By Dominick Dauni Roising Rymbai
History is always written by the victors of war and conquests with the assistance of the gatekeepers of knowledge and education and, of course, the controllers of trade and commerce. The atrocities and ruthlessness of the Allies during the colonial rule and in the two World Wars were either never researched or glossed over and documented. Till date, British school-children are not taught the adverse effects of colonialism. In spite of 78 years of freedom, India is still reeling under the Divide and Rule policy of the “civilising” Raj. Hopefully, with the spread of thinking power (realised from reading books, physical or electronic, and debates and discussions) and with Artificial Intelligence gaining ground, the well-hidden histories will just be brushed under the carpet (tep-eit miaw).
On August 18, 2025, this writer was tagged on Facebook (invited through social media) by the talented filmmaker Wanphrang Diengdoh for the special Shillong screening of his third film on Khasi Identity trilogy, The Blood and The Border on August 23, 2025 at the St Anthony’s College auditorium. The film dwelt on the rituals of Hima Khyrim, encounters with missionaries and today’s rising religious intolerance and polarisation). Over the past decade, I have watched his previous two films of the trilogy, Where The Clouds End (2015, on race, belonging and insider-outsider politics) at a private screening in Laitumkhrah, Shillong and Because We Did Not Choose (2017, documenting the indigenous labourers, actually beasts of burden, from present-day independent India’s North East at the battlegrounds of the white man’s Great War of 1914-1918) screened at the Khasi National Durbar Hall, Mawkhar. Like any school-boy awaiting new Christmas toys after a good performance in the final term exams, I waited eagerly and patiently (5 days only, or about 137 hours) for the date and time of screening of the film. The genius Wanphrang is well-respected and awarded too, for the extensive and intensive research, and aesthetics of his projects.
Till the late 1980s and 1990s, Ïew Smit or the weekly market at Smit village, the headquarters of the Hima Khyrim (Khyrim Syiemship and one half of the erstwhile great Hima Shyllong) occupied prime importance in the weekly markets’ economy of the Bri U Hynniewtrep (the indigenous lands of the Hynniewtrep people). Today, post the two COVID-induced lockdowns and on a daily basis, the thriving economic activities have shifted to Lad Smit (Smit village junction) on the National Highway from Shillong to Jowai and, Silchar, Mizoram and Tripura. On market days, irrespective of creed, small business owners and entrepreneurs from all over the Khasi-Jaintia Hills would converge at Ïew Smit for business transactions and, also to pay homage to the reigning siblings Ka Mei Syiem Sad and U Pa’iem Syiem Smit, the custodians of the rituals and traditional practices of the reigning deity of U ‘Lei Shyllong (importance of Shillong Peak is similar to the Sagarmatha in Nepali culture of Mount Everest) and other semi-divinities.
On a side note, if the metropolitan mega-cities of Bombay, Madras, Calcutta and Bangalore could be renamed, why can’t Shillong city be re-spelled officially and also pronounced correctly as the rightly worded-and-spelled Shyllong? Agreed, the city is Meghalaya’s capital and populated by varied ethnicities but majorly by the Hynniewtrep people. The land on which the city stands, is in the Khasi Hills, part of the erstwhile great Hima Shyllong. Land and language are very dear to indigenous peoples around the world. Pride, respect and gratitude, anyone?
If memory serves me right, in 1989 (the year, not Kong Taylor’s album), I was taken by my Beipoon (maternal granny) and U Woh (maternal grand-uncle and still a Niamtre adherent) to Smit for a traditional health check-up (thuh dawai kynbat) with prayers, rites, chanting of rituals and clarion call-outs to the ancestresses, for pyn-ehrngiew, pyn chkek-rngu, pyn-ehdaw (literally warding off evil spirits including Satan himself and, also evil humans). In independent and sovereign India and just before Meghalaya’s statehood, my immediate family had converted to the Roman Catholic Christian faith and were practising it for close to 19 years but the indigenous cultural bonds and influences remained and still do. Culture is public, religion is private! And indigenous religious beliefs are clan-based. Reputed traditional healers and indigenous knowledge-keepers would set up stalls at Ïew Smit; the concerned healer came all the way from War Pynursla area and most probably a fellow clansman (kur) from the Nongrum (or Nongrymbai) or Rumnong clan. Also, that time period coincided with the celebration of the Shad Pomblang festival of Hima Khyrim.
