By Tanisha Das
Diverse communities make up North East India. The Rabha, a Tibeto-Burman community, is one of them, inhabiting the states of lower Assam, Meghalaya and West Bengal. Some of them are found in the Garo Hills, making them an integral part of Meghalaya, possessing a rich, multi-faceted and distinct culture of their own.
Here’s a brief look at the culture of this community – festival, attire, food, and oral narratives – to name a few.
The traditional economy of the Rabha includes agriculture, forest-based activities and weaving. Earlier, they used to practise shifting cultivation. The plough was adopted much later. Hunting was also an old practice among the people, while weaving was a traditional occupation of the Rabha women.
They have 11 dialects: Maithori, Rongdani, Pati, Dahori, Dotla, Halua, Betolia, Hanna, Sunga, Modahi, Kocha Rabhas – while all are Rabhas, some of them have lost their mother tongue and others have totally died out. But the Rongdani, Maithori and Kochas dialects are still used by Koch-Rabhas.
Like most communities, this tribe has a rich tradition of festivals. One of them is the Baikho or the Khoksi puja – the most auspicious celebration of the people – that has both agricultural and religious significance. This enchanting spring festival is prevalent among the Rabhas of Assam. Baikho is their goddess of wealth and crops – they pray to her for a good harvest, relief from disease and to bring peace, unity and prosperity.
Their traditional attire is unique. While men usually wear white dhoti with long gamosa, the women wear a skirt-like fabric with exquisite tribal patterns beautifully done. Kambang is worn on the upper body and is accompanied by a belt, created with wonderful pearls and shells.
The traditional diet of the Rabha people primarily consists of rice, pulses, domesticated plants, vegetables, fruits, insects and fish, to name a few. Locally prepared liquor is also an important beverage. They are very fond of boiled food and the use of oil in their diet is very limited. Kharo, a traditional dish made of boiled rice, pork, chilli and onions, is the staple diet, along with nakhin (dried fish).
They brew a local beer called junga, which is consumed not only during religious festivals, but on family-centric occasions like death, birth and marriage. The Rabhas prepare ten different varieties of beer – one of the characteristics that distinguish the Rabhas from other tribes of the region.
Like most tribal societies, they have a rich oral tradition, with verses usually sung during folk festivals and ceremonies. Many of their songs are associated with agricultural activities – a large repertory of work songs, paddy fields and hard labour. Women of the tribe sing work songs while they prepare and preserve rice beer, graze cows, and collect vegetables. The Rabha tribe has a range of songs and verses associated with rituals, besides the tradition of singing different hymns at ceremonies. Though they are non-Vedic, their rituals are more or less similar to the Aryans.
In the various festivals, both men and women sing and dance to the local instruments like the karra, flute and singa. There are numerous love songs in Rabha culture whose lyrical sensibilities symbolise the deep passion and yearning for the beloved.
Folk dances are a special feature of the Rabha community– Farkranti, Dhabai, and Hamjhar.
The word Farkranti is synonymous with funeral/ death ceremony. The story behind this dance involves men who went to war and never returned. With many of them killed, there was the possibility of their clans disappearing. The wives would then search for their husbands. Without prior experience or training in the art of war, the wives went to fight, and in the process, lost their way to the battlefield. Interestingly, the souls of their husbands appeared as birds to show them the way. As they followed them, they found the dead bodies, huddled together in a cave.
As a sign of reverence to the souls, they performed this dance, with a promise to protect their clan. In this folk dance, women dancers take swords and shields, while men dance with the bird, Manchelengka, the emblem of the Rabha, in their hands.
Given their tradition of shifting cultivation, men and women worked together and shared common songs that helped them to finish the work early – a tradition still in practice – known as the Hamjhar dance. Agricultural tools, therefore, are a part of this dance.
The Dhabai dance is performed by them before they go to fight against their enemies. The themes of self-confidence and courage take centre stage in this folk dance – war weapons are part of the performance.
Theatre too is an incredibly important part of Rabha life and every special occasion is marked with performances and community participation in traditional festivities. Bhari Gan is the theatrical tradition of the Rabha tribe where performers recite songs and perform dramatised versions of the Ramayana and Mahabharata. It involves local musical instruments like a khol (a double-headed long drum), jhalie (cymbal) and the flute.
The Rabha folk-life is endowed with legends, an important element of their history. Due to the lack of sufficient written history about the Rabha community, the ‘legends’ are the main source for socio-cultural studies. Legendary histories of Dodan-Marukhetri, Naluwa-Chaluwa, and Rondona-Chondona are examples of mythological legends. Poetry has been considered the most widely practised literature in Rabha culture, with several poets composing innumerable poems.
The people traditionally practise a few animistic rituals. At present, they follow a faith that is a blend of some Hindu and a few animistic rituals. There are considerable differences in ritual practices among forest Rabhas who still live in the forest villages and those who live in the villages as cultivators. The forest Rabhas follow traditional animistic practices with some rituals of mainstream Hinduism. On the other hand, village Rabhas have merged with local Hindus.
As per the 1991 census report of Assam, they are influenced by different cultural and linguistic elements from other communities and repudiation of their own identity. Some groups of Rabha have shifted to the Hindu Asomiya caste, and some are in the process of mobilisation to survive and preserve their inherent culture and language.