By Saiñkupar Syngkli | NONGPOH:
There are no clear boundaries between folk and modern medicine. In fact, the binary is a false one, for modern medicine has its root in cures and theories that were first proposed by philosophers and witch doctors. In places where some form of folk practice has persevered against time and disbelief, knowledge is still mysterious and not privy to the masses, unlike modern practices, which claim to be transparent and open to scrutiny and challenge. One such place is Ri Bhoi, which remains a treasure trove of folkloric traditions, including the early medical traditions of the Khasis. Saiñkupar Syngkli speaks to them on what it means to heal by faith.
Ri Bhoi is the seat of Khasi culture. In the 80s and 90s, however, it was a community with little to no education. Missionaries, both indigenous and colonial, had not yet proliferated in the region, and nearly all clans followed various iterations of the Khasi religion. U Ryngkow, the Spirit of the Hills, was popularly venerated.
Even at the time, modern medicine had not penetrated into Ri Bhoi, where many old and new settlements had been established, along with their respective sacred groves.
When someone suffers in the family, folk healers, the jha or koh, are sought: a quack of today’s world, but a doctor of those times. So Lapang, one such surviving healer from Nartap and a believer of Niam Khasi, says “Since memory serves, we have given each disease its own name, whether it is a common illness like a headache or stomach-ache, or the result of an accident, such as burns from fire or an electric shock. Every ailment has a name, and we banish it from the patient”.
There are no scholastic traditions in these practices; healers are said to have a natural calling and there is little written knowledge that can be learnt. Those who believe in the skills of healers stand by them; even sceptics admit they have at least a shaky belief in the power of a jha.
Folk healers are known to gain the knowledge and skill to identify and treat ailments from a supernatural source; it is inherited from kin; one inherited directly from the parent is more powerful.
Dris Shadap from Sohlait Thymmai, says, “We use a secret ‘code’ during our prayers to U Ryngkow when treating a person. We never share this word, as we believe God will take away our power. The power that my mother gave to me is to heal one who has been gutted in fire, for child delivery, massages for gastric ailments and for broken arms, legs and spin. We understand how our techniques function at the cellular level in the human body”.
Upon insistence, Shadap revealed some inscrutable and incomplete incantations, which proved to be difficult to translate: Khei muit noh pha phet noh cha mawtyrleng maw syndah marchei wan sa wan chei wan tin re ha i ki khon bynru. She says, “Before we deliver a child, for example, we say something like ‘Pin ïong pin ar snam sop syntai…’”. Her offer to show a glimpse of her world only leaves one more confused. “Then, with the help of oil, we deliver the child”, she says. “I still remember when I was young, I would learn all the prayers and folklore only in the privacy of the toilet. When I would return, my mother would make me repeat everything I learnt exactly as she said it”, says Shadap.
Complex prayers are also invoked when preparing medicine. Another healer who preferred to remain anonymous, B— from Paham Marloi says, “It is good to compare practices. There is no harm in comparing modern medicine with folk medicine. Both are made to heal people, and only the process is different. In fact, even modern medicine is derived from plants, but their practice is based in science and ours is inherited from a higher power”.
S— from Ryndhi says, “One difference is that modern medicine may have some strong side effects, whereas Khasi medicine usually does not. In fact, either we can heal or nothing happens. Our talent comes from U Ryngkow. Sometimes a doctor cannot heal and only we can, and other times, we are not able to do anything, but a doctor will be successful. When we feel that we can’t help people, we suggest they visit another koh or even a certified doctor. There is no force or harassment. Our practice is not black magic to mock people; we are simply healers who help people”.
Different spirits may even be invoked during chants. Lapang says it depends on the type of disease: “Because there is a disease, we need to perform some rituals, kñia, to heal people. For us it is spirits, for a doctor it may be some special kit”. Yet, there is bitterness in Lapang as well; as open as folk healers are to modern medicine, he feels that modern practitioners, who they hold in equal esteem, seldom respect them. “Even if people call us frauds, there are still many people who come to us because we do help them”.
The conflict between ancient and modern is not the only one. Religion can also become a pernicious subject amongst healers. All folk Khasi practice is ultimately based within the spiritual and religious framework of Niam Khasi, and it exists outside the domain of Christianity or in direct conflict. This rift all healers are aware of and negotiate with care and caution. Shadap, for instance, is a Christian. “I believe Jesus is the True Healer and we are only practitioners, but I do not perform certain rituals that go against my religion. I only heal through folklore, known as Paju, that I learnt from my mother”.
Both Lapang and B— admit that there are stark differences in the healing practised by Christians and followers of Niam Khasi, and the summoning of spirits and performance of more complex rituals is more common amongst the latter than the former.
Nearly every healer says that their gift is a blood inheritance, either from the mother or father, but the roots of Khasi healing practices are in specifically Niam Tynrei, the Original Religion, and the source of healing power, they say, is from spirits in the Khasi pantheon, such as Chynru, who is neither human nor animal. It is said that those who steal his pla duma, sling bang, will see him in their dreams as he pleads with the human to return his bag. Upon returning the bag, Chynru offers the magic of healing as a token of appreciation.
The medicines are made using local plants, the bark of special trees and roots. “The knowledge for this we gain from our ancestors. Some of these are mot khuti, kynjat niañgktin, cha dor, cha syrwong [leaf found in the paddy fields during winter], la chi ri [a leaf similar to the banyan tree’s leaf], ding snam, thyrlij diengchar and many more”. Their English-language equivalents proved impossible to ascertain without a sample of each leaf, which was not available at the time.
The healers said that, over time, the power of healing dies and few are willing to inherit it from their parents. With Niam Khasi followers dwindling to a small minority, most practices have been shunned in two ways: by Christians for religious reasons and by Khasis in general who feel old practices cannot rival modern science The secrecy in which so many of the practices are shrouded is another reason for scepticism to have taken root; the healers, for instance, said they cannot divulge even the names of some leaves used to heal broken bones sans surgical intervention.
Lapang, who is more open-minded, suggests modern doctors learn traditional methods in order to combine them with modern medicine– to bring tradition and ancient secrets into the light and tested as science. Whether this method will enrich either tradition of medicine and healing is difficult to say, and whether healers who adhere to Niam Khasi will accept scientific intrusion into long-held secrets is, for now, unanswered. But the fact remains that, for many people in Ri Bhoi, faith does heal.
(The writer is a reporter with The Meghalayan)