By Eleanor Mikkimchi Sangma
Before Christianity was introduced in Meghalaya in the early 20th century, the Garo tribe followed an animist religion known as Songsarek. Our forefathers worshipped nature and nature deities; old gods that were faceless and without form. There still exist pockets of Songsarek villages in Garo Hills. Eleanor Mikkimchi Sangma writes on the dying faith of the Garos.
Although the old practices – Songsarek – are no longer as widespread, the belief system of the bygone age has been passed down through generations. One such belief is the phenomena of certain places referred to as a⸱si raka. These are forbidden sites, usually, forests, that are believed to be home to malevolent a⸱si or mite (deities).
“If I’m being completely honest, these places are everywhere”, says Palneth Sangma, a 50-year-old resident of Chibragre who believes she lost her husband to an a⸱si.
One fateful day in the year 2000, Palneth’s husband had gone to the forest with Palneth and her father to gather raw materials for construction purposes. Digging into mounds of sand on the forest ground, he started collecting them in a sack. As he scooped up the sand, he felt a sudden chill spread throughout his body. He told his father-in-law even his heartfelt strangely cold. He came back home and fell sick, but did not initially tell his wife. “When dawn arrived, he finally told me that he’s not feeling well. He had thrown up several times as well”, she recalls. He could not get up the whole morning and eventually passed away around six in the evening. His body was covered in mysterious bruises. Death at the hands of the old gods takes the form of bruises all over the body and blood pouring from one’s nose, she says.
Years later, her daughter also fell ill, seemingly attacked by the same entity. She recovered after being treated with A⸱chik sam, a type of traditional medicine. When she was not herself, she told her mother that her father had destroyed the home of a deity and that is why it retaliated. Mite is a deity or a spirit that A⸱chik forefathers have believed in since the beginning. “Our ancestors worshipped and sacrificed in their name, without having actually seen them”. She tells me, according to old beliefs, they reside in the a⸱kinte (mounds of earth made by earthworms). So, the forest becomes its home, whilst it becomes its owner and protector. “When my husband was collecting sand, he had unknowingly destroyed an a⸱si’s home”. Palneth was unaware of everything as it was happening. Even after he had passed away, they did not know the whole story till her daughter’s revelation.
When you connect all the dots, our forefather’s beliefs actually make sense, she says.
Just about a week before I had gone to meet her, one of her neighbours had presumably fallen victim to such a curse. On the way to a cursed forest, the man had encountered a red-headed lizard and felt a chill throughout his body, his guts somehow sensing there was something wrong. When he returned, he was not in his right mind – laughing like a madman and talking gibberish. Recognizing the symptoms, his family took mud from the same forest he had gone to and rubbed it on him. He recovered quickly. For people who can recognize the symptoms early on, such remedies are said to exist. Another solution is to burn the a⸱kinte from the same forest till it is bright red, dip in water and give it to the sick to drink. The very object that ails them seems to ironically be their cure. Palneth claims if people do not recognize the symptoms and treat them on time, the victims fall prey to strong spirits and often do not survive.
Forests that are believed to be cursed are not used by humans who are aware of it. They do not cultivate these lands but let them grow uninhibited. “Even if a person does not die after cutting trees from these areas, he will fall ill for sure”, she states. If someone wants to cultivate a certain cursed forest, there is a practice that is often performed at night; jumang sea, which literally translates to writing one’s dream. The old gods are said to communicate with the living through dreams. The dream acts as a passage between the world as we know it and the world of the supernatural. In the dream, the deity will deliver a verdict – either a yes or a no to cultivating the land in question.
Palneth tells me of another tragedy that befell the family many more years ago. Her father and uncle wanted to cut down trees from a particular forest that was said to be cursed. Before they proceeded, her uncle had a dream in which the deity had asked for a rooster in exchange for the land. “When it was asking for a rooster, it didn’t actually mean a rooster. It was asking for a human sacrifice”, she tells me. Since a human sacrifice was outrageous, they had instead offered it a dog and went ahead with cutting down the trees. However, the bargain did not work. Her uncle passed away in his sleep shortly after.
“How will it work? They are asking for a human being. Once they’ve set their sight on someone, they will somehow get what they want”, she remarks.
Such mysterious and eerie incidents have continued to occur, forcing village residents to acknowledge that humans are not welcome in these places. They know not to enter on a whim. Merely passing by might not be fatal for the villagers who have lived near the area their whole lives. But, she says, for someone with an unfamiliar face, it is easier to become prey. Some people do not heed the warnings, some do not believe, whilst others do not know or understand the phenomena. So the visits continue and the mysterious deaths also continue.
There is no evidence or proof as such for the phenomena, as is the nature of all supernatural beliefs. If a victim were to be taken to the hospital, doctors offer a more rational diagnosis rooted in science. Palneth argues that there might not be proof, but the beliefs of the tribe are all based on truth. “We don’t just makeup things out of nowhere”, she argues, “We have been bearing witness to these beliefs since our forefathers’ times”.
As Christianity spread and society modernised, the majority of the Garos ceased believing in deities, offering different explanations for mysterious events. The old beliefs have almost completely faded from people’s consciousness. Those who still hang on to them say they have experienced a⸱si raka, but cannot provide a definitive reason for it. Maybe this is a manifestation of a pact made with the old gods? Maybe it is nature protecting itself against humans and their penchant for destruction? We might never know.
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