Bodo

Clans and Kinship

Bodo writers call the clan mahari (or mahary), and a family's clan name is its surname, usually ending in -ary, -ari or -hary, 'folk' (Hargouri Narzary, 2018). Endle (1911) called the same groups sub-tribes or septs and wrote their names with the suffix ároi; in his day many had lost all trace of a separate existence. Their names point to a role or a namesake: the heaven folk supplied priests, the earth folk were the landholders, the jute folk had a part with jute in the great rites, and the tiger folk mourned when a tiger died near the village. Descent and the clan name pass through the father; Endle notes that even the children of a marriage with another tribe belong to the father's group. Sources differ on the old marriage rule. Endle believed each sub-tribe had once married only within itself; Gurdon, editing the book, doubted it, pointing out that the Mech septs were exogamous, and an old Kachari told a district officer that before the Dewangari war Kacharis could not marry within their own sub-tribe. Hargouri Narzary writes that the clans now carry no difference of status and that members of all clans eat and drink together.

The first twelve are the clans that Bodo tradition counts as the original ones, in the order Hargouri Narzary (2018) gives from Bhaben Narzi (2006); the rest are further clans the study names. Notes give the duty or namesake it records, and the matching name in Endle's list of twenty Kachari sub-tribes (1911, pp. 24-27) where one is clear. Endle's list also has groups not given here, among them the Brahma folk (Brahm-ároi), a quasi-priestly group of Upper Assam, and the fern folk. Spellings differ between families and books.

In the Official Lists

• Scheduled Tribe

  Assam

  Listed as: Boro, Borokachari

  In the part of Assam's list for the plains, outside the autonomous districts.

• Scheduled Tribe

  Meghalaya

  Listed as: Boro Kacharis

Nagaland's list has an entry 'Kachari' and Assam's list for the autonomous districts has 'Dimasa, Kachari'; whether either covers the Bodo was not checked, so neither is counted here. Checked against a compilation of the Order; amendments of 2022 to 2024 were not checked.

Checked on 2026-11-06 against the sources below. The lists are amended from time to time and can differ by district; for a certificate, the current order or the state's list is what counts.

Name and Origin

Boro or Bodo is the people's own name: J. D. Anderson, introducing Endle's book in 1911, wrote that in Assam the Hindus called them Kacharis and in Bengal Meches, but that their own name for their race was Boro or Bodo. Wikipedia, citing Bodo scholars, derives it from Bara-fisa, 'son of Bara', where Bara means man. Endle treated the Bodo of the northern Brahmaputra valley as one branch of a wider 'Bara' family of peoples that included the Dimasa of the North Cachar Hills, the Mech of Goalpara and others, whose speech is closely related. The sources read do not give a single origin tradition.

History

Sidney Endle, a missionary at Tezpur in Darrang, described the Bodo of Darrang and Kamrup in The Kacharis (1911); it is the main early account, and its judgements of the people are not repeated here. In the early twentieth century Kalicharan Brahma (1860 to 1938, born Kalicharan Mech) led a reform movement, Brahma Dharma, among the Bodo of the lower Brahmaputra valley; his followers came to be known as Brahmas. Satish Chandra Basumatary (1901 to 1974) edited Bibar, the first Bodo magazine, in 1924. From 1919 Bodo associations of students and of the community were formed. The Bodo language is one of the twenty-two languages of the Eighth Schedule, and the Bodo are recognised under the Sixth Schedule through the Bodoland Territorial Region.

Faith and Worship

The traditional religion is Bathou (Bathouism). Endle (1911) found Bathou, or Bathau Brai, 'old Bathau', the chief household deity, guardian of the family, never shown as an image but present in the siju plant (a Euphorbia) grown in the homestead inside a round fence of split bamboo; Mainao is his consort. Offerings were laid at the foot of the siju. Rites were led by deoris (deodais), village elders of standing, for the office was not hereditary; the ojha was the diviner, and at large rites a woman medium, the deodani, took part. Wikipedia names the Kherai and Garja as the chief rites, led by the douri and doudini. Some Bodo follow the Brahma Dharma reform of Kalicharan Brahma, and a minority are Christian, mostly Baptist.

Customs

Endle describes marriage arranged by the young man's parents, who carry presents of rice, rice-beer and betel-nut to the girl's parents and settle a bride-price (gadhan) before village elders, who act as witnesses; a man who cannot pay may work for the bride's family instead. The bride does not leave home before she comes of age. A widower may marry his late wife's younger sister but not her elder sister. Children of a marriage outside the Bodo belong to their father's group. Bodo women were known for weaving, above all eri silk on looms set up beside the house. Hargouri Narzary records that some clans still have duties at a cremation: the Narzary supply the dried jute leaves that mourners chew, and a token payment for the cremation ground is left for a Basumatary elder.

Stories and Legends

Notable Personalities