BORDUMSA (Arunachal), Feb 14 – Hkap Tau La Ga Ai, announced the welcome arch at the public playground here. The meaning of this Singpho phrase is, ‘we wish you a hearty welcome’. This gesture by itself was more than welcome, after the end of a 40 kilometre back-breaking journey from Margherita, through dense forests and dacoit-infested treacherous stretches. The eighteenth Shapang Yawng Manau Poi, or the dance festival of the Singpho community began here today to all the entrapments of merry-making as is linked to any tribal society of the North East.
The festival is named after the ancestor of the Singpho community, Shapang Yawng, who, as mythology goes, the last of the six humans God created. That was eons ago. Today, the Singpho community in Arunachal Pradesh is one of the more literate, as well as one of the more well-to-do, in economic terms. A fiercely independent community, the Singphos were earlier a warring tribe. But with the community embracing Buddhism, the war mongering has ended. Today, this agrarian society is mostly well to do, with interests in citrus orchards, tea leaf cultivation, etc.
The festival itself is a three day affair. The celebrations began on Wednesday, but the most important event, the manao poi (dance festival), went of this morning. In attendance were Arunachal’s Food & Civil Supplies Minister C C Singpho, Health Minister Chamsong Memu and the Minister of State for Home from Assam, Pradyut Bordoloi. Bordoloi offered Margherita as the venue for next year’s Shapang Yawng Manao Poi, and his offer was instantly accepted by the assembled crowd with a thunderous applause. Earlier too, this festival has been hosted at Margherita, but with Bordoloi now an important Minister in Assam, the Singphos here are expecting a grand affair in 2003, at Margherita. The age-old dance festival of the Singpho community is an occasion for merry-making within the community, but without any vulgarity. The festival is a celebration of the arrival of spring.