Recently, I was invited by Jones Ingti Kathar (a retired IAS officer and president of the All Party Hill Leaders Conference) to witness a traditional ceremony called ‘Kove Baida’ commemorating an important occasion in Khasi-Karbi relations that goes back to the days of the erstwhile Jaintia Kingdom.
Baida is the act of giving and Kove means kwai or betel nut.
This ceremony takes place in a location known as Khang Khadwiu around the village of Umbaso, located just after Khanduli in West Karbi Anglong. I met Jones Ingti Kathar during a peace conference last year after the flare-up that took place when the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) decided to erect a toll gate in Khanduli, a village located in Meghalaya, which was resisted by the local people.
It was during that time that he mentioned a particular place where the Khasi and Karbi people took an oath to maintain peace between the two communities and resolve any issue between them through peace and dialogue. Because of the significance of the site, it was a great honour to be invited to the program that celebrated that momentous occasion.
I left Shillong on February 11 in the morning to attend the program. I and my friend, who accompanied me, took the Ummulong road, which leads to Khanduli. From there, we crossed into Karbi Anglong. Since it was an important program, I expected that it would be held in an open field where there would be a lot of space for cultural programs of all kinds. Surprisingly, the spot was along the side of the road leading to Hamren, marked only by a resting shed with a couple of monoliths, fenced by an enclosure.
There were already a few volunteers at the location, and we started talking to them. Initially, it was a bit difficult since we tried using Hindi, in which many of us were not fluent. Then one of the volunteers switched to Pnar, and they knew Khasi as well, which was very helpful. Another pleasant surprise was that one of the volunteers, Sarin Teron, the secretary of the nearby village of Umjira, revealed that he had done his schooling in Mawlai. He was very happy to tell us about his childhood, particularly when he and other kids from the school had gone out into the streets to celebrate an election victory at the behest of one of their teachers.
Most probably, this teacher must have been a supporter of the winning candidate. Sarin Teron spoke about his time in Mawlai with great affection.
It was from this affable gentleman that we got more insights into the importance of the venue and its significance for Khasi-Karbi relations.
In the past, the location was the site of a conflict between the Khasi and the Karbi about the territorial boundary between the two communities. Jones Ingti Kathar later told us that it was over the areas where jhum could be practised. Eventually, both sides realized that peace was the only option going forward; at that moment, they decided to come together and establish what the Karbi King (about whom we will discuss later) termed the ‘Peace Accord’. The Karbi were represented by Thong Nokbe, the legendary Karbi hero. On the Khasi side, there was Tymmen Borlai and his wife, Katep Nongjrong, who acted as the representatives of the Khasi Syiem (most probably of the Jaintia Kingdom).
The monoliths were called mawsmai, which in Khasi means an oath stone. And since then, the Karbis have been coming to this spot to mark this important occasion by offering prayers. It is the Karbi King (Karbi Rico), belonging to the Ronghang clan and presently staying in Diphu, who conducts this ceremony.
Not long after we arrived, the Karbi King also arrived with his entourage, all dressed in their traditional garb, turban, and all. If it weren’t for their distinctive Karbi half-sleeve jacket and the shawl, they could have been easily mistaken for a Khasi, particularly a Bhoi. Having arrived, they all sat around the monoliths, forming a circle. There were two monoliths facing each other. On the Karbi side, there was an upright stone and a broad, flat stone. Facing it was a smaller upright stone on the Khasi side, which did not have any flat stones.
Generally, the standing stone is the maw shynrang (male stone), and the broad flat stone is the maw kynthei (female stone). So, I was surprised that those stones were on the Karbi side and not on the Khasi side. Later, we realized that the flat stone was the stone on which the oath was taken or the mawsmai.
After the Karbi King and his advisors had taken their seats, gourds and beer bottles filled with rice beer were kept at the feet of both monoliths. There were six on the Karbi side and three on the Khasi side. Banana leaves were then spread in front of them, on top of which were kept betel nuts, or kwai. After this arrangement had been made, the Karbi King came forward to start the ceremony. It began at the monolith representing the Karbi side, i.e., Thong Nokbe.
Four chickens were brought forward, and the King, who was now acting as the chief priest, poured water on their heads. He took all the chickens, held them in his hands, and offered prayer to the monolith along with his advisors, who also prayed with him. Then he took a knife that resembled the Khasi tari/knife, but a bigger version, and made a cut along the neck of one of the chickens. Immediately, blood started oozing out of the neck. The Karbi King then threw the chicken on the ground and sprinkled rice on the body as it lay writhing on the ground. He did this with the other chickens and repeated the ritual in front of the Khasi monolith.
