Lost books & living bridges: How Khasi folktales illuminate a forgotten past

The Khasis, like many indigenous hill communities, were a pre-literate society before they came into contact with the British. It does not appear that they ever had a script, although there is a folktale that attempts to describe the lack of script to an accident. According to this folktale titled ‘The Lost Book’ in the 1920 book ‘Folk-tales of the Khasis’ by Mrs Rafy, in the beginning, God called a Khasi man and a foreigner (Dkhar) to his abode so that he can pass his knowledge to them.

This knowledge was as a book which was given to both to carry back to their homeland. However, on the way home, there was a wide river which had to be crossed. The Dkhar took the book and wrapped it in his long hair which he twisted firmly on the top of his head. However, because the Khasi man had short hair, he had to hold the book between his teeth while swimming.

The Dkhar could cross safely with the book intact, which was then used to teach the wisdom received to his people. Unfortunately, the torrential current caused the Khasi man to lose the book intended for his people as he struggled to swim and breathe with the book in his mouth. And thus, the Khasis lost their script.

There’s another story connected to lost knowledge from the same book. It’s called ‘U Biskurom’ which was the Hindu god, Vishvakarma, who is the deity of tools and metallurgy. In this story, the Khasis captured U Biskurom, trying to force him to share divine knowledge with him.

Worried that the Khasis would not let him go back home, the god pleaded to the Khasis that he could only get the knowledge from heaven. Therefore, he suggested they make a strong kite tied to a long piece of string.

He would use the kite to ascend to heaven, and write the knowledge on the kite and send it down. But after reaching home, he decided not to share the knowledge with people who had mistreated him.

Angry, the Khasis sent a great shout to heaven to kill the god for his betrayal. U Biskurom caused some drops of blood to fall from heaven, fooling the Khasis that they had killed him. This is also another reason the Khasis never gained the knowledge of writing.

There are so many interesting aspects to these stories. While it is about lost knowledge, it is also about the time when the Khasis came into contact with Dkhars i.e., foreigners, and how they tried to gain knowledge from them, through peaceful and not-so-peaceful means but failed. There is a suggestion that when the Syiems of the bigger Himas, like that of Hima Jaintiapur (formerly Hima Sutnga), conquered the land of the Dkhars, they used the Brahmins to write letters to the other rulers of the region.

The Jayantia Buranji is an excellent record of the correspondence between Hima Jaintiapur and the Ahom kingdom of upper Assam. In the same document, there is also mention of an envoy from Hima Khyrim, sending messengers to the Ahom court.

So, by the 16th century, at least the Khasi royalty had gained literacy through the scribes and Brahmin priests in their court. However, the common people continued to rely on oral traditions to transmit their knowledge. Instead of being a liability, this oral tradition has been a significant source of information which is now leading to archaeological discoveries allowing modern scholars to reconstruct Khasi history.
The most famous Khasi folktale is that of Lum Sohpetbneng.

According to his legend, on this hill overlooking the Umiam Lake there existed a navel string which drew heaven and earth together. Known sometimes as the golden staircase, the celestial families used this to come down to earth to farm. It is well established that the Khasis were among the first wave of Austroasiatic people who brought agriculture to Southeast Asia and South Asia.

They possibly were among the first farmers in the world and one can read more about such ancient farming societies in the 2005 book ‘The First Farmers: The Origin of Agricultural Societies’ by Peter Bellwood. There is an agricultural prayer in the 1969 thesis ‘The Origin and the Early History of the Khasi-Synteng People’ by Namita Catherine Shadap, wife of the well-known Indologist AL Basham whose grave is in Shillong. She later turned this thesis into a book.

It’s a beautiful prayer directed at U Blei Nongthaw (The God of Creation) and Ka Blei Synshar (The Goddess who rules over everything) to bless their labour and forgive their trespasses. So, the Khasis were always farmers and one of the earliest ones at that.

However, this connection between heaven and earth was severed, stranding seven families on earth separated from the nine above. Many versions explain this event, but I recently discovered a lesser-known one. This comes from the book ‘Jaintia Folklore and Legends and the History of the Khasi Religion’ by Mrs John Roberts published around the 1920s.

According to this version, it was a creeper which connected heaven and earth. However, one day when a Khasi man was trying to cut a tree for firewood, he accidentally hacked the creeper. Severed from its source, the part connected to earth died while the other part was drawn up to heaven leaving the two separated.

Interestingly, the Khasi word for creeper, ‘jyrmi’, also describes the aerial roots of trees such as Ficus Elastica, the same tree used to build living root bridges in the War region (southern present-day Khasi and Jaintia Hills).

This book also includes a section on the Khasi religion describing the earth’s formation, the origin of different animals, and their roles in rituals. It’s something that anyone interested in the antecedent of the Khasi religion should try to get a hold of.

Living root bridges are found only among the War (a subgroup of the Khasi) who lived along the steep southern slopes covered with thick forest. During the monsoon season, torrential rainfall would swell up the streams, which makes crossing them very dangerous.

At some point in time, the War must have learned the art of manoeuvring the aerial roots of Ficus Elastica to build the living root bridges which are unique and not found elsewhere in the world. Researchers have found that War Amwi, a language spoken by one of the War groups, is the oldest of all the Khasi languages, apparently originating from Palaung around 4000 years ago.

One can read this in the 2013 paper ‘A lexicostatistical study of the Khasian languages: Khasi, Pnar, Lyngngam, and War’ by K. S. Nagaraja, Paul Sidwell, and Simon Greenhill. This 4000-year period is interesting because it brings us back to Lum Sohpetbneng.
Lum Sohpetbneng holds an important place in Khasi cosmology and Marco Mitri, a historian from NEHU, used the folktale to identify sites for his archaeological digs.

Mitri discussed this in great detail in his 2008 thesis, ‘Archaeological Investigation in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills: A Study on the Distribution Patterns of Neolithic Sites (An Ethno-archaeological Approach)’. The result was the discovery of the oldest Neolithic settlement in Meghalaya, dated to over 3200 years ago.

Later, he found the oldest Neolithic workshop in Myrkhan, a village to the north, dated to around 4000 years ago. The clues for these sites came from the folktales. In time, researchers may discover many more sites through other oral narratives.

Folklores and other oral narratives are a window into the history and culture of ancient people like the Khasis. Despite lacking a written language and their initial attempts to obtain one (they later adopted the Roman script), these folk narratives contain a wealth of information about the community and deserve serious scholarly consideration. In time, they could be the light which might illuminate the path to greater discoveries.

The views expressed in the article are those of the author and do not reflect his affiliation with any organisation or institution. 

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