Achik cultural observations

[gul...@gmail.com]

The sun does shine in the land where the clouds come home. We had a
clear night last night after a late return from a shopping trip in the
city two hours away. We were on a mission to buy all the supplies we
would need for our guest house when it is finally finished. We are
guests now in the home of a church elder and we are looking forward
very much to having our own place. The idea is that we will go far
down south to Cuddapah at the end of the week and when we return our
house will be finished.

The Garo people are actually the Achik people. I have not been able
to discover the story of how the Garo title was imposed upon them,
probably by a British explorer with a need to name something, but it
seems that for millennia they have known of themselves as the Achik
and that is how I will henceforth refer to them. The Achik speak
Achiku, a very simple language with verbal forms that vary with the
tense but not the person or number. The sentence structure closely
resembles Central Asian languages with many verbal suffixes. They say
I can learn it in a couple months. So far my vocabulary is restricted
to namingima - hello.

The seven states which make up North East India bear very little
resemblance to the people or landscape of the Indian subcontinent and
there are a number of underground militant groups dedicated to the
freeing of the northeast from Indian supremacy. For that reason, I
try to watch my tongue and not refer to the North East as a part of
India. If you want to really understand North East India, you must
forget that you are in India at all and look for the characteristics
that make this region so unique. Among the many peculiarities of the
northeast people are their round faces and slanted eyes. The Achik
claim to have come all the way from Mongolia and they certainly
resemble Mongolian people.

Many of the northeast tribes are matrilineal. I've been watching
family dynamics trying to learn how a matrilineal culture operates. I
was curious to know whether I would find the gender roles reversed
from patrilineal traditions. To my surprise, women still do much of
the cooking and cleaning. A foreigner entering this society would not
suspect that this is an example of one of the rarest societal
structures on earth. One reason for that may be the long standing
Christian influence. Christian missionaries entered this place long
ago and taught the tribal people about Jesus, denominational division,
the male priesthood, and God's plan for female submission. Despite
the Christian influence, of which I have observed very little positive
to write, women are still treated with respect, and daughters inherit
the family wealth. There is no walking ten paces behind a man here
but neither is there husband abuse. My initial impression is that
gender relations in North East India are marked by an extraordinary
equality and mutual respect. The great experiment the world was
afraid to try, has, in my estimation, proved successful.