Talk:Garo (tribe)
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The Garos are a tribe in Meghalaya, India who call themselves Achik. They are the second-largest tribe in Meghalaya after the Khasi and comprise about a third of the local population. The majority of the Garos are Baptist. The Garo language belongs to the Bodo branch of the Bodo-Naga-Kachin family of the Sino-Tibetan phylum.
They are mainly distributed over the Kamrup, Goalpara &KarbiAnglong Districts of Assam, Garo Hills In Meghalaya, and substancial numbers are found in Mymmensingh district of Bangladesh.
The earliest written records about the Garo dates from around 1800. They "...were looked upon as bloodthirsty savages, who inhabited a tract of hills covered with almost impenetrable jungle, the climate of which was considered so deadly as to make it impossible for a white man to live there" (Playfair 1909: 76-77). The Garo had the reputation of being headhunters.
The district was occupied by the British in 1867, and the natives were subdued. American Baptist missionaries arrived almost immediately, and in the twentieth century Roman Catholic missionaries were sent. Consequently, atleast 80% of the Garo are now Christians. The remaining are Hindu Garos in Assam and Muslim Garos in Bangladesh.
The Garo's are one of the few remaining Matrilineal societies in the world. The individuals take their clan titles from their mothers. The youngest daughter or nokrom inherits the property from her mother. The male offspring leave the parents house at puberty, and are trained in a common village Bachelor dormitory called a nokpante. After getting married the man lives in his wifes house.
The Garo divide themselves into a number of groups or sub-tribes, based mainly on differences in dialect and location. These groups tend to be endogamous,but have very little unity in a political sense. They are called the Akawes, Chisaks, Duals, Matchis, Matabengs, Kochus, Atiangas, Ambengs, Chiboks, Rugas, Ganchings or Garas, and Atongs (Playfair 1909: 59-62).
The most significant differences exist between the groups who live closer to the plains--i.e., the Akawes, Chisaks, and Kochus--and the hill dwellers who constitute the remaining groups. Like the non-Garo people who live on the plains, the Garo of the plains practice wet-rice agriculture and are highly acculturated.
The Garos today face the problem of underdevelopment, and loss of culture and identity. The matrilineal culture is also slowly being diluted, due to increased contact with patriarchal societies.
THE HISTORY
The almost complete absence of written records prior to the coming of the British leaves the past history of the Garo very far fro certain. For the past, we have to depend entirely on their legend and oral traditions, their folklore and folksongs, and other circumstantial evidence which are, however, most uncertain and reliable sources of information.
The Garos’ own traditions relate that they came originally from Tibet to what is now Cooch Behar, whence they moved on to Dhubri whose king received them warmly. However, later on, being afraid of them, he did not allow them to settle permanently. From there they moved to their neighourhood of Jogighopa where they remained for about 400 years but they were again forced to leave the place, driven towards the south by the ruler of that country, crossed the Brahmaputra on rafts and advanced towards Gauhati, where they settled at Ka’magre or present Kamakhya Hills and along the Brahmaputra valley. As the place was infested with tigers, the Garo relinguished the place and then spread into Habraghat Pargana in Goalpara. Tradation also tell us while in the neighbourhood of Habraghat Pargana, the Garo appear to have become rich and prosperous and the first Garo Kingdom was established, of which the first reigning price was Abrasen who has his palace and capital at Sambol A’ding, an isolated hill near the Dakaitdol Village not far from Goalpara town
Mediaeval Period
With the passage of time in the medieval period, while the Garos in the hills were still divided into a number of petty Nokmaships, the plain tracts along the fringes at the foot of the hills came to be included in the many Zamindari Estates, which eventually developed into fewer but larger complexes. During the mediaeval era and the Mughal period, the more important estates bordering the Garo Hills were Karaibari, Kalimalupara, Mechpara and Habraghat in Rongpur district, Susang and Sherput in Mymensing district of Bengal and Bijini in the Eastern Duars.Early records describe the Garos as being in a state of intermittent conflict with Zamindars of these large estates.
Modern Period
The contact between the British and the Garos started towards the close of the 18th Century after the British East India Company had secured the Diwani of Bengal from the Mughal Emperor. Consequently, all the estates bordering upon Garo Hills, which for all practical purposes had been semi-independent were brought under the control of the British.
Pa Togan Sangma
In December 1872, the British sent out battalions to Garo Hills to establish their control in the region. The attack was conducted from three sides – south, east and west. The Garo warriors confronted them at Rongrenggiri with their spears, swords and shields. The battle that ensured was unmatched, as the Garos did not have guns or mortars like the British Army.
Togan Sangma, a young man was in command of the valiant Garo warriors. He fell fighting with unmatched heroism and courage in December 1872.
Pa Togan Sangma is immortalised at the martyr’s column in Shillong, where his name is enshrined along with U Tirot Sing and U Kiang Nongbah, the gallant heroes of the Khasis and Jaintias.
Though political control had passed from the Mughals to the British, the latter, like Mughals, had no desire to control the Estates or their tributaries directly. The Zamindars were not disturbed in the internal management of their estates. In fact, they were entrusted, as they had been by the Mughals, with the responsibility of keeping the hill Garos in check with help of their retainers. Thus in the beginning, the intermittent conflict between the Zamindars and the Garos went on unabated until the situation deteriorated to the extent that the British were forced to take notice. This development led ultimately to the annexation of the Garo Hills in 1873. Captain Williamson was the first Deputy Commissioner of the unified district.
