Language:

The Garo language is one of the most prosperous and ancient tribal languages of the North East. It is part of the Tibeto-Burman group of languages. John Elliot, Commissioner of Dhaka, first reduced the Garo language to writing during his public deputation to Galo districts between 1788 and 89. During that time, he collected a few Garo words, the dialect of the A.beng division of the Garos, rendered the English equivalent of each of them and published them in the form of a dictionary as Asiatic Researches, Vol III. Miss Linnie M Holbrook, a lady missionary of great repute, also occupies a unique place in the literary world of the Garos as one of the major contributors to the enrichment of Garo literature. Appointed by the Women’s Baptist Foreign Mission Society on April 9th, 1906, to work mainly for Garo women, she came to the Garo Hills and reached Tura in November 1906. Her literary works include, among others, Bible stories in six volumes, fables, histories, doctrines, and editing and publishing the A chikni Ripeng, a Garo periodical. Miss Holbrook collected almost 14000 Garo words, which began with the collection of the Garo word “Chi” or “water” in 1906 and took nearly 30 years to transform it into a dictionary.

Socio-political Organisations:

Major A. Playfair, in his seminal anthropological work on the Garos, writes that when dealing with their tribal divisions, it will be convenient to separate them into two classes: those who inhabit the Garo Hills district and those who reside in the plains and are scattered over a vast area of the country. First would be the Akawes or Awes, who inhabit the whole of the northern bills and the plains at their foot, from the Kamrup border in the east to a short distance west of the Jinari River. Then there are the Chisaks who occupy the north-eastern hills, from the southern border of the Awes in the north to within a few miles of the Someswari river in the south; and from the western border of the Khasi Hill in the east, they extend about thirty miles westward. The Chisaks have much in common with the Awes, but they have some distinctive features in dress and customs, which proclaim them a separate tribe division. On the south of the Chisaks is a small colony of Duals, which has villages on the banks of the Someswari River and in the hills close to the river's south bank, where it turns towards the plains. The Machis inhabit the central valley of the Someswari, to the west of the Duals, and spread northward until they join hands with the Awes and southward, up the northern slopes of the central range of high hills. By far, the most crucial division of the tribe within the Garo Hills is that of the Abengs, who occupy the whole of the western hills and the more significant part of the country to the south of the central range, as far east as the Bogai river. A small colony also inhabits the south-eastern hills near the Khasi Hills boundary. Outside their hills, the Garos reside in most significant numbers in the Mymensingh district. They occupy the north of that district, but many live further south and extend even into Dhaka.

Playfair further writes that besides the geographical divisions named, the Garos are divided into three katchis, exogamous septs, or clans. Momin, Marak, and Sangma. The first is entirely confined to the Akawes (and Awes). Still, the other two are distributed among all the geographical divisions, no matter how much they may differ from one another in language and custom or whether they reside in the hills or the plains. Anil Kumar Sarkar, in his book, writes that there are five clans with several sub-clans among the Garos. He further adds that although initially there were only two clans among the Garos of North Bengal, Sangma and Marak, later, Momin, Arengh constituted by the Nongbak clan and its branches, and Sira, formed by the Dalbot clan and its branches, were developed out of the two original clans of the Garos. Every such clan comprises numerous sub-clans called Machong or motherliness. Usually, the Machongs are named after birds and animals, hills, rivers, trees, and bamboo. The Garo families maintain that their marriage is strictly exogamous and husband and wife must belong to different septs and motherhood. Traditionally, the Garos were not a politically organised society, and even today, no definite political structure exists. In earlier days, bachelor dormitories called Nokpante were the key agents of social control.

