SHILLONG: “NESFAS is working with the villagers to document the agro-bicultural links from which traditions are born and the well being at grass-root level remains. The challenge is cultivating these knowledge ties at the urban level as it is getting increasingly globalized and tradition is practiced for tradition’s sake”, opines Phrang Roy, coordinator, the Indigenous Partnership and Chairman of NESFAS.
November 23 is observed every year as an annual public holiday in Shillong to celebrate the Seng Kut Snem, a festival of the Khasi Community, largely celebrated to preserve and exhibit their culture and traditions.
While Seng Kut Snem in urban Shillong is observed as a preservation and exhibition of cultural traditions with processions, the villages of Meghalaya celebrate it as a Thanksgiving Day to remember their roots and the livelihoods.
It is also the foundation day of the Seng Khasi members who follow the traditional Khasi faith or the Niam Khasi who gather to pay their respects to God.
The day is significant as it marks the end of the agrarian year and is often seen as a thanksgiving day. For the farmers in Meghalaya it marks the end of autumn and the onset of winter.
The farmers believe this to be the start of the New Year and the time of the sohthymmai (new fruit) when the harvest ends and winter fruits are ripe for picking like sohniamtra (Khasi mandarin), sugar cane, beans, tapioca, sohphlang, millets and more.
This becomes the time for the communities to pay homage to the creator for the bountiful gifts of Mother Earth and her nature.
“For the traditional farmers this is also a time to start planning the new agricultural year,” says Simorin Marbaning, a 76-year-old farmer from Pyndengmawlaieh in the Lyngngam area, one of the ITM host villages where NESFAS has been working.
Pius Ranee from Nongtraw village in East Khasi Hills, now an Associate with NESFAS, Shillong, shares, “When I was a child of 9, Seng Kut Snem was the day that my parents took me to the forest to share the tradition of harvest cycles. We as a family – my uncle, parents and grandmother went into the forest to select the site for the jhum cultivation. My memory of this day remains as every year we made this celebratory excursion for the family. The first day was of selection and a customary slashing of the forest, which would become a full-scale activity in the days to follow.
Post this, we had a picnic lunch by the river, fishing and games. One of the most enjoyable foods I remember was the mixture of banana stem with Dohsher, an indigenous fish, mixed with onion and chilli.