After the chickens had stopped struggling, the Karbi King poured some water on their abdomens. He then used the knife again to cut, took out the intestines, and started examining them. After being satisfied with one, he moved on to the other chickens. The chickens were then handed to the volunteers, who took them to the kitchen, which had been set up behind the resting shed. Once the carcasses had been removed, candles were lit in front of the monoliths, and the Karbi King and his advisors took their seats again. Then they started drinking the rice beer and talking to each other.
After around half an hour, when the chickens were cooked, some of the portions were brought and placed on top of the rice, which had been spread on the banana leaf in front of the monoliths. The Karbi King came forward once again and placed plastic cups filled with rice beer in front of the food. He poured a little bit of the rice beer on the stone and started praying again with his advisers. The prayers were done in front of both monoliths. This marked the end of the ceremony, after which food was served to all those who had attended the program, including the guests, me and my friend, and the driver.
We were also felicitated with a Karbi shawl by the King, which was a great honour for us and highly unexpected. Thereafter, we gave thanks, bid goodbye to our new friends, and left for Shillong and back on the Shillong-Jowai road.
During the ceremony, there was a nagging feeling that the rituals performed felt so familiar. It was later, when I got home and started reading about the Karbi in the book ‘The Mikir’ by Edward Stack, published just two years after PRT Gurdon’s book ‘The Khasi’, that it started making sense. According to the Karbi tradition, their original abode was somewhere along the eastern portion of the Khasi and Jaintia Hills bordering the Kopili/Kupli River.
Staying close to the Khasis, they adopted many of the former’s customs and habits, particularly in terms of ornaments, personal names, methods of divination, funeral ceremonies, and memorial stones. The monoliths described earlier have their own Karbi name, lòng-chòng for the upright stone and lòng-pàk for the broad flat stone. Even now, the term used for their exogamous clans is kur, which is the same as that used by the Khasi. Thong Nokbe, the legendary Karbi hero, was also supposed to be one of the high-ranking military officers in the Jaintia kingdom.
In fact, around the time the conflict in Khang Khadwiu took place, Jones Ingti Kathar believed that Thong Nokbe was still under the service of the Jaintia King. Most probably, for this reason, he was able to represent the Karbi and discuss terms with the local Pnar population, both of whom were the subjects of the Jaintia kingdom. While trying to locate Jaintiapur on Google Earth, I came across a village called Hawai Bhoi in Amalarem, which, as has been informed to me by HH Mohrmen, is a Karbi village.
It is not surprising as Bhoi is another name for the Karbi, which is even used now by especially the Pnar. Did this village come about when Thong Nokbe was under the service of the Jaintia King?
But the legend of Thong Nokbe also says that he rebelled against the Jaintia King and won freedom for his people. There are many versions around him, and at least three were told to me by Jones Ingti Kathar as we were waiting for lunch. Like it is with the Khasi legends, there is some element of truth in all of them, but it is up to future research to find out the original one. But one thing that he kept mentioning was the brotherhood between the Khasi and the Karbi and how it must be maintained at all costs.
He kept using the term ‘Jari Jamai’ while describing the two, which means brothers and sisters. There is a rationale for that, as the Bhoi (many of whom are Karbi or Karbi who became Khasi) are treated as being part of the Khasi as one of the seven sub-groups, or the Hynniewtrep. This was also reiterated by Sarin Teron, who lamented that now that the Khasis do not visit the site, it appears that they have forgotten the Karbi, but the Karbi still remember them with fondness.
It cannot be denied that Karbis were one of the groups living under the Khasis (Hima Shillong and the Jaintia kingdom), and the legend of Thong Nokbe came about because of his resistance against the oppression his people endured during that rule. At the same time, the common Khasi and Karbi folk mingled, married, and exchanged cultures with each other. Some of the Karbi went one step further and became Khasi by adapting their clan to sound more Khasi. For example, Tmung is Timung, and Killing became Klein.
A certain type of matrimonial alliance also developed called ‘Shim Bhoi’ (personal communication) when a Khasi family in Ri Bhoi who have no daughters would marry their son to a Karbi woman so that the children would carry the Khasi surname and the ancestral property would remain within the family.
Recently, there were clashes between the Khasi and Karbi, and the boundary issue, particularly of Block I and Block II, is an eternal thorn in the side of both communities. The solution to the border will take some time, but the connections between the two communities go back many centuries, maybe millennia.
The site around Khang Khadwiu is a testament to the fact that peace is possible, and it was not only an integral part of the past, but it can also be of the future as well. No matter what happens in the future, we will always have Karbi people living in Khasi areas and Khasi people living in Karbi areas. It is for these people that the lesson from the peace accord established centuries ago must be remembered and replicated so that people of both communities can live in peace and harmony while continuing to contribute to each other.
The views expressed in the article are those of the author and do not reflect in any way his affiliation to any organisation or institution.
Also Read: Opinion: Why are some people trying to rewrite Jaintia history?