Religion:

Major A Playfair writes that, like all animistic religions, the Garos believe in many beneficent and malevolent spirits. Some attribute it to the world's creation; others believe that the control of natural phenomena and the destinies of man from birth to death are governed by a host of divinities whose anger must be appeased by sacrifice and whose good offices must be entreated in like manner. Playfair has given names to nine principal spirits prevalent among the Garos. Tatara-Kabuga, the creator, at whose command the world was made by two lesser spirits, Nostu-Nopantu and the creator, at whose command the world was made by two lesser spirits, Nostu-Nopantu and Machi. He is considered the greatest of the spirits, and his unique mission concerning man's welfare is curing wasting diseases such as kala-azar and other persistent fevers. He is known by eight other names. A sacrifice to him is an expensive matter, for a bull, a goat, and a fowl must be slaughtered in his honour; liquor provided for two days’ consumption by the worshippers, and rice also for them to eat. Two other spirits are mostly benign, like the Chorabudi and Nostu-Nopantu. In comparison, Saljong is the god of fertility. He is represented by the sun and is worshipped because all crops are in his care, and without his favour, no harvests would be reaped. The great festival of the year, the Wangala, is celebrated in his honour, but the actual sacrifice to him is offered in the fields before the village festival begins.

Goera is the god of strength and the causer of thunder and lightning. He is prayed to for health and strength after long illnesses. He is constantly sacrificed at the foot of a tree, and a pig, a fowl or a duck must be offered up. Susime is the giver of riches and the causer and curer of blindness and lameness. The moon represents her. Nawang is an evil spirit who devours the souls of men on their way to the Garo purgatory.

The Garos have their own story regarding the creation of the Earth, which includes the actions of Tatara-Rabuga, who was determined to create the Earth, so he sent a lesser spirit, Nostu-Nopantu, in the shape of a woman, to carry out his will. The rising and setting of the sun and moon are explained by the belief that the earth is a thin, flat body and that Tatara has ordained that the sun shall shine on the upper and lower surfaces in turn, the moon shining above when the turn comes for the lower surface to enjoy the sun’s warmth. Although it is believed that the sun and moon were made by command of the supreme deity, Tatara-Rabuga, another tale exists in which they are described as brother and sister, the children of Asima Dingsima. The sun was called Rengra-Balsa, and the moon Bire-Jitje. The stars, collectively, are given the name Noringro-Nojingjo, and it is believed that they represent spirits placed in the heavens as rulers of the seasons and years.

The Garo funeral observances indicate a great reverence for ancestors and the deceased, such as placing food for the spirits, erecting shrines for the temporary sepulchre of the bones, and carving memorial posts. Throughout the hills, certain sacrificial erections of bamboo are prepared, which vary in form according to the spirit to whom the offering is made and which may, not inappropriately, be called altars. The most seen of these is the sambasia; another is chorabudi, named after the spirit invoked at its base. A third kind, the secret, is merely a short bamboo stuck upright in the ground, the top section of which has been split into narrow strips, which form a conical basket when splayed outwards and bound with a cane. Offerings of food and sometimes money are placed into this. Another form of this is the wadambeng sekrek. This consists of two bamboo lashed together in the form of a cross.

In the villages, there are always many long bamboo with leaves on, placed upright in the ground in front of and close to many of the houses. These are hung with cotton balls or bunches of paddies in the ear and serve as offerings to the dead or spirits. In the first case, they are called memang-midong, and in the second, mite-midong. Another form of this is the wadong, the difference being merely in the size of the bamboo.

As the Garos depend entirely on agriculture for their support, all their religious practices are closely connected with agricultural activities. They celebrate annual ceremonies and festivals in January, also called Opata Amua. Individual households perform this festival, but it has been seen that all households attend on the same day. This ritual is performed to satisfy the guardian spirit Abetpa-Ranggapa for beginning agricultural activities on a plot of land.

Before any crops may be harvested, the first fruits must be offered to the gods in the Rongchugala, also called the Gindegala sacrifice. Some rice and millet are plucked and pounded between two stones and provided on a piece of plantain stem. The Wangala or Gureweta is celebrated when the rice harvest has been fully gathered. It is the great sacrifice and festival of the year and all sections of the tribe participate. The Nokma of the village provides a pig to be eaten by his guests and plenty of liquor. All guests assemble at Nokma’s house, dance, and sing at the usual intervals of refreshments.

