Marak Chatchi
Garo
At a glance
- Called a
- Chatchi
- Community
- Garo
- Found in
- Meghalaya, Assam, Bangladesh
About
Marak is one of the chatchis, the great exogamous clans of the Garo (A·chik) of Meghalaya, Assam and Bangladesh, and the name is carried as a surname. A Garo is Marak because the mother is. Playfair found Marak, like Sangma, in every geographical division of the tribe, in the hills and the plains, and among the Megam. The chatchi is made up of many machong, lines from one ancestress, among them Rangsan, whose ancestress married a bear, and Drokgre.
What “Chatchi” means for the Garo
A chatchi (Playfair, 1909, writes katchi) is one of the great exogamous clans of the Garo, taken from the mother: a Marak may not marry a Marak. Each chatchi holds many machong, 'motherhoods', lines descended from one ancestress, and the chatchi name is carried as a surname. It is a Garo clan in its own system, not a gotra.
Every chatchi of the Garo, with how the clan system works: the Garo page.
Name and Origin
The sources read do not explain the name Marak. Playfair (1909) could form no opinion on how the Garo clans began: he had heard them called totemic but knew of no totem tale that applied to a whole clan. Some Garos told him that all Garos had once been Momin, and that the other clans, Marak among them, were formed by people who left the parent settlement and lived apart.
Historical Journey
Major A. Playfair, a Deputy Commissioner in the province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, described the Garo in The Garos (1909). He names three katchis, Momin, Marak and Sangma, and writes that Marak and Sangma are found among all the geographical divisions of the tribe, whether in the hills or the plains; the Megam on the Khasi border have them too. His Appendix A lists some of the best-known Marak machongs, among them A·jong, Areng, Awi, Chambugong, Chisim, Ganching, Gara, Jengcham, Kagra, Koknal, Mangki, Nokrek, Rongara and three Rangsa machongs; a machong listed under two chatchis belongs to both. Areng, a Marak machong in his list, is counted today as a chatchi of its own: Shuvash Jengcham, writing for Banglapedia, names five major Garo clans, Sangma, Marak, Momin, Shira and Areng.
How the Chatchi Is Kept
In Playfair's account husband and wife must come from different chatchis and different machongs: a Marak cannot marry a Marak, and the children belong to the mother's chatchi and machong. To marry within one's chatchi was a social sin, though he was told that nearly one marriage in ten broke the rule. Property stays in the machong: a daughter inherits, and her husband, the nokrom, usually from her father's line, comes to live in the house. Sources do not tie a family deity to the Marak chatchi.
Presence Across Regions
Garo Hills, Meghalaya
Tribal - Garo
Playfair found Marak in every geographical division of the hills, and among the Megam on the Khasi Hills border.
Mymensingh, Bangladesh
Tribal - Garo
Playfair writes that Marak and Sangma are found among the plains Garo as among the hill Garo.
Stories and Legends
The children of the bear
Playfair tells the tale of the Rangsan machong of the Marak chatchi. A bear came out of the forest with a basket of good things to eat and would sell them for nothing but a wife. Two women, a Momin and a Sangma, refused him, but a Marak girl agreed. Her family were so angry at the match that they killed the bear, but she had children, and her descendants in the Rangsan machong are called the children of the bear. Another Marak machong, Drokgre, is named after an ancestress whose ornament clucked like a hen.