LINGUISTIC RESEMBLANCES AMONG NORTH EAST TRIBES

The Garos(see the Picture Above) belong to the linguistic stock called by ethnologists the Tibeto-Burman. They have close linguistic affinity with tribal races inhabiting the plains of Assam, the North Cachar Hills and parts of Tripura. Grierson, in his Linguistic Survey of india, encadres the languages of all these tribe under a single group called the Bodo.(see the Picture Below)

Among all these tribes, the Garos bear the strongest resemblances linguistically as well as physically to the Kacharis(see the Picture Below).

In fact the resemblances are so strong that they have led Major Playfair to believe that these two tribes originally constituted one, subsequently separating themselves into two, the Kacharis spreading over the North and the Garos over the south bank of the Brahmaputra. In support of this view he points out the similarity between the monoliths of Dimapur (Manipur Road) ,(see the Picture Below)

the ancient capital of the Kachari Kingdom and the Kimas or memorial posts which the Garos erect in memory of their dead. But this, as Major Playfair himself admits, is a comparison of the great with the small.

In his attempts to trace the origin of the Garos, Major Playfair further observes: "One of the evangelists of the American Baptist Mission in Tura (a Garo) who spent some time in the Ao country (Nagaland), told me that he had been asked by some Aos if he was not one of the descendants of a party of 700 Aos who left their country and travelled westward in the long forgotten past." Certain features common to the Nagas (see the Picture Below)

and Garos in the performance of their funeral ceremonies (the practice of tethering a bull to a Y shaped post before it is sacrificed) and other customs, especially the practice of head-hunting, point towards a link between Nagas and the Garos. Head-hunting was never in vogue amongst any other tribe in this region except amongst these two. Major Play fair surmises from these facts that the Garos probably inhabited originally some area near Dimapur and there, because of proximity, picked up some of the Naga customs and habits.