Marriage:

In theory, marriage is strictly exogamous among the Garos, and husband and wife must belong to different septs and motherhood. Thus, a Sangma cannot many a Sangma, a Marak a Marak, or a Momin a Momin. The children invariably belong to the mother’s sept and motherhood. Great importance is attached to this rule, and those who break it and marry within their clan are considered to have committed a social sin. Marriage proposals must always come from the woman and not from the man. The girl does not herself arrange the engagement but indicates her choice and enlists the services of her father, uncle, or brother to bring about the alliance. Among the Abengs and Matabengs, it is customary for a man to refuse at first to marry the girl who has sought his hand and then run away and hide himself. A party of friends seeks for him and brings him back by force—and very unwillingly—to the village, whence he usually escapes. He is captured a second time, but should he run away a third time, it is taken for granted that he does not wish to marry the girl and is allowed to go free. The preliminaries having been arranged, it is the custom among some of the divisions of the tribe for the bride-elect to live in the house of a bridegroom's parents (he lives in the nokpante) for a month or more before the date fixed upon for the marriage. She works for them, and they become mutually acquainted. Among the Machis, a different mode of proposing is in vogue, which is known as chadila. The girl about to propose cooks a rice dish and sends it to the man her choice in the nokpante, by his sister or some other female relation. The girl follows close behind but remains in hiding to avoid the mortification of being present should he refuse to eat the food, which he would do if he were not willing to accept the offer. Should he commence the food, the girl comes forward from her place of concealment and eats with him. If the man refuses to eat, the girl does not necessarily give him up, but having found out where he sleeps, she goes to him late at night and lies down by his side. If the man is still obdurate, he usually leaves the village for a time, but if he relents, he becomes the girl's husband from that night without further ceremony. It is a point of honour that the man shall not make the slightest advance of an immoral nature on such an occasion. A man may marry as many wives as he likes, but three is usually the maximum. He may marry two sisters but must marry the elder before the younger. No money is ever paid as the price of the bride or bridegroom, nor does it appeal to be the custom to give any presents to either party, except sometimes in the case of the son of a wealthy man or a nokma. Such a person may receive a sword, shield, spear, and perhaps a cow or a bull from his parents.

Garo marriages are remarkably secular affairs. Unlike births and deaths, where religious symbolism and ritual sacrifices are commonplace, weddings largely lack such overt displays of faith. The ceremony itself is a simple, practical matter. The closest concession to the spiritual is the village priest's consultation of omens. This divinatory act seeks to foretell the couple's future – whether happiness, prosperity, or misfortune await them. Like the Akawes' dosia ceremony, a ritual of avian divination, it unfolds with a certain dramatic flair. Before the assembled families and friends, the village priest takes centre stage. Two fouls, a cock and a hen, are presented, their heads gently nudged together. The priest ends their lives with a swift, decisive strike of a wooden implement. The birds, in their final throes, offer up a prophecy. Their post-mortem positions are scrutinised with intense interest. The union is blessed should the beaks point towards one another, a fortuitous sign. But a shadow falls over the proceedings if the beaks lie separated, facing away. The marriage, it is believed, will be fraught with unhappiness.

Livelihood:

The Garo were essentially an agriculturist. Cultivating the soil was with him the beginning and the end of his life’s work and the occupation to which he devoted all his energy. A Playfair writes that some Garos in the central Someswari valley carry on a petty trade in the white beads, of which all Garos are so fond, and in the daos, swords, and cloths which they purchase from the Megams in the Khasi Hills. In the lower reaches of the Someswari, a certain amount of trade is made in timber, which is floated down the river to Baghmara and sold to purchasers from the Mymensingh district. On the Nitai River, bamboos are cut and sent in rafts to the Mymensingh plains, and on this river, some boats are made for sale. The only forms of industry in which the Garos engage are a little ironwork and weaving. There are a few blacksmiths, and every housewife has a rough loom. There are a few carpenters in Tura and in some of the larger villages, but only an infinitesimally small proportion of the tribe does anything except till the soil and reap the produce thereof.

