After Khasi and Jaintia, Garo is the third major tribe which has settled in the North East Indian state Meghalaya. Besides they also live in other states like Assam, Tripura, Nagaland and some parts of West Bengal. They locally call themselves as Achik Mande (literally - hill people) which is a combination of ‘achik’, means hill and ‘mande’ means people.
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| A beautiful young Garo girl in traditional attires |
Traditionally, Garo is a matrilineal tribe which social and customary laws give women the authority to control over the family and its members. This tribe is still conserving this peculiar tradition. Under this law, a woman in the family has the power to decide and act on the main issues like decisions and advices over family matters. Overall, she is provided higher status within the society. |
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| A garo lady with traditional attires |
Population: The overall population of Garo tribe is approximately 900,000, among which 780,000 reside in India and 100,000 settled around the border with Bangladesh. In India western parts of Meghalaya are the main locations where they settled. There are also some population resided in Tripura, Assam and some parts of neighbor state West Bengal.
Religion: Garo people generally follow Christianity as their religion, both Roman Catholic as well as Presbyterian. While in some locations they still practice the ancient animism form of religion in which they worship animals and plants as their objects.
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| Garo people with their tradtional dresses |
Language: Garo people don’t have their official scripts for writing, but they use English as a medium for communication and expression purposes. They have their own different versions of dialects depending on the locations they speak with each other. The most common dialects of Garo include A’beng, A’chik, Matchi, Chibok, Chisak, Gara Ganching etc.
Cultural festivals:
Wangala – Wangala is the main traditional festival celebrated by the Garos, which is pays tribute to Misi Saljong – the sun god of fertility for paying tribute the end of their year for agriculture. It is specially celebrated during the end of the year, between October and December.
Christmas – As most of the Garos are Christians, Christmas is the major festival celebrated alongwith the world which comes on 25th December every year.
Ahaia – Ahaia is an annual winter festival celebrated in the district of West Garo Hills which is funded by its district administration to promote tourism and preserve ethnic identity of the tribe. Literally, the word Ahaia means “joyful celebration”.
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