People among the clouds Forgotten by the technological world, Garos are located between Assam and Bangladesh. Although they have been converted to devout christianity, the Garos people have conserved their millinial traditions, comprised of harvest festivities and drinking rice beer, but more importantly those which are anchored in the power relationships between the sexes. The Garos woman chooses her future husband and then has her brother kidnap him until he accepts the marriage. In spite the intense christianisation of the last twenty years, the Garos people have preserved an animiste tradition. They often thank the divinities with animal sacrifices. The divinities ensure good harvests and keep them from natural catastrophies. At sunrise, the family gets ready for a day at camp. While a central fire smokes the interior of the house to get rid of insects and parasites, women cook a morning dish as well as a rice dish wrapped in banana leaves for lunch. The men, women and children then leave for the fields, cutting the rice by hand as a family, or harvesting the cotton. A third of the Garos population live on jhum, a slash and burn crop. A group decision was made where the villagers chose the hilly fields that they mark, cut, dry and burn at the end of the dry season. The ashes fertilize the field. The farmers plant rice and millet and other grains that will later grow, like callebasse, onions or manioc. In an attempt to stop the degradation of the ecosystem provoked by jum, the Dheli government tried to help farmers with the development of commercial plantations like ginger, tea, fruits, tapioca of cashew nuts. But this strategy leads to an economic dependance of the Garos who then must buy their basic nutritional products. Fields must be continually cultivated to prevent the weeds from overwhelming the crops. Women share this job with the men The Wangala festival is celebrated after most of the harvest is well finished, at the end of the rain season, and at the beginning of the cold season, when work in the fields slackens, though a few chilis and some cotton remain to be picked. Created by India in 1972 and located at 300 kilometers north of the Golf of Bengal, the state of Meghalaya, or "home of the clouds", owes its poetic name to its humid and cloudy climate, subject to Bangladesh' monsoons. In the village of Sadolpara, Tami, 17, who lives with her parents, had a man that she loved and wanted to marry kidnapped in the night by her brother and cousins. This practise is an non-violent one. Always according to the ritual, the man escapes three times only to be kidnapped again, until he accepts to marry Tami. The wedding was then celebrated in a most simple fashion, under the protection of the god Saljong, the fertility god. A million Garos live in Meghalaya, protected in their ancestral home of the Garos hills, in a background of misty hillsides, covered with a jungle many water pathways. © text : Frédéric Castel
A rice field in the Garos Hills.
ZEF0023907x © Franco Zecchin
Besides agricultural activities, the Garos people gather, hunt, and fish throughout part of the year in campgrounds on riverbanks.
ZEF0023908x © Franco Zecchin
When a Garo dies, his or her "kima", a statuette created with the dead person's personal belongings, is placed in front of the deceased's house. The kima reminds the others of the person's life, until it is removed by nature.
ZEF0023909x © Franco Zecchin
The women return to the village at sunset. Very rare in India, Garos social life is structured on the matrilineal model. Only women can inherit land from their families, the parental home being passed on to the youngest daughter.
ZEF0023910x © Franco Zecchin
A woman coming back to the village with her baby. In her hand, she is holding a sort of machete, an "attie", which is used to cut the throats of chickens as well as to construct homes.
ZEF0023911x © Franco Zecchin
Inside the Garo house, the main room is dominated by its central fireplace, which is built on an earth platform and surmounted by a shelf on which cooking materials are kept.
ZEF0023912x © Franco Zecchin
The Borang. A tree-house built in the fields which serves as a lookout tower and a place of refuge against raiding wild elephants. Borangs are pleasant and cool on hot summer evenings, and are sometimes used for cooking, eating and sleeping.
ZEF0023913x © Franco Zecchin
The Garos carry their cotton to market in openwork baskets. Cotton is the most important cash crop of the people.
ZEF0023914 © Franco Zecchin
November is the month of rest. Everyone prepares themselves to go dance and sing at the Wangala feast, which terminates the harvest period.
ZEF0023915x © Franco Zecchin
At Jochang Marak's home, the Nokma, the village leader of the Gambarigri. But this title doesn't allow him priviliges or any particular authority. The Garos society does not recognise class or hierarchy.
ZEF0023916x © Franco Zecchin
The Garos people have no machines, nor wheelbarrows, nor work animals : the fields are not plowed and the harvests are transported by back.
ZEF0023917x © Franco Zecchin
Washing the rice. The older women hold an important role in the Garos society: they give their names to their decendants.
ZEF0023918x © Franco Zecchin
A calf-skin dries in the sun.
ZEF0023919x © Franco Zecchin
Mass in a Protestant Church. Christianity allows access to education for the Garos people. However, it questions their culture and traditions. Baptist puritanism prohibits the drinking of rice beer and the sexual freedom of the young people.
ZEF0023920x © Franco Zecchin
Before going to bed, men women and children drink rice beer and smoke small cigarettes rolled with corn paper, known as biris.
