. I asked my father, who served as a forest officer in Karnataka, India, for 30 years, what his thoughts were about our contribution to conservation. He corrected me by saying: “It is not we who conserve the forests, but it is the forests who conserve us.” I was guided by the remark in my journey towards understanding this relationship over the following year. It became an anchor point to, which I kept coming back to.

Our community’s connection to the forest has always been clear. When I was a child, my mother always asked us to say a word of kindness or prayer before entering a forest. I was discouraged from bringing home specific plants and seedlings. And I was taught to respect the territories of the ancestors and spirits of the forests and not disturb its space.

Thinking about conservation led me to reach out to my relatives and village elders. I was called to a deeper journey of unlearning, rerouting and rediscovery, which often challenged my institutionalised ways of thinking. I was ready to learn from scratch.

For months and seasons, by engaging with the farmers, the herders, and the nyibus, the connection beyond materiality and to the ancestors and the forests was revealed to me. From the traditional uses of the plants to the spiritual connection we share with the forests, there was an undeniable agency active in the lives of the community. It required me to develop a deeper understanding of the oral literature that has been the only way of knowledge dissemination for generations. Learning and archiving ancestral knowledge was healing - restoring the space within - in respect to my relationship beyond the human. During the journey, spending time with elders and transferring knowledge gave me a sense of connection with them and belonging to the land and the beings; as if my wavering-self grew roots and the roots were growing deeper. “Whatever you want to know, I will tell you because we need to pass on the knowledge. The sun doesn’t hold back its rays. If I don’t give it to the younger generation, there is no value in this knowledge,” says the nyibu.

Since there is no formal script in Apatani, like my other ancestors, I had to rely on oral knowledge. Gyati Rana, a cultural activist, tells me a story that describes how, when Abotani migrated from one place to another, Shuu Myoro, a terrestrial deity, wanted to migrate with him, but Abotani refused to take Shuu Myoro. Only after repeated requests did they make an agreement that Shuu Myoro would migrate and reside in the periphery of the village and protect Abotani’s clan members from fire accidents and epidemics. And Abotani shouldn’t transgress and disturb Shuu Myoro’s domain in the periphery of the village. So, Shuu Myoro became the caretaker and protector god of the villages.

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My uncle, Millo Habung, a herder and a farmer, helps me gather the plants used for various spiritual purposes in the Apatani community rituals. As we walk into our clan forests he tells me when he was a child his father taught him the ways and that knowledge was now being passed to his son. It reminded me that everything I was learning and absorbing was descended from my ancestors who had been guided for generations and sustained themselves with the traditional knowledge, without any contact with the outside world.

I become a child once again, absorbing all the information pouring into me. There is a beautiful philosophical concept in Apatani oral tradition, recalls another uncle, that all living beings are sons and daughters of Abotani, our forefather. It is believed that the tigers, eagles, snakes, even leeches and insects are also descendants of Abotani like us and we all are siblings. We are neither different nor superior to them. We are bestowed with Chare-Dore (power to differentiate the good and bad).

The nyibu has signalled for the ceremony to begin. My mother and aunts move towards the peach tree waiting to be fed with the rice wine and rice powder. A soft breeze carries the peach blossoms, which land on my feet.

This photography project was supported by Iyarkai - a grant for conservation and photography 2021-22, Chennai Photo Biennale.