Almost Gone: The Tarong of Burma’s Far North
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Almost Gone: The Tarong of Burma’s Far North


By WOLFGANG H. TROST APRIL, 2008 - VOLUME 16 NO.4


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There is no fishing, as there are simply no fish in the ice-cold Adung Long River.

Hunting is done entirely with crossbows made of carefully selected hardwood (mulberry is used for the stave and plum for the stock), with a string of hemp and arrows poisoned with wolfsbane. They can target animals with amazing accuracy, and the poison arrows can kill large animals within minutes of hitting them.

The Tarongs are credited by other ethnic groups in the region—the Tibetans, the Rawangs and the Lisu, who are all known as much more active hunters—as the inventors and master craftsmen of this unique hunting tool.

Hunting for pelts and other precious animal parts and gathering coveted medicinal herbs and bulbs are the two main sources of the Tarong’s subsistence income. Although they also use money, they mostly engage in bartering with their neighbors.

Later, for this kind of trade, they crossed the mountains into Tibet in the summer, mostly to the nearby village of Jeethay, where they acquire important basics such as salt, tea and knives (including machetes), and occasionally ornaments and clothing.

Unlike the Tibetans, the Tarongs and Htalu-Rawang live in very basic raised huts, made mostly of split bamboo, with thatched roofs.

Their traditional clothing is simple and rather plain, consisting of short pants, stockings for the protection of the lower legs and a large blanket-like cloth made of woven hemp fiber. But these days this is increasingly supplemented and replaced by cheap clothing from China or even Lower Burma.

Except for cloth weaving and the making of crossbows and cane baskets, which are carried on the back with the aid of a headband over the forehead as the main means of transporting goods, there are no other cottage industries.

The Tarongs used to practice their own unique form of animism, a polytheistic belief system which finds both guardian and threatening spirits in all that surrounds them—from the mountains and trees to the sun and moon. All rites of passage are conducted by a kind of shaman called a nam’sa, who also provides guidance and intercession with the spirits.

These days, however, most Tarong, like their Rawang neighbors, practice Christianity.

With an average height of 149 cm for males and 140 cm for females, the Tarongs and their relatives the Drungs are the only pygmies of Mongolian stock. The reason for their diminutive size has never been conclusively established, but it is assumed that the answer lies in unique genetic conditions.

In this context, it is important to note that populations in the area concerned, on both sides of the border, are prone to endemic goiters—severe swellings of the thyroid glands associated with inadequate intake of iodine. Combined with widespread inbreeding, especially in the Adung Long Valley, the lack of iodine in their diet may go some way toward explaining both the short stature of the Tarong and the relatively high incidence of cretinism among them.

When this author visited the area in 2002, only around 42 to 50 villagers claimed to be of mixed Tarong-Htalu parentage, while only seven or eight were regarded as the last pureblooded Tarong of the Adung Long Valley.

At that time, the only male of fertile age among them,  55-year-old Dawi, had no hope of finding a bride among the remaining women of this group, as they were all well past childbearing age. When they pass away, the Tarong of Burma will vanish with them. 



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