ZEF0023921x © Franco Zecchin
After working in the fields, the women go together to wash dishes in the river, where they bathe leisurely.
ZEF0023922x © Franco Zecchin
Harvesting tea on the Garos hills.
ZEF0023923 © Franco Zecchin
Drying and commercializing of tea products of the Garos hills.
ZEF0023924 © Franco Zecchin
Garo Hills commercialisation of tea products.
ZEF0023925x © Franco Zecchin
After drying them in the sun, the sheaves are walked on to tread out rice or millet.
ZEF0023926 © Franco Zecchin
In the village, the women seperate the spices that they will sell at market.
ZEF0023927x © Franco Zecchin
Much of the daily work is assigned to women. One of their regular jobs is pounding rice.
ZEF0023928x © Franco Zecchin
Lunch: rice wrapped in banana leaves.
ZEF0023929x © Franco Zecchin
The Nokpante, the youth house where the young meet in the center of the village: the traditional ceremonies are also organised here.
ZEF0023930x © Franco Zecchin
The Wangala festival. The sabre, the shield, the drums serve as reminders of the bloody past of their ancestors who were beheaded up until the 19th century.
ZEF0023931x © Franco Zecchin
Each village has a public space for improvised concerts. Adults and children come here to rest, sing or play music. In this common hall, drums are hung from rafters for everyone to play.
ZEF0023932x © Franco Zecchin
A young mother harvests rice. The rice harvest begins in early September. Virtually everyone in the village goes out to the fields at this time and all must work for at least a week before the harvest is finished.
ZEF0023933x © Franco Zecchin
Men and women of the village participate in the Wangala festival, the most important festivity of the Garos people.
ZEF0023934x © Franco Zecchin
Rice beer is offered to the gods. Everyone drinks and beats the gongs and drums.
ZEF0023935x © Franco Zecchin
Everyone prepares themselves with a meticulous ritual.
ZEF0023936x © Franco Zecchin
Few parts of the Garo Hills District lie at an altitude of more than two or three thousand feet, but the ground is seldom level.
ZEF0023937x © Franco Zecchin
Each village consists of clusters of houses which are usually arranged around one or more open courtyards.
ZEF0023938x © Franco Zecchin
The high point of the Wangala festival is the dancing. Dancers (especially the girls) dress with great elegance in their best clothes and jewelery, and tie sprays of feathers into the backs of their turbans.
ZEF0023939x © Franco Zecchin
Men sometimes fish with round nets, which they throw into the water in the hope of entangling small fish.
ZEF0023940x © Franco Zecchin
Wangala Festival. Dancing is generally felt to be appropriate for the young, especially those who are unmarried.
ZEF0023941x © Franco Zecchin
Construction of a roof. Here there is neither plastic or metal: the homes are roofed with palm leaves and dried bamboo, braided or sculpted.
ZEF0023942x © Franco Zecchin
The Garos, who exploit bamboo forests, transport the stalks north, on one of the tributary of the Brahmapoutre.
ZEF0023943 © Franco Zecchin
A village close to a rice field.
ZEF0023944x © Franco Zecchin
A kima, an effigy which signifies the mourning of someone and serves as a refuge for losts souls. These figures are sculpted in the image of the ancestors; they are dressed with the clothes and belongings of the dead and often covered with white spots.
ZEF0023945x © Franco Zecchin
Bathing at the river. Once a young girl has chosen her fiancé, he must leave his clan and join the clan of his future wife's family.
ZEF0023946x © Franco Zecchin
After the harvest, the cotton is transported to market.
ZEF0023947x © Franco Zecchin
The high point of the Wangala festival is the dancing. Dancers (especially the girls) dress with great elegance in their best clothes and jewelery, and tie sprays of feathers into the backs of their turbans.
ZEF0023948x © Franco Zecchin
In traditional Garo homes, constructed with palms leaves and dried bamboo, the rooms are well defined.
ZEF0023949x © Franco Zecchin
Family meal of chicken curry with rice with chili and ginger.
ZEF0023950x © Franco Zecchin
Bamboo is extremely tough when whole, and can be used as structural members for all sorts of construction. But it splits easily in a lengthwise direction, and can be shaved down to extremely thin, flexible strips.
ZEF0023951x © Franco Zecchin
A bridge allowing the passage over one of many rivers of the region, Meghalaya, India.
ZEF0023952 © Franco Zecchin
Scattered about in non-Christian villages are decaying remains of old sacrificial altars, which must be re-built each time a sacrifice is permormed.
ZEF0023953 © Franco Zecchin
The Garos visit each other’s homes constantly, not only during large festivals, but also on petty errands or simply for casual gossip.
ZEF0023954 © Franco Zecchin
Public transport is largely insuficcient and the road conditions can be critical, especially in the rain season.
ZEF0023956 © Franco Zecchin
Drums are made of a hollowed and carefully shaped piece of wood with raw-hide stretched over the end.
ZEF0023958x © Franco Zecchin