Indian Antiquary Vol 58

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 132

122
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(JULY, 1929
village, which they call chaung, and the other built among the branches of a tree, something after the style of the pile-dwellings or lacustrines, which were such a common feature in ancient times and are still sporadically to be met with, which they call borang. This latter is invariably on the outskirts of the village, where they carry on their occupation as agriculturists, and are meant as a protection against savage beasts and wild elephants.
According to Garo mythology the supremo god and the father of all the other gods, like the Greek Zeus, is Rsi salgong. This divinity is anthropomorphic, and is believed to have his abode in heaven, where he lives blissfully with his wife and children. It is related that A pongma, before she became his wife, left her divine parents in order to elope with Rsi Salgong. The couple lived together on earth for a time at a place called Tura, where Apoñgmd gave birth to two children, a boy who later became the father of all celestial, atmospheric and earthly fires (who, in other words, is the culture-hero of the Gâros), and a daughter who became the mother (grandmother ?) of the human race. It is further said that Nastog, the daughter, was born of an egg, and she afterwards created the universe. A jet of water coming out of her womb became the source of all rivers of the earth. Nastog had three daughters who themselves became the mothers of the three most important nations of the world: the Garos, the Bhutiyas, and the Firingis (Europeans). This myth has several very important points. Although Col. Dalton gives this as a genuine bit of Garo myth, it can hardly be taken as such. As we have seen, the Gåros are isolated highlanders without any connection with the outer world; education among them is practically unknown. To them the whole world is populated only by themselves, the Bhutiyas and a few other minor tribes, and even of the Hindus they know almost nothing. Speaking of them, Anderson says that they "remain totally unaffected by Hindu influences, whether in language or in religon." Hence it would be safo to assume that the myth either originated, or at least underwent a radical change, after the advent of the first Europeans in the country, and the Hindu influence too is apparent in the word Rsi (Sanskrit,=sage). We may therefore fix the date of the origin of the myth at somewhere about 1791. The next important point is that the myth of Nastog being the mother of the human race probably explains the prevalence of mother-kin10 among the Garos, or is the outcome of mother-kin.
Although the Garos believe in one supreme god, it is by no means to be imagined that they are monotheists. On the contrary, their religion is henotheistic, that is, while admitting the existence of one supreme god, they nevertheless worship minor divinities. Or, to be quite correct, their religion may be defined as animism. They, like the Hindus, believe in metempsychosis or the transmigration of the soul, as their custom of breaking up and depositing the personal belongings of a deceased along with his body clearly proves. They believe in souls, not only of human beings and animals, but go still further, and endow all things with this immaterial soul, which resides within the material exterior. While depositing the goods of the defunct on his gravo, they say that he would not benefit by them if they were given unbroken." 1 The explanation of breaking up the objects is simple, that is, once we adapt ourselves to the savage way of thinking; and their logic is based on false syllogism: The soul is a spirit; the spirit is immaterial; something immaterial cannot use material things; therefore the material things cannot be used by the spirits, but the souls of the things can be. Their reasoning is as follows: When men die it is their "soul," and not the body, which goes to the other world ; hence, if the objects were given to him "alive", it would naturally be
L'Ethnologie du Bengals, p. 42. Cr. Haripada Rây, "Gåroder KathA," Prabdsi, Jaiştha, 1333 (Beng. ero), p. 286.
7 According to a Hindu myth, the world was created from an egg (cf. Catapatha Brithmara, XI, 1, 6, 1). 8 Col. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal (Calcutta, 1872), p. 60, quoted in L'Ethnologie du Bengale,
J. D. Anderson, in Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. II, p. 133, s.v. "Assam". 10 Soe below.
11 Col. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 67. Compare (Sir) J. Lubbock (Lord Avebury), The Origin of Ciclisation anl the Primitive Condition of Man (London, 1892), p. 290.
p. 42.