In his book, Anil Kumar Sarkar writes that agriculture and fishing are the main occupations of the Garos in North Bengal. Cultivation of the soil is with him at the beginning and the end of his life’s work and the occupation to which they devote all the energy he possesses. They cultivated cotton, paddy, mustard seed, a little tobacco of inferior quality, Indian corn, brinjals, cucumbers, and a melon called bangi. They also cultivated jute in the autumn season. Side by side, fish was caught in small, blocked streams, and the water was poisoned with the bark of karai tree crushed and kangkir-kafang. This method of fishing is called garai-fung.

Food:

A Playfair in his book writes that the Garos will eat almost any animal food. In their villages, they rear goats, pigs, fowls and ducks, and from the plains people, they purchase cattle, for they form the only division of the Bodo group that will eat beef. Besides these, most Hill Garos will readily eat dogs and cats and every kind of wild animal that they can kill, though they would draw the line at tiger’s flesh. At many markets, scores of puppies are sold for food, though it should be added that these are generally offered in sacrifice before being eaten. They do not hesitate to eat some kinds of snakes and lizards, and even flying white ants are not despised as a bonne bouche. A very favourite article of food is nakam or dried fish. Gram or dried venison or beef is also considered a great delicacy. Their staple cereal food is rice, which they eat along with millet, maize, and Job's tears. There is nothing remarkable about their manner of cooking these, for they are boiled. Bamboo shoots are esteemed a delicacy and are either eaten boiled as a vegetable or used after special preparation as a pickle. Generally, the Garos use large quantities of salt and chillies in their food. The Garos of North Bengal, due to frequent contact with other groups, have a large selection of food and have adopted the method of cooking with spices and oil from them. The Garos are very fond of drinking in their daily life. Every Garo household is familiar with drinking ‘chau’ or rice beer, made from rice, millet, and maise, and it is used on all ceremonial occasions in the Garo community. The Baptist mission prohibits drinking the chau among the converted Garos. Christian Garos mostly prefer to drink milk tea.

Clothes and Ornaments:

Ah, the Garo, a people nestled in the embrace of the hills, their attire a curious tapestry woven from tradition and the encroaching threads of modernity. Playfair, our chronicler of these intriguing folk, paints a vivid picture. The Garo man, he tells us, is not one for elaborate finery. His principal garment, the gando, speaks of practicality, a simple strip of blue cotton, bravely striped with red, passing between the legs and wound about the waist. Imagine it: a flash of colour against the verdant backdrop of their homeland. Upon his head, the pagri, a circlet of dark blue or, on occasion, a pristine white, but never quite veiling the crown – a subtle touch of tribal custom. For grand occasions, or when the man holds the esteemed rank of nokma or laskar, the pagri gives way to a more splendid affair: a turban of rich, red Assamese silk, its fringe a testament to status. And when the chill winds whisper through the hills, a simple cotton cloth or blanket offers a modicum of warmth. But, as Playfair observes with a touch of wry amusement, the winds of change were beginning to blow. Cast-off uniforms and frock coats, relics of some forgotten colonial past, were becoming prized possessions, the height of Garo fashion. One can almost picture the scene: a proud Garo, resplendent in the faded glory of a discarded military jacket. And the Bengali traders, ever watchful for an opportunity, were introducing cotton sheets and coats, nudging the Garo towards a more, shall we say, covered appearance.

