Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Naming of mithuns


Naming of mithuns in Apatani are based on the patterns of colours on their skin. Male and female with similar pattern of colours may have different names. Male names generally start with ‘ta’ as starting syllable and that of female with ‘ya’ as starting syllable. However, there are some patterns of colour for which the bearer have a name irrespective their gender. Following are the illustrations of some common names:





5 comments:

PB said...

Hi GT,
Congrats for this very nice post. There seems to be a few more related words, but I'm not sure how far the translations I got are accurate. Have you heard of them?

- yalang: mithun/cow having a brownish coat (+ any specific body pattern?)

- yamur (yamu?): cow having an ashy coat (+ any specific pattern?)

- dilang: fully black mithun with only a patch of brown hair on the forehead (same as yaw??)

GT said...

thnx PB
i hvnt seen or heard of mithun with brownish coat and ashy coat.

'yalang' is used for cow with brownish coat and 'yamur'for cow with ashy coat- thats correct.

regarding 'dilang' i dnt knw it may be for cow again.

'yaw'/'taw' is name given to fully black mithun with a patch of dark brown hair on the forehead. its based on information from Hong, Hari and Hija mithun owner that i had contacted.

i'm told that naming of mithuns and cows are sometime different e.g cow with black coat is called yakha / takha whereas that of mithun is yaw /taw

PB said...

Thanks for this information.

taj said...

So very informative, carry on and bring more.

GT said...

thanks Taj