Niam, Houses, and Land

Abstract

Abstract In rural West Garo Hills, how do people relate to the environment? The traditional Garo community religion provides strategies and (ritual) techniques to live with omnipresent spirits. These integrate with religio-political structures, carried over from the precolonial era, that have been assimilated and transformed by the modern state. Focusing on Garo animism, I discuss how contemporary land relations are anchored in the past, and show how religious responsibilities and matrilineal relatedness shape residential groups. Specifying the relationships which people trace to the forest and its spirits, and the ritual techniques mandatory for the followers of the traditional Garo community religion to cultivate swidden crops, I discuss how some of these rituals take on new forms and attain new significances in a variety of contemporary contexts.