Itanagar

Ita Fort stands among the wooded foothills above the Brahmaputra valley. Its irregular defences combine steep natural ridges with brick ramparts, and gateways open on the western, eastern and southern sides. The fort gives Itanagar its name: ita means brick. Archaeologists have generally placed the remains in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, though their builder is uncertain. Local traditions associate the fort with Ramachandra and his son Arimatta, rulers remembered in the histories of Assam and in Nyishi legend.

The surrounding hills were home to Nyishi communities whose relationship with the Ahom kingdom in the Assam plains was shaped by both exchange and conflict. Under King Pratap Singha in the early seventeenth century, an arrangement known as posa entitled the Nyishi to receive cloth, tools, cattle and salt from specified foothill villages in return for tribute. Ahom expeditions into the hills met determined resistance, including a defeat in 1614. Later agreements and renewed raids show how control of the passes remained contested. These connections brought the forested uplands into contact with the agricultural and political life of the valley below.