A three-hour drive from Guwahati city takes you to Goalpara, an administrative district located about 150 km off the state capital. Endowed in its complex demographics, one of the indigenous community inhabiting this district are the people of the Rabha tribe. The Rabhas are an indigenous tribal group in Assam whose origin is often contested as either an offshoot of the Kacharis, Bodos or even the Garo tribe.
Kuruabhasa is one of the villages in Balijana taluk in Goalpara district. This is a village predominantly inhabited by the Rangdania Rabhas, one of the many sub-groups or Khels of the tribe. The other Khels in the tribe include the Maitoriya, Pati, Koch, Bitliya, Dahuriya, Hana and Totla.
Amidst an interesting discourse of writings on tribal societies in Northeast India, not much of Rabha narratives find space and it still remains largely undocumented. Furthermore, the writings, if any, on Rabhas focus more or less on the debates around the practice of witchcraft and witch-hunting.
Right past National Highway 37, the meandering kutcha roads of Kuruabhasa village situates one in a setting that is significantly different from an otherwise urbane, cosmopolitan life. In one of my recent visits, I happened to chance upon a community feast in the village.
the writings, if any, on Rabhas focus on the debates around witchcraft and witch-hunting.
Everyone in the village seemed to be caught in the hullabaloo and someone in a celebratory tone mentioned that the feast was a wedding feast. What draws my attention is the active participation and what on first glance seem to be ‘visibility’ of women in the various chores that lead up to the community feast.
Young girls gather in groups and contribute to the preparation of the feast, from gathering firewood, preparing the ‘junga’ (the locally brewed rice beer which is an integral part of a Rabha marriage), to pounding rice, etc. A sudden curiosity urges me to delve further into these roles and gendered spaces negotiating between the private and the public. It is interesting here to reflect on the gender roles and what women are expected to ‘perform’ during such community/public events which are strictly monitored as per customary practices of tribes.
Historical accounts suggest that the Rabha tribe has matrilineal roots and there still continue to be traces of the same. However, assimilation with mainstream Hindu society and further processes of Sanskritisation has shifted the same to a more patriarchal structure in practice.
The barai system plays an important role in the regulation of marriages in the Rabha tribe. The barai, also alternatively called a bar/housug, is the equivalent of a clan and in theory, no marriage can take place between two people of the same clan.These rules of prescription and prohibition have undergone a tremendous shift with processes of assimilation through which the tribe has largely adopted caste Hindu practices.
As far as marriage is concerned, there are different forms of marriages that are sanctioned in the tribe. Cross-cousin marriage is also seen as a common practice in this tribe. Some other forms of marriage include – Nok-dhankay– a love marriage; Buri tshinkay– socially arranged marriage through the negotiation of parents; Krantshi buri– marriage ceremony without feasting; Saja biya marriage by negotiation; Gharjai biya (marriage by elopement). Off late, there are more marriages happening outside one’s tribe and there is a gradual acceptance of the same.
As far as rituals of marriage across the Rabha sub-groups are concerned and although there are commonalities, it is still highly problematic to brush the same in one single stroke as there are a number of areas where the practices vary. There is a general belief that amongst the Rangdania Rabhas the rules still continue to be rigid, unlike the other sub-groups.
Amongst all the other groups, it is only the Rangdania and the Maitoriya subgroup that have continued to hold onto their own Rabha language and hence a certain degree of hierarchy despite the other sub-groups like the Pati Rabhas being numerically more. Kuruabhasa village, as mentioned is a Rangdania Rabha village and this particular marriage I witnessed was between a Rabha and a non-Rabha.
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