The trip was a 4-days 3-nights holiday. The colours, sights and sounds of Smit village, like the Behdienkhlam festivals of Raij Tuber, Raij Jowai and other Raijs of the Jaintia Hills, in that period will always remain carved in my hippocampus, guess till death do us part! Throughout that period, the music (no audio amplification tools were used) of the Khasi traditional drums (ki ksing), the flutes (ki bisli) and the duitara, a traditional stringed instrument played by the duhalia (performing musicians), can soothe many a restless mind and heart. The sword dance, in front of the Iing Sad (the ancestral house), of a group of men led by a sprightly young Pa’iem (Dr. Balajied Sing Syiem then, was beautifully masculine). The sacrifice of goats relates one to the syncretic Durga Puja celebrations at the Yung Blai (ancestral house) of Bei Jayantia (Mother Jaintia) of present-day Elaka Nartiang.
Growing up fond of guns and pistols, the firing of guns in the walk of the Pa’iem to the foothills of U Lum Shyllong was quite an experience. The pattern and tradition of the dances of the young maidens surrounded by men, on the last day of the festival, is quite similar to the Chad Laho dance of the Jaintia Hills. Since then, whenever I witness the Shad Nongkrem festival, there is always a heightened feeling of kindred spirit and sense of fraternity with the people of Hima Khyrim.
I also grew up with stories of the great Hima Shyllong, our brethren to the west. Like typical siblings, the people of Hima Shyllong (Khyrim and Mylliem Syiemships now, separated after the Anglo-Khasi War of 1829-1833) and the erstwhile Jaintia kingdom (the present-day twin Jaintia Hills districts, and annexed by the Empire in 1825 for strictly monetary-revenue reasons) had their share of yachruit la kam ki ksaw ki miaw (fighting like cats and dogs). Our northern neighbours in the 1500s-1800s, the Ahom chroniclers, documented well the “sibling fights” in the Jayantia Buranji (1st Assamese Edition, September 1937 and 1st Edition English Translation, January 2022). However, should push come to shove, the siblings would gang-up against the common enemy. Guess, sohlah and salah, the local words for the phareng import of the potato, are not so different. Till date, the Jaintia people use the words Khasi and Khynriam interchangeably for the Hynniewtrep people, west of Kut village near Puriang village; there is also a Jaintia clan called Khyriem.
During the Jaintia Resistance of 1860-1863, “unofficially-sanctioned” contingents of fighting men and women from Hima Khyrim went out to help in the common struggle against the foreign (phareng) enemy. It will shock many; before, during and after the Resistance, like a typical occupying military force, there were grandma’s oral stories of forced non-consensual sex, or worst gang-rape of some of our Jaintia women by the “low-class” soldiers and “high-class” officers of the “civilised” British Crown. After the First War of Independence of 1857, to instil fear, the Crown’s cruel treatment of the captured or surrendered freedom fighters was documented; in public squares, the leaders were tied to the cannons’ mouths and blown off to pieces.
The horrors of the “little war of resistance” and the brutality of the victor in its aftermath is yet to be researched and documented. The legendary U Woh Kiang Nangbah was not hanged; he was murdered publicly to tame down the proud rebellious Jaintias. The people (ki khun ki hajar) of Hima Khyrim stood by and for the Jaintia people, then!
Khublei Shibun, Chihajaar Ngooh, Hima Khyrim.
Interestingly, this year, the Christian All-Saints Day, All-Souls Day and World Sunday School Day and the Festival day fall within the same 8-days week of the Hynniewtrep people. And with all the talks of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion), the erstwhile Hima Shyllong and the erstwhile Jaintia kingdom were well-known for their diversity, egalitarianism and inclusivity.
May this Shad Pomblang festival bless all the varied ethnicities that populate the jurisdictional areas of the great erstwhile Hima Shyllong and the great erstwhile Jaintia kingdom and Indians in general.
(Views expressed are strictly personal: Email: [email protected])
