APA TANI

tribal people of Arunachal Pradesh (former North East Frontier Agency), a mountainous state in the extreme northeast of India. They speak a Tibeto-Burman language of the Sino-Tibetan family and numbered about 13,100 in the 1970s. Unlike other tribes in the area, the Apa Tani practice a settled wet rice (paddy) agriculture. The typical household consists of a husband and wife and their unmarried children. Their society is formed of clans, of which there are two classes, ruling and plebeian. Representatives of the clans compose the village council. They believe in spirits associated with nature.