The dress of the Garo woman, though more ample than that of the man, is by no means hampering her movements. It consists of a piece of cloth eighteen inches long, and just broad enough to meet round her waist in the form of a petticoat. It is fastened at the top, on either the right or the left side by two strings of the same material as the garment, which allow it to remain open on the thigh. This garment, known as riking, is universal except among the Christianized Garos and the inhabitants of the plains, who wear clothing like that of the Bengalis and Assamese. On their shoulders, the women often, but by no means always, wear a shawl of blue and white cotton. Besides the ordinary garment which I have described, there is the dress worn by women for dancing and on gala occasions. This dress, which is named marang-jasku, is of dyed Assamese silk, and is like the clothes worn by the Khasis, through whom they are obtained. These clothes are prized and, like Garo gongs, seem to acquire value with age. Interestingly, presently one can find Garo women often wear salwar kameezes, skirts, blouses and frocks, whereas men wear trousers, shirts and jeans.

The Garos possess very few ornaments, and the few they have, are insignificant both in appearance and value. The men wear two kinds of brass rings in their ears. Those worn in the ear lobe, called nadongbi or otonga, are made of thin brass wire and are about one inch in diameter. A man sometimes wears as many as thirty or forty of these in each ear. Men and women wear necklaces made of long, barrel-shaped cornelian or red glass beads. The necklaces are purchased from Bengali traders at various markets. Another somewhat rare ornament is the kadisil, a circlet of cloth covered with brass studs and worn around the head on a level with the brow. In former days, this was put on when a man went on the warpath, but now it is worn only on festive occasions. In the north and east of the hills, a peculiar ornament is worn only by normal or village headmen. It is named jaksil and consists of a heavy ring, usually made of iron.

Dancing and Music:

A Playfair, with conviction, writes that “if anything can be said to be the tribal amusement of the Garos, I think it must be dancing, for that, accompanied by drinking, appears to form a very prominent feature of every social function and religious ceremony.” Two divisions of the tribe, the Rugas and the Chiboks, differ from the rest of the Garos in this connection, for they dance only at funeral ceremonies and never on any joyful occasion. The men usually dance with swords and shields in their hands and add to the melody (or discord) with cries of “kai kai.” Dancing in this manner is known as grika. Doubtless, it originates from the old fighting days when, on occasions of public rejoicing, the warriors were wont to dance and recount their deeds of valour to admiring audiences. Among the most curious is the one which takes place when the ganna, the ceremony at which a nokma or headman assumes the elbow rings, which are the marks of his position. When such an event occurs, the kamal or priest officiates as master of ceremonies. He leads in the dance, followed by the nokma and the headmen of the neighbouring villages, who have been invited to witness the solemnities. Nobody who is not a nokma can join in this dance, but several guests are invited to sit by and watch it. The dokru sua is a dance in which only two women take part. It is supposed to represent two doves pecking one another, and each woman takes the part of a dove. There is another kind of dance called kil-pua, which is intended to represent the sowing of cotton seeds. After every few steps, the dancers stoop as if to place a seed in a newly made hole in the ground. There are several other dance forms which are prevalent among various clans of the Garo tribe.

The Garos generally use a few drums, bamboo and horn wind instruments, and metal gongs and cymbals. There are several varieties of drums, and sjiecial uses are assigned to some of them. Unlike weapons and ornaments, which are purchased from foreigners, the musical instruments are of home manufacture. The favourite tree for making the frames of the drums is the (gambil (Careya arborica). The heads are of ordinary cowhide. The drum most used is the dama, a long, narrow drum, thickest in the centre, and tapering away at each end. The hr am is a larger drum. Like the dama, it is made of wood with ends covered with cowhide, but it is larger at one end and tapers away to a much smaller size at the other. It is used on solemn occasions, such as funerals and some annual ceremonies of a religious nature, while the dama may be used at any time. Most of the wind instruments may be classed as either trumpets or flutes. The adil is a small pipe made from the top six inches of a buffalo’s horn, to which a bamboo mouthpiece is attached. The singa is the whole of a buffalo’s horn and can produce at most two or three notes.