My new travel essay “Beasts of the Northern Mountains” can be read at:maptia.com/edithmirant
My new travel essay “Beasts of the Northern Mountains” can be read at:https://maptia.com/edithmirante/stories/beasts-of-the-northern-mountainsThe article, with photos, describes my (successful) search for mithuns in remote northern Chin State, Burma.What’s a mithun? Here’s an excerpt:“Mithuns (bos frontalis, also spelled mithan or mythun) are bovines, as are cattle and bison. Mithuns are the fewest in number of the large animals domesticated by humans. They live only in a few rugged corners of Asia, usually at elevations between 1,000 and 3,000 meters above sea level. Northeast India has about 300,000 mithuns (often called gayal in India.) Perhaps 35,000 live in northwest Burma (Myanmar), mainly in remote Chin State. Smaller populations have been found in Bhutan, southern China’s Yunnan province and the hill tracts of Bangladesh.These dark-coated, white-legged ungulates are 120 to 170 cm. tall at the shoulder. They are descended from the much larger wild gaur, a vulnerable-to-extinction forest ox I once glimpsed in an Indian wildlife sanctuary. Mithuns roam forests by day, browsing on leaves and return to their owners at night. According to Chin political leader Pu Lian UK, whose family kept mithuns, ‘They like salt very much and that makes them very easy to rear. They know their master’s voice. If their master makes a usual way of shouting loud to call them to come to him, all of the herds will run to the voice.’” Mithuns have been used for ceremonial sacrifice and are a symbol of an indigenous society in transition. Read more at:https://maptia.com/edithmirante/stories/beasts-of-the-northern-mountains -- source link
#chin state#myanmar#forest#domestic animals#bovine#mithun