American Photography 29 Winners

Stealing Beauty - The Apatani

Ngilyang Empu poses for a portrait in Ziro, India, two from the series Stealing Beauty - The Apatani, February 2012. The Apatani is a tribe living in India’s fertile and flat Ziro valley in Arunachal Pradesh. Historically revered for their beauty, young Apatani women were often kidnapped by warriors of the neighboring Nishi tribes, and as a defense, Apatani girls were deliberately defaced at the time of puberty with facial tattoos (tiipe) and bamboo nose plugs (dat). A painful and bloody process, thorns apply soot under the skin for the tattoo, and nose plugs were fitted into holes cut into the upper nostrils. The tradition stuck, and over generations eventually lost it's original meaning of ugliness and came to represent courage, beauty and strength.

Stealing Beauty - The Apatani

Tailyang Yaming poses for a portrait in Ziro, India, two from the series Stealing Beauty - The Apatani, February 2012. The Apatani is a tribe living in India’s fertile and flat Ziro valley in Arunachal Pradesh. Historically revered for their beauty, young Apatani women were often kidnapped by warriors of the neighboring Nishi tribes, and as a defense, Apatani girls were deliberately defaced at the time of puberty with facial tattoos (tiipe) and bamboo nose plugs (dat). A painful and bloody process, thorns apply soot under the skin for the tattoo, and nose plugs were fitted into holes cut into the upper nostrils. The tradition stuck, and over generations eventually lost it's original meaning of ugliness and came to represent courage, beauty and strength.