Nyishi
- Also spelled:
- Nishi
- Also called:
- Bangni and (pejorative) Dafla
Nyishi, tribal people of eastern Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh (formerly North East Frontier Agency), a mountainous state in northeastern India. They speak a Tibeto-Burman language of the Sino-Tibetan family.
The Nyishi support themselves with a slash-and-burn agriculture and with hunting and fishing. They live at elevations of 3,000 to 6,000 feet (900 to 1,800 m) in houses built on pilings. Descent is traced along paternal lines; a single lineage, which may number as many as 60 or 70 persons, lives together in a longhouse without partitions but with a separate fireplace for each conjugal family. Aside from this patrilineal household there is no formal social organization or village government. Their religion involves belief in spirits associated with nature.