By H H Mohrmen
It was the man from Nagpur who woke us up from our slumber, made us think, and try to understand who we are as a tribe. Many were compelled to react to the statement that we are all Hindu because it questions the tribe’s unique identity. It was also in a way a call to rediscover our identity as modern “Khun u Hynñew Trep Hynñew Skum.” So credit also goes to the gentlemen who compelled most of us to try to rediscover ourselves in response to the statement
The tribe is unique and it evolves with time
No man is an island so the saying goes, and we no longer live just amongst ourselves, untouched and unreached by the modern world. No matter how much we wish that remain authentic, we are being influenced by the outside world and evolve with time. And in the fast-changing world we live now, the question that we need to ask ourselves is what does it means to be a “Khun u Hynñew Trep Hynñew skum now? In the situation that we are in, who are we? And what defines us as a unique tribe?
We are different yet we are one
Time changes and the Hynñew Trep people have adopted different religions in the way they worship God. Some were steadfast in their beliefs in the traditional religions, and some had chosen to follow other religions. Yet we are one monolithic group of people united by our belief that we belong to the same tribe. We may use the different common names – “Khasi, Khasi Pnar, Khun u Hynñew Trep Hynñew Skum or u Ynñaw wasa Ynñaw wasung”, the fact remains that we all believe that we are one. So the question that begs the answer is what defines us as a tribe? Or what are the aspects of the tribe that are common to all the groups? Or what unites us as one race or ‘jaidbynriew’?
We are because of our culture
We are the same tribe because we follow a matrilineal family system where the lineage is taken from the mother’s line. The entire tribe follows the three cardinal principles, “kamai ïa ka hok, tip-briew, tip-blei and tip-kur tip-kha.” And kinship through clan cut across the group variation that we have. People also still believe that every member of the community is responsible for the welfare and wellbeing of society. Knowingly or unknowingly in almost everything we do, we all work for “ka bhalang uba bun balang or ka bhalang ka imlang sahlang” or the wellbeing of the community that we belong to (Mohrmen HH, The Cultural History of Jañtia hills in Stories Stones and Traditions, 2021 unpublished).
A member of the ‘jaidbynriew’ is also governed by the principle of life that one is also expected to be honest and upright “ba tip-hok tip-sot” or a man or a woman of his words who lives honestly and truthfully.
Our food is different
Like any tribal people of the region, the Khynriam, Pnar, War, Bhoi, Lyngngam eat different kinds of meat. Fermented beans and fermented fish are the other food items that are common to all the groups. Rice is the major crop of the people and they make many snacks from rice like Putharo, Pumaloi, etc (ibid). Jadoh dohkhleh is a must-have item in every feast, picnic, or important gathering of the people be it a birthday celebration, wedding, or church gathering. A feast will also remain incomplete without ‘doh nei ïong, doh ïong or doh señ.’
The other food habit that all the groups have in common is the tradition of eating wild edibles that they forage from the forest. The wild food one collects may be different depending on the regions where people live, but the tradition of foraging food from the nearby forest is the tradition that is still alive in the villages. But the most important food item that people have in common irrespective of the regions they live which also has a story of its own is, “kwai and tympew”. Betelnut and Paan leaves are an integral part of people’s culture, it is the first sign of their hospitality and they play a very important part in different rituals and traditions of the people.
One does not know when tea became part of the beverage item in the food habit of the people, but the traditional drink that is being gradually neglected is rice beer. Rice beer is still the most important element in any rites and passages performed according to the traditional religion.
We speak the same languages
Irrespective of the variation that we have in the dialect that we speak in the different regions of the Khasi, Jañtia, and Ribhoi districts, it is the same language. People who live in the Khasi hills region may not be able to understand the dialect the War Jañtia people speak, or even the Pnar of Jañtia will for that matter find it difficult to understand War dialect, yet we speak the same language. The language the Maram the Lyngngam speak may be unintelligible to the other groups but scientifically, the roots of all the dialects that people speak are the Austro-Asiatic Monkhmer group of language.
Our festivals are our pride
The different indigenous groups of the Khasi and Jañtia hills celebrate different festivals, but all the festivals are connected to nature and the different seasons in the year. Festivals are also connected to the crop that people depend on to sustain their lives. In Jañtia hills festivals are not only about rice or paying obeisance to the divine but it is also about migration. It is about homecoming and returning to the roots of the people who share the same origin (ibid).
The Monolith culture and the grand megalithic structure
The different groups under the Hynñew Trep tribe also share the common monolithic culture which is being practiced in some places today. In Jañtia hills they even have a megalithic structure that is unique to the people only. In the tribe’s tradition, every monolith is unique and every stone has a story to tell. Monolith is not only an integral and significant part of our culture it is the most obvious symbol of the tribe (ibid).
We are because of our stories
We do not have epics like the Mahabharat or the Ramayana nor do we have holy books like the Bible and the Koran but we do have our own stories. The tribe is unique from the other tribes because of our stories (ibid). We have our creation stories and in fact, the lives of the hill people revolve around stories that we have in abundance. Everything from hills, to rivers, has stories connected to it. One will not be able to understand the people in the Khasi and Jañtia hills if one does not understand the different stories that they have.
Our creation stories and us
The name of the tribe that is common to all the groups is “ki khun u Hynñew Trep Hynñew Skum or u Ynñaw wasa u Ynñaw Wasung. This has a connection with the creation story that all the different groups shared. Although there is a slight variation in the story in the Khasi and Jañtia hills, the element and the core of the story are the same. When I was asked if I really believe in the creation story, and whether we originated from the seven huts? My answer is that like all creation stories, our story also falls under the category of etiological/aetiological stories.
Throughout human history, different races struggle with three important questions, which are (a) where do humans come from? (b) Where do people go when they die? (c) Why do we live in this world? Or what is the purpose of life? The Hynñew Trep story like the stories in the book of Genesis is our ancestor’s response to the question of where we come from. It does not have to be true, but it tells us about our ancestors’ profound wisdom in trying to provide an answer to the very important question which still haunts the human mind today.
We are because we are unique
Therefore the Hynñew Trep cannot be put under any group or category because we are unique. We cannot be tagged with any collection of people because we are different. Our identity is not a label that one can just stick on our forehead to define us. Our identity is the combination of our culture and our traditions and more importantly our stories. We are not what people think we are, we are who we are and we continue to